A Visitor from Home

This past week has been a hectic one, but fun, primarily because my mom came all the way across the Atlantic to see me! It was so exciting to see someone from "my old life" and show them all the things I have been up to here. We did a lot of fun sightseeing including:

- taking in the christmas lights on Oxford and Regents streets

- Checking out the British Museum, yet again for me. Never get tired of that place. Got to show mom the fabulous Reading Room and look at all the fun mummies which I missed my first time there.

- Went to the Museum of London. I'd never heard of this one before, but it was pretty cool, I would recomend it. It traces the history of London, starting in prehistoric times and leading all the way up through modern day. It was really interesting, especially having spent the past three months here getting to know the city, to see it's evolution and the ways it has changed and evolved as a physical place.

- Went to the Victoria and Albert Museum (we just went museum crazy this week)! I was pretty impressed by this one, it is an absolutly gigantic decorative arts museum. My internship this past summer was at a decorative arts museum so I had some interest in what they had to show. I loved this modern glass chandelier that was in the lobby, it is made out of hundreds of blown glass piecs all strung together. I also really enjoyed their Canova sculptures, he is one of my favorites, and the exhibit they had on fashion. By the way I love the fact that, like DC, all of the museums I have mentioned were completly free. I just wish I had more time to explore them all...

- Went to the Charles Dicken's House Museum which I have been meaning to check out ever since I got here. It is literally a block away from my house. It is a house where Dicken's lived when he wrote Nicholas Nicholby and Oliver Twist, and it is now a museum about his life. He was an interesting guy that Dickens, he was a prolific writer, social activist and performer. He had 9 children, was a notorious flirt and at 50 something years old he left his wife for an 18 year old actress. Men...

- Went to not one but two West End musicals. I love musicals, I just can't help myself. This week I was lucky enough to see two! We got cheap TKTS booth tickets for Guys and Dolls starring the famous stage actor Patrick Swayze as Nathan Detroit. It wasn't bad, but Patrick left a little something to be desired I thought. His New York accent was not very good, not nearly as good as the one most of the brits pulled off.

Then Monday night we got tickets to see Evita! My mama spoils me, she knows my unstoppable (and inexplicable) love for Andrew Lloyd Webber. What can I say, the man knows how to do a musical! It was a really impressive production and I loved it. I remember seeing the movie when it came out in theaters and this was so much better. Thanks mom! now if i could just figure out a way to see Phantom of the Opera before I leave...

Over the weekend we went out to High Wycombe and spent time with my Aunt. That was a nice little vacation from the hustle and bustle of London. We did what I always do when I'm with that side of my family-shop! We hit up all the thrift stores in town (quite a lot suprisingly) a cute street market and ASDA, the british Walmart. It was a lot of fun, I also spent time reading and paper writing. Oh and watching british tv. I soooo wish I had a television here, I am missing so much! hilarious talk shows, absurd quiz shows and Strictly Come Dancing, the british Dancing wiht the Stars. And my new favorite East Enders. This is a class british soap opera about the East End of London. It was so much smarter then American soap operas (ie things actually happened) yet so much more devious. Truly brilliant.

So it was a fun week, but now it is super hard work time. I have around 10,000 words to write by the 15th, and beleive it or not I have it light compared to some!