Beginning of week 2

Monday was possibly the most boring day so far in London. I was such a bum I didn't even leave the flat. To my credit, it poured all day long, so it was quite dreary. I had planned on doing laundry, getting some reading done, then going to Primark. I underestimated by about 3 hours how long the laundry would take. First, only one of the machines was working. Then I accidentally chose the hottest setting (80 degrees......Celsius.), which was also a really long cycle. THEN after I did that and my second load, I couldn't figure out the dryer so it took about 3 hours for my clothes to dry. Oy! I did get a lot of reading done while I waited, but Kara and I didn't finish our laundry until like 4 and at that point we didn't feel like going shopping. Womp. A group of us did book a flight to Dublin last night though!! I'm so excited, it's our first trip we've planned.

I can already tell Tuesdays and Wednesdays are going to be loooong days. I had two classes today, Media and Society and Culture by Design. Media and Society was a bit better than last week, my professor's ramblings were a little more coherent than last week. He still asks us to do things and we're all just like "uuuhhh..." We have our first assignment due next week. Our entire grade is pretty much based on these "letters to America" we have to write. Next week, I have to write a 200 word letter discussing the oral communication in London. I'm glad I'm keeping this blog, because these are all pretty much letters to America! For our outing we went to the West End (Theaterland). Apparently in British culture, the theater is low culture; the only "real" theater is spoken plays, specifically Shakespearean. Very few upper class Brits go to see musicals, which I thought was very interesting. We walked around the area and saw most of the major theaters in the West End, such as the Shaftesbury, the first theater to show a musical in London (Hair):

We also passed by the Palace Theater again, which doesn't look as cool in the day time: 

On our walk, we passed by Chinatown and got to go into the Royal Opera House. The Chinatown here is definitely much cleaner and nicer than the one in New York. It's almost a square, and there aren't people shoving things in your face trying to get you to buy them. It's more restaurants and shops than vendors. It smelled like delicious Chinese food though! 

The view from the balcony of the Royal Opera House

We finished our tour RIGHT by a restaurant we had heard had great fish and chips, so we decided to try it out. It's called Rock and Sole Plaice, and it really was great. Four of us went, and we just got two plates of fish and chips and split them and it was plenty. Unfortunately the fish wasn't gluten free, but I had to do it! I googled places for gluten free fish and chips, and I actually found one not too far from here I need to check out. I'm not a big cod person, so I mostly just liked the chips, but it's such a traditional London food that I can actually eat (sometimes).

Yum!

We had to scurry along to get to Culture by Design right after lunch. We had class for about 1.5 hours and we talked about design. Not being a SMAD major, the class is a bit intimidating. Sometimes Jay asks questions and people's hands shoot up with creative ideas and I sit there thinking so hard and come up with nothing. I try to contribute, and I'm slowly adjusting to his teaching style and questions. We have a media analysis paper due next week, which I'm a bit nervous about. Our outing was to the Design Museum, where we saw a jewelry exhibit. We took a bus there instead of the tube, and it was awesome. We passed over the Waterloo bridge and saw Big Ben on one side and St. Paul's on the other. It's always neat to see London from a bus instead of going into the tube and feeling disoriented when you come back out. I wasn't that impressed with the exhibit. I'm not a jewelry person to begin with, and most of the things on display could in no way be worn practically. I feel the same way about high fashion clothes, though; I don't get the point. But I suppose it's an artistic expression, so other people could love it while I don't. We were focusing mostly on the design of things, and whether the pieces of jewelry had "good design." We had to find a piece that fit five of the criteria of a good design. It was definitely hard for me, mostly because I thought none of the pieces were particularly practical. Oh well, to each their own! On our way out of the museum, we got a beautiful view of the Tower Bridge all lit up!

We took the bus back from the museum, stopped by Sainsburys, and came back. I think tonight I'm just getting a jump on my papers due next week and reading Hunger Games for my film class. Cheers!