A Day at the Regatta, and then some.

It's July! The pace at which this trip has been going is unbelievable to me. I suppose that's what happens when you are spending a casual summer abroad, living every day in a place like London with Europe just a few hours away.

The only time I stood at The Globe

Thursday, the last day of June, I took in a show at Shakespeare's Globe theatre. My seat was a little off to the corner which was fine, despite being told the "traditional" way to see a show was by standing in the center, I wasn't about to do that for three hours. Although I stood for longer during the Harry Potter premiere...priorities...but we will get to that in another post! I saw All's Well That Ends Well for the first time. I liked the humour, it was a little different from Shakespeare's normal style. I think it ended pretty well.
Kate and I went to Henley-on-Thames Friday for the summer crew event of the season: The Henley-Royal Regatta. So posh, so privileged, so English, the Regatta features junior and adult crew clubs from Eton to Harvard - ladies, nevermind the frat stars, this is the perfect place to find yourself a future husband.

Another day at the Regatta

We spent the afternoon sipping on Pimm's, the summer drink here, with refreshing mint and orange, and watched the muscles flex as they went by. A note for next year though, the "in" thing to wear, not fascinators and blazers but maxi dresses. Who would've known?!
That Saturday I went zip lining by Leeds Castle. It was a definite testament to my lack of any upper body strength whatsoever, I mean really, I was struggling on the "Tarzan" nets which involved you falling from the platform in the tree in to a net and then having to scale the net to get to the next platform. Not pretty. A lot of obscenities were thrown around that day. But it was beautiful scenery and some exercise I was in dire need of after spending weeks living off of sandwiches and Marks & Spencer's pre-made dinners.

Getting some much needed exercise in Leeds

Sunday, unfortunately, was entirely spent finishing my 5,000 word research paper that is due July 13. Despite the complaining, I did enjoy writing it. My research was done on the North-South divide of England, how the varying accents and dialects of the regions had shaped their cultures and, as a result, perpetuated the stereotypes and prejudices between "Northerners" and "Southerners." For a case study I used the 90s Britpop battle between Oasis (from Manchester) and Blur (from London). I loved listening to their albums and hearing their different accents as part of my "research." Not to be bias or anything but I'd have to say overall I'm an Oasis fan. I hope Londoners aren't reading this...

Americans in Paris

Outside the Old Vic!

The weekend of June 24 Kate and I were graced with the presence of Lauren Rogers and Loren Wilson in London! Oh yeah and J.Clark - great photos on Facebook by the way J. Clark, you look like a really, really good dancer.
Anyway they arrived Thursday night and Kate and I met them after seeing Richard III with Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic. A few things on that - 1.) I use the term "seeing" loosely because our seat were literally perpendicular to the stage, we could see half of it maybe and that was only when we were leaning over the railing. 2.) There is a GREAT Indian place around the theater, I think it's called Spices of India? Delicious, great nan and great sag paneer.
Once we got the whole gang together we went over to a pub in Covent Garden, I will not say which one though because this part isn't exactly good PR. We all ordered Pimm's, because I don't know it seems like the summer English drink of choice. It was awful, Pimm's has I think seven or nine version, gin-based, vodka-based  etc. and there are variations for the seasons, winter Pimm's, summer Pimm's, and so on. But this, I don't know what this was, licorice with a splash of lemonade maybe?

Spices of India = Yummm

Friday we met early at Waterloo station to catch a train to Hampton Court, a summer favorite of Henry VIII I think - we all know who he is. The lauren/lorens and josh got pastys for breakfast, and for those of you with naughty minds nooo it is not something you stick on your breast, if I could describe it it would be the product of a calzone and hot pocket, with various fillings like cheese and onion (I think it's better than it sounds).
At Hampton, we had the option of putting on cloaks, maybe that's what the 10 pound cover was for, dry cleaning and so on. And of course we opted for them! We all chose green, team Slytherin.
After a day of discovering how much royalty don't really believe in the sanctity of marriage - I mean NO ONE was faithful, ever - and frolicking in our cloaks we hopped on a train back to good ol' London.
The day was not over yet though so we decided to go down to Southbank and ride the London Eye! The eye was literally the one thing I absolutely had to do while here, no exceptions, and it was amazing! Got some great pics of Benny from afar. Afterwards, we trekked over to Trafalgar Square, where currently thousands of HP fanatics are camping out for the premiere, taking place tomorrow, to go to Texas Embassy Cantina! Apparently, when the good ol' Lone Star state was a country the embassy was in Trafalgar. Today, just down the street from the old embassy building some Texans set up shop to bring the flavors of Tex-Mex to our Bangers and Mash comrades. If you show your Texas I.D. you get a free margarita. Gob Bless Texas.

Ladies of the Cloak

The next day we did a hop-on hop-off tour like I did in Dublin. We went to the Tower of London which was awesome, and creepy, we all sat in the church where two of Henry's wives he beheaded were buried...disturbing and fascinating at the same time. You hear the story of Ann Boleyn so much you think it's just a fairytale gone bad, but then you see her tomb. The crown jewels, housed in the Tower, were beautiful of course. Also reminded me the scope of Great Britain's power, the had a crown with jewels the size of my fist for India - literally the "Crown of India" or something, I thought to myself, "When do they wear that one?"
London, unfortunately is much, much bigger than Dublin. Although we got to see the Tower and a lot of the City of London (different from Greater London) we weren't able to go see Parliament or Westminster which had also been on the day's agenda. I've been in London for over a month and, even with these last few weeks booked with stuff to do, I feel like there is so much I still haven't seen...a good excuse to come back across the pond I suppose. Maybe visit Kate at Oxford :)