It was a fun visit to make, I think it would have been more enjoyable if I had known him, but now I want to learn about him so it all works in the end! After visiting the Keats House, the whole group of us trudged across the extremely muddy Hampstead Heath.
This picture shows the least muddy part of the path. It was fun trying to walk uphill in the mud! Good thing I had on my wellies (the British word for rain-boots) but sadly, we suffered a few casualties to the mud. There were people walking their dogs here, just like in every other English park (I swear every human in London has at least one dog that they like to show off to the world at the parks) and all I could think of was my mom walking with her dog (a white cockapoo) and trying to keep him out of the mud. The mental image I got was my mom holding the poor little dog over her head to avoid getting him dirty. The people here must not care that their dogs are getting all dirty because I saw a few dogs I could not determine their original color of fur for all the mud caked on. The walk lead us to our next group tour, this time of the Kenwood Manor House. I did know something of this place but only because I had watched the movie "Notting Hill" staring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. If you recall, this building (the Kenwood House) 
is shown during one of the main turning parts of the movie. Julia is a famous actress filming a movie here (hehe in the movie I mean but I guess she is doing it in real life too!) and Hugh is her normal lover who comes to win her back but is heartbroken instead. That is all any of us really knew about the house but, it is an interesting house in its own right. It houses one of the most extensive and expensive private art collections in all of the UK which includes a Rembrandt self portrait and The Guitar Player' by Johannes Vermeer and many others and has amazing examples of modern and ancient architecture fused together. It was a very nice peaceful place to walk around and admire the art work. Saturday March 6th-Every time I speak with someone in America, they always ask me what my favorite thing I have done in London is. This is a very difficult question to answer given all the things I have done and I loved doing them all so how could I choose? But if someone now asks me that question, I have an answer! By far the best thing that I have had the opportunity to do here on my Study Abroad (brace yourself before you read any further, for what I am about to say may cause horrid fits of jealousy) has been watching a production of "Macbeth" at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre!!!! Even remembering that I did that, I get jealous of myself! One of the major reasons I have wanted to go on a Study Abroad to London was because I would get the chance to visit Shakespeare's Globe. Never before did I let myself imagine actually seeing a production on one of his greatest works performed there! I almost didn't get to see it, but thank my lucky stars I did!
Here's what happened: In London there is a magazine that goes out every Wednesday called "Time Out" and it lists everything that is going on in the city that week. And I mean EVERYTHING. Parties, deals at pubs, dance shows, theatre shows, movie reviews, DVD releases... anything that could possibly used for the entertainment of humans is in there. Well, the TA for the English classes here, Calvin, was reading this magazine one day and saw that the Globe theatre was giving a free performance before the Globe theatre season opened for a special production of "Macbeth." He hurried and called to reserve 4 tickets and asked the first 3 people he met to come with him. Unfortunately I was the 4th person to see him so I was only bragged to. But never fear! I went to the box office to see if I could get a ticket there and they were all out. I asked the lady at the ticket counter if there was a possibility of getting a ticket the day of and she said there was no hope. Discouraged I made my way home and to my excitement, my Shakespeare teacher, Susan Howe Young, had called the theatre at Calvin's insistence to get more tickets. She held a raffle to see who could come with her. After the drum rolls and the anticipation rising, my name was not called. Not one to be beat down I convinced Britin, who is another student here who also wanted to go, that we should just go to the theatre the day of the performance to see if we could get a ticket. She called the Globe box office the night before and they said there were no tickets left and none had been returned still. Nevertheless, we persevered and went to the theatre the day of hoping beyond hope to get a ticket. And a miracle happened! A school group had come through earlier that day and canceled 6 of their tickets :]!! We were in!! I was so happy I teared up a bit. We got the impossible tickets and they were for the groundlings place! The Globe theatre is a round theatre with seats on the walls and standing room in the middle for the peasants aka students who are too excited to sit down as we were! After doing a celebration jig, Brit and I met up with Calvin and his group and the two students who won Dr. Howe's raffle . Here we are waiting to get into the theatre:
This is just Me and Brit and Calvin's group (Laura, Mary, and Katie.) Everyone else waited inside but we wanted to be front and center on the groundlings area (if you are in the back of the ground standing level you really cannot see.) We got the spots that we wanted too!! This is (from left to right) Sarah Shepherd, Laura Marostica, Mary Carlisle, Me, Britin Story, Katie Bruce, and Calvin Olsen (Alyssa Weise was taking the picture)leaning up against the Globe stage! Definitely the best place in the ground section! 
