It's been so long since my last post!! I am seriously slacking. I blame my professors and their collective brilliant idea to assign papers all at the same time, so I have been a busy bee the last week or so. But since today is Thanksgiving, I thought it would be an appropriate time to blog a little about what I've been up to lately.
Last week's two major events consisted of me going to see Les Miserables and an excursion to Bath on Friday. It goes without saying that Les Mis was AMAZING, and now I am even more excited to see the movie!! All the songs are so great and the drama was so wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The only slight downer was that we had the understudy for Jean Valjean. He was good, but you could definitely tell he was the understudy for a reason...but the rest of the cast was superb! I especially liked Javert, Eponine, and the Thenardiers. Their songs really stood out to me. The stage was a rotating stage, which was really cool, but a bit overused in my opinion. In short, I have been singing the songs to myself ever since!! The movie will really be phenomenal, and I can't wait!!
The next day, we had a day excursion to Bath, which I was really looking forward to because that was where Jane Austen lived for part of her life, and several of her novels are set in Bath. However, it wasn't the best day in my opinion, as it was absolutely freezing and misting the entire day, we had to deal with annoying British teenage schoolchildren on the train, and the day pretty much consisted of a death march from one historically significant site to the next. My major disappointment from that day was not having enough time to visit the Jane Austen Centre and take the tour. There simply was not enough free time allotted to us where I would have time to do the Centre justice. Although, Bath Abbey was really pretty, the Royal Crescent was super exciting because of a VERY pivotal scene set there from the 2007 movie adaptation of Persuasion where Anne Elliott dramatically races around the Crescent to track down Captain Wentworth and tell him she loves him. Exciting!! The other notable event from that day was a visit to the Roman Baths, which was one of the major reasons people came to Bath in the eighteenth century: to go to the spas and "take the waters," which were purported to have beneficial properties. Since the water has sulfur in it, I'm sure it did the people more harm than good. We got to walk around the hot springs where Romans used to bathe, see ancient Roman artifacts, and even try the water. Absolutely disgusting. It was lukewarm and quite frankly tasted like blood. Gross!!
And now, to my Thanksgiving in London. It is definitely weird to be in a country where they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. For us Americans, it is an excuse to get together with family and friends, unashamedly stuff your face to full capacity, and generally laze about and gear up for the holiday season. But for the Brits, it is just another Thursday. But, I did manage to do Thanksgiving justice after all, even three thousand miles away from the good ol' U.S. of A. My first step was to purchase an AWESOME Christmas sweater (or to be more accurate, "jumper," as the British say) to wear on Thanksgiving. I got it at Primark in the young boys' section for only 9 pounds! The one benefit of being very flat-chested...you can fit into children's clothing occasionally. haha. It is warm and cozy and I love it and can't wait to wear it on Christmas Day!
This morning, I got up, put on my excellent Christmas jumper, and went to a Thanksgiving church service at St. Paul's Cathedral, which is held for Americans who live in London, with some of my friends from school. It was wonderful! I was so excited to see the inside of St. Paul's for free, because normally you have to pay to go inside. It's magnificent! The gilded ceilings, enormous dome in the middle, and the black and white checkered floor were all great. The church service was very nice too. It was non-denominational Christian, and had a speech from the American ambassador in London. It was really nice to be surrounded by Americans for once, and not feel like people may be secretly judging you for your American accent and manners. We got to sing lots of nice songs, including, of course, "America the Beautiful," which I know by heart thanks to our daily patriotic song time in Mrs. Marvin's first grade class! I'm not very often especially proud to be American, but today was one of those days where I actually was proud.
Afterward, we headed back to school where we had a Thanksgiving feast! The professors all attended and some people brought members of their family too, so it was a nice time. There was turkey with all the trimmings and more desserts than you could shake a stick at. There was so much leftover food!! Although I did stuff myself to my full capacity, like any good American. One of the girls brought ELF, one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time, and we watched that while we ate and generally just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. Elf made me so happy. It always does.
Then, some of my friends and I went back to our friend's house and watched Love Actually, which is an excellent British movie and one that is set during Christmas, which made it incredibly appropriate. Such a good movie!! Although I could not be at home, or even in America, for Thanksgiving, I still had a really nice day with my friends. And now, I am happy to say, it is OFFICIALLY the start of the Christmas season, so my Christmas cheer is out in FULL FORCE. You have been warned.
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