A Week In Review

It's been another full week since my last post and in that time I have
- Turned the big 2-0
- Had my first full-week of classes
- Seen my first show at The Globe
and
- Fasted in a far-away land
all of which were great, and I will elaborate on, for anyone remotely interested.
My actual birthday was fabulous. Being the girl who counts down the days until her birthday starting out at 364, I always have pretty high expectations, and this year did not disappoint. Saturday night a big group of us went out on King's Road - the street that seems to go on forever and has everything from a movie-theater to a cell phone store, and a coffee shop on every corner. It's a great location to have access to, and even though everything is about £10 more expensive here than most other parts of London, it's pretty darn handy to have within walking distance.
Sunday morning we explored the neighborhood and had an interesting brunch at a cafe near the tube station. At some point during the meal we realized that what the food lacked in quality, the experience made up for in great stories to tell when we got home - so in the end, being watched like hawks by the 6 Eastern-European waitresses made up for cream cheese and lox on white bread (seriously... there is a reason England is known for fish'n'chips).
The first week of classes was, in one word, exhausting, but in multiple words, a totally exhilarating opportunity to immerse myself 100% in theatre. I have begun eating, sleeping and breathing my classes, and even though we have now discussed "finding neutral" in 4 separate ways, standing during Kol Nidre turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to practice my new skills! Tuesday and Wednesday were 10am - 9pm days which are a lot easier to get through than they sound because a majority of them are spent doing private rehearsals, laying on the floor, and running around on sprung-floors playing games. We also had our first Mask and Stage Combat classes this week which were SO MUCH FUN and I cannot wait to see what they actually entail (aka - how badly they can really kick my butt).
Thursday could technically be considered a 10am-10pm day, but in all honesty, if that's what I get to do on 12 hour days, I'd pick them every week. We had a bunch of voice classes in the morning, an hour for lunch and movement in the afternoon, but at 530 we all left LAMDA in pursuit of our 1st scheduled trip to The Globe. Mind you - these classes have been working us all pretty hard, to the point that we are waking up pretty much every morning with sore thighs, tight backs and severe blisters, but that didn't stop school from booking us Groundling tickets for that night. None of us knew much about the show, and the elements that we were excited about seeing were slowly being weighed down by the reality that we would be on our feet for the next 2.5+ hours. How wrong we were to be nervous! The show was extraordinary (not to mention, historical - it is the first show written by a woman to ever be put up in The Globe) - the story line was thoughtful, the characters compelling and the singing and dancing created an effervescent atmosphere around a show that mainly dealt with the shady-doings of a mental hospital in 17th century London. Not to mention, 2 of the show's stars were graduates of LAMDA and every one of us left the theatre invigorated and ready to get back to work the next day, sore knees and all.
Yom Kippur was Yom Kippur. I went to shul with family friends, fasted and got grumpy sometime around 5pm. I broke tradition by breaking the fast with Chinese food, and not only with Chinese food, but Chinese food at a restaurant! Now, not having bagels with cream cheese and lox is a tradition that was unthinkable to break to this East Coast girl who eats about 3 bagels within 15 minutes of the Shofar being blown - but all-in-all, not a bad experience!
Now it's Sunday and I get to do all the fun things that this day of the week brings - like grocery shopping, doing laundry, and learning lines for class. It is a constant cycle, but it's one that I'm not too upset about.
The other day someone in class asked me how I was doing and in the brilliant words of my Grandpa Bernie I replied "I make a living" - leaving my classmate with puzzled smile on his face. From retelling that immortal punchline of the "story" I've heard from my Grampa since I was old enough to understand it, I realized that there is so much to be said about making it on your own, especially in a different country. Transportation is long, classes are longer and finding down-time is nearly impossible - but hey, I'm making it work. I know that I've not been great about keeping this thing up-to-date, but since this is as much for posterity as it is for letting those of you who care to, live vicariously though my travels abroad - I hope that it's a good sign that I'm writing so infrequently! It means I'm doing things and not thinking about them, and if things carry on the way they have been, the next 4 months are going to be unbelievable.
Oh - and if someone's reading this to you, P-Pop, rest assured that I'm making a living.