Shortly after taking this picture, we were joined by Susan Howe and her niece who had come for a visit. I could hardly believe I was there! This was one of the items on my Things-To-Do-Before-I-Die list and I can now cross it off! :] Yay for one step closer to death! But in all seriousness, the show was one of the best I have seen ever performed. THe actors were so believable in whatever role they played. Some people portrayed as many as 6 characters and each time they came on the stage they knew exactly who they were which made the audience think that the cast was very very large. It was spectacular. The dialogue was exactly from the Shakespearean text but the setting, like King Lear, was not in his time. From the costumes, you understood the time period was the 1950's. Lady Macbeth had the most beautiful dresses I have seen on a stage while I have been here. She was also my favorite character to watch, such depth an meaning in everything that she did, made me feel like I inadequately and very stupidly portrayed the character when performing one of her monologues. The men's costumes were army camo from the 1980's which confused me a bit but their 'street clothes' kept with the 50s theme. The cast included Nicholas Khan who is in "Star Wars Episode 1", Andrew Whipp from "Amazing Grace", and Shane Zaza from "The Da Vinci Code." None of them were large roles, but still. I loved it and can still not stop smiling from it!! This is me celebrating in front of the stage :] 
Ahhh! Even reminiscing about the show all I can think of is how much I want to see it again! The theatre has been renovated since it was burned down and the renovations were used very much. The supporting characters dressed as soldiers would zip-line from the roof to the stage to 'wage war' and slid down on ropes from 'heaven' (this is the trap door of the stage in the roof, the trap door on stage is called hell), when Birnam Woods came to Dunsinane the soldiers of Malcolm sneaked through the audience, the way the ghost of Banquo was able to haunt Macbeth... I loved it all!!
There are two criticisms I can make though, the part when Macbeth goes to the witches to clarify the prophecies, the master of the witches uses a voice enhancer to make the voice sound metalized, I didn't like that and thought it took away from the imposing nature of the 'devil' figure. The only other criticism I can give was that it was cold. But that is not the show's fault. It's that I wore thin soled shoes to stand on concrete in an open air theatre for three hours. After the show and talking about how much we loved it, the group of us students went to Starbucks for some Hot Cocoa and Steamers (warm, frothy milk with any flavor you like added to it. It is SO yummy!!) and then walked to get some food. The sky was so blue and perfect that Sarah and I needed to take a picture on Millennial Bridge with Saint Paul's Cathedral in the background.
it looks fake but I promise, that's what is hiding under the London rain clouds! Perfect blue skies and fluffy white clouds. After eating dinner at a Kebab house on Drury Lane (still saw no muffin man) the group of us lucky "Macbeth" students went to Covent Gardens to get dessert. Katie Bruce and I went to Ella's cupcakes and got adorable rose cupcakes! 
This is just one of many cute dessert places in Covent Gardens. Covent Gardens may be one of my favorite places to wander around, just just eat scrumptious snacks. It has lots of tiny shops that sell handmade things and candy shops and clothing stores and high end fashion stores and a Disney store :) It is most definitely a place to go to if you come to London. While Katie and I were eating our cupcake and the rest of the group were eating their Ben's Cookies (also something to eat while in London) we decided that we wanted to go to another show since we were on such a theatre high. My roommate Alyssa and I went to see the show "39 Steps." This is a hilarious show that is a parody of Alfred Hitchcock movies. Now, you may be wondering why we wanted to see another play so quickly after seeing the magical "Macbeth" performance, the reason I wanted to was because I knew if I had waited to see another show that I would have so idolized "Macbeth" that I would not have enjoyed it but if I went when the magic of "Macbeth" was still sinking in I could enjoy a lesser play more. But "39 Steps" is not what I would call a lesser play! I was literally crying through the whole thing from laughter! This play has all the elements of a Hitchcock drama, Murder, guilty person is framed, innocent person on an epic adventure to clear name, lovely girls, highly melodramatic, twisted ending, the works, it even had the silhouette of Hitchcock in it like all his movies do! This play calls for impeccable timing on all four of the actor's parts (yes there were only four actors in it! 3 men and 1 lady) and it was all executed with no flaw! And a funny non show related thing happened too, Alyssa and I bumped into 4 other girls from our program going to see the same show! Out of the millions of people in this great city how I manage to bump into the 40 people I know here is impossible to answer! I am constantly running into people from the program in the most random places, like at shows, at a street market, in the bathroom of a restaurant, and in a tube car at random tube stops. Makes me laugh every time I think about it. All in all, Saturday may well be the best day I have in London :] That's all for now, stay tuned for more excitement! Have a great day!
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