Juliane Godfrey

Dear Blog,

L - Lost in Hyde Park. Saw the Peter Pan statue dedicated by James Barrie!

O - Old Vic performance of The Winter's Tale = beautiful, some incredible acting, and my first London show :)

N - Never been in a more crowded area than the Tube during rush hour. The Underground at that time = 5 feet per like 10 people. Aughhhh!

D - Discovered lots of famous artwork at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, including Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

O - Only two hours of class most days. Awesome. Great professors who, put together, are hysterically funny. Good class discussions about tragicomedy and Shakespeare's romances.

N - New umbrella bought from the huge umbrella store on New Oxford St. Loooove it. Super rainy/grey here. Gray? Hmmm English trivia...

Looking forward to seeing Big Ben, Buckhingham Palace, the Changing of the Guard, and all of London's wonders.

Cheerio, pip pip,
Juliane

We've been discussing sonnets lately. Today we discussed Sonnet 129 which is about ... well, sex. Definitely an interesting discussion about what a "waste of shame" means and how lust can be related to both "heaven" and "hell." Quite the awkward discussion.

Sonnet 129
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

We've seen both The Winter's Tale and Julius Caesar so far, and as I write this on Saturday, we're watching As You Like It tonight (although not in the rain as previously at the Globe). Caesar had some crazy video stuff going on in the background which most of the actors seemed to hate; Caesar himself claimed his inspiration for the role was Mick Jagger. Hilarious. He, the man who played Brutus, a costume assistant and the assistant director have all come to talk to the class about their various roles at the RSC and how it works. The asst. director, Michael Fentiman, was perhaps the most interesting; he talked about a performance of Romeo and Juliet he directed which included 70 kids all involved with gangs who he asked to perform in their acting debut. Intense.

Today I visited the house of Mary Arden's (Shakespeare's mother). Lots of pigs, goats, sheep, orchards etc. One man was demonstrating falconry, a practice used by hunters in the 16th/17th century to hunt. I got to hold a falcon on my arm; definitely scary to watch it rip apart its food inches away from your face.

Read on...

Back in London. Just went to the National Portrait Gallery and saw the portrait of Shakespeare which was most likely painted during his lifetime. I think I enjoyed the contemporary portrait section where Harry Potter was pictured better :)

Benefits of Stratford vs. London:

1) Quiet, beautiful countryside.

2) Dinner already paid for at the hotel and AMAZING desserts.

3) The Shakespeare exhibition tour including his birthplace, his grave, Mary Arden's house, and Anne Hathaway's cottage.

4) The RSC actors making time to come talk to us. Katy Stephens, who played Rosalind in As You Like It, came to class yesterday to discuss the difficulties of being a woman playing a woman playing a man...?

5) Rowboating, mini-golf, and cider at The Dirty Duck. Delicious.

It's weird coming back to London, almost like coming to a home-away-from-home since we already figured out the city a little, although I miss the USA. :(

Fortunately, Wednesday is Jude Law's performance in Hamlet ... should be interesting.

1. Went on a bus tour of Stonehenge and Bath. Saw the Roman Baths, tried the grosssss water in the Pump room, and visited the Jane Austen Center. Listened to an audio tour explaining that we really have no idea what Stonehenge is or how the stones got there. One theory says that Merlin persuaded the devil to steal stones from an old woman and dropped some as he was flying....????

2. Visited the British Library. AMAZING. The Magna Carta, the Greek lexicons of the Bible, original copies of Jane Austen's Persuasion, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland; Handel's Messiah handwritten, Mozart and Beethoven's works, da Vinci's notebook, a First Folio of Shakespeare ... SO awesome to see all these amazing pieces of literature/music/religion in one room.

The program's winding down. Final exam tomorrow (Tuesday). Woohoo?

Sunday night, we saw Romeo and Juliet at The Globe, which the class generally decided was fairly awful. Romeo hyperventilated his supposed loss of Juliet while Juliet couldn't bring her voice out of its shrill register half the time ... O boy. But good sword fights. And no rain this time. Definitely a plus.

Monday, I went to Buckingham Palace, walked through St. James park, went to King's Cross Station and took a picture at Platform 9 ¾, and went inside the Whitehall Banqueting House where King Charles I was executed. Beauuutiful paintings on the ceiling, really boring audio tour.

Super-stoked to go home, even after seeing so much amazing theater, talking to theater guests, and discussing an abundance of Shakespeare. Spending waaay too much money. Pounds just seem heavier and therefore more expensive than U.S. dollars ... California, I'm coming for you soooon.

Peace out,

—Julie Poppins