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...