Day 36: Installment 1: On the Town

2/20 Colloquy this morning was slightly throwing. I’m used to getting up for lecture on Friday mornings, and here I was just walking downstairs for discussion. We discussed Erasmus’ Praise of Folly, which left me with better opinions of the piece than I went in with. We didn’t discuss too much of the Prince, but what we did examine led us to draw some interesting conclusions between the pieces.

Because Daniel and I had early colloquy we were designated a task after we finished. While we looked at ticket options on Thursday, we’d decided that we would go for rush tickets to Twelfth Night today (Friday). However, we’d also gotten Renee and everyone else to consider going with us, and Daniel and I ended up getting money and orders for 11 tickets – 110 pounds worth of money going to this theatre. Alas, the ticket office opened at 11, and so at about 10:20 Daniel and I hurried out of the Highbury to beat any competition for those 11 out of 30 standing rush tickets. The trip was a simple route, which was convenient, and we got to the ticket office at 10:50ish. Surprisingly, the office was open, and we approached the counter to an available clerk. I asked him if he had any rush tickets for the evening, and he said they had standing tickets. I said ok. He asked how many, so I said 11. He just looked at me. Finally he repeated, how many? I smiled and said 11. He said, 11 standing? I said yes. He looked at me. Puzzled, he turned to his supervisor and asked, can I sell 11 tickets? The supervisor said, for tonight?? He said, I guess. The supervisor said, 11? He said, yeah. They shrugged, and he turned to me and said I guess. So we picked 11 standing tickets in the balcony (we could have split half in the stalls half in the balcony, but we chose against it) and he said 110 pounds please. I pulled out exact change; he just kind of laughed and looked confused. It was great. He finally laughed and said, I guess that’s 11 less tickets I need to sell tonight. We all laughed and we told him anything we could do to help. The whole ordeal took under 10 minutes; we were out of the theater before 11. It was crazy.

Then Daniel and I contemplated our mornings. I could have gone back and journaled at the Highbury (and I probably wouldn’t be far behind in my journals now J), but instead we decided to walk around a bit. We discovered something funny. The previous day when we were ticket hopping, we’d gone from St. Martin’s in the Field at Charring Cross, one stop down the Northern line to Leicester Square. When Daniel and I walked around from Leicester Square (where we’d been for the tickets), we realized that yesterday we walked farther to use the tube station the day before than if we’d just walked above ground. Twas ironic.

After laughing at our nonsensical travels we wandered around Trafalgar Square, examined all of the statues, walked towards Big Ben and the Abbey, turned right at an interesting looking arch, and then wandered around the backside of an area where they were changing the guards. We realized that we’d been in this spot on our second day in London, so we retraced some of our steps now that we weren’t jetlagged and awestruck. It was a lovely walk through a park and eventually to Buckingham Palace. It was nice to just ask Daniel about his life and himself and listen to his travels around the world, and to understand other glimpses into his life. It was a gorgeous day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the stroll.

Yet another funny tube moment occurred at the end of our wanderings. We walked out of a park, and were looking for the nearest tube stop. It was the same one we took the first weekend, but neither of us were entirely sure where exactly the station was. We came to the crossroads at the edge of the park, and paused momentarily while we debated a direction. Finally Daniel determined we should just take a right and eventually we’d bump into one. At that moment a man stopped us (we weren’t really that out of place looking or touristy, I think he’d just overheard us) and asked if we were lost. I started saying not really, and Daniel asked where the newest tube station was. The man snickered, and kind of grunted as if we were just silly. His grunt was an attempt to point us in the right direction, which it was very successful in doing. About 50 feet to our left was a 6 foot Underground sign (one of the biggest I’ve seen). We both blushed, and all three of us laughed as we thanked him and then embarrassedly rushed to the station. We laughed the whole way home about our obliviousness.

I spent the afternoon quietly taking a nap, as I was exhausted from an overall lack of sleep that week. I was going to journal, but I gave up quickly and sank into a wonderful sleep. At some point Katie came in and said they were going to play Frisbee, asking if I’d like to join them. I think I surprised her when I woke myself completely and decided that I would join. I even got ready first and when I went out into the hall to wait, I was talking to Mary and everyone who passed by noted that I had just crawled out of bed by my bleary eyed, glazed expression. I walked downstairs and was greeted eagerly by Ben and Evan, who had apparently requested that I join the Frisbee game. I felt so loved. So Ben, Evan, Katie, Erin, Bekah, David, David, and I wandered over to Highbury Park and played an awesome game of ultimate in the muddy grass. When we played girls v. guys, it was slightly pathetic how poorly the girls did even though we really did try. However, when we played Ben, Evan, Katie, and Bekah versus the rest of us the game was much livelier and well matched. My team pulled ahead for most of the game, and we all pulled off some great moves.

Alas, after the game finally ended we realized that we had cut short most of our preparation time for the show that night. With mud all over most of us, we hurried back to the Highbury and I grabbed all the keys (since I’d kept my shoes on during the game), and opened the back door to let them inside. I then hurried to clean up before scarfing down some dinner and booking to the show with Alyssa, Renee, Lindsey, Lauren, Katie, Myself, Brad, Daniel, David, Chris, and Danny.

The show was phenomenal!!! I have not seen such a good show in a long time. It completely made up for the horridness of Midsummer’s. This was a different theatre company, and one of the main actors also acts in Kenneth Braunna’s Shakespeare movies. The show was a comedy, but had a completely different tenor than Midsummer. It was tastefully done, and they strayed away from controversial jokes or crudeness. It was humorous and the acting was superb. The lighting was also fantastic, and I was very impressed with the overall technicality of the performance. The show went smoothly, and it was a pleasure to observe. Even from the back of the theatre, you could see the expressiveness of the actors, which added to the experience. Overall, I was thoroughly pleased with the evening, even though I’m not a huge Shakespeare fan, and I didn’t know anything about Twelfth Night before going into the show. It was the best way to leave Shakespeare for the semester. I was very pleased, and I’m a critical viewer.