While the weather outside isn't exactly frightful, this last week did bring London's first snow of the season, a bit early according to real Londoners, but a welcome change to the landscape. This was my last week of real classes and it started off, as it does once every month, with a tube strike. Luckily, Margy and I are magic and got on a train heading to the wrong place with the intention of getting off at a station closer to school and walking the rest of the way, but half way through the ride there was an announcement that the train was redirecting to where we needed it to go so no walking for us! It was a Monday morning miracle!
Classes this week were all so bittersweet because they were our goodbyes. We have one more week left in the program but it's mostly rehearsal for Much Ado and activities here and there, so as we wrapped up our hour and half we said goodbye to our teachers and subjects forever (just to be dramatic). In incredibly cool news, my Historical Dance teacher, Diana, is one of the most fantastic women on the planet and just happens to choreograph for little movies like Elizabeth, Sherlock Holmes and The Three Feathers, just to name a few. Well... at the end of our class on Wednesday she pulled out the crown and jewels that Cate Blanchett wore in the movie and let all of us try them on and be Queen for a day (well... for a few seconds, at least). It was lovely.
Snow on Tuesday also brought the arrival of the most fantastic Blake all the way from Paris, and my first chance to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform, doing Romeo & Juliet, no less! I had never seen it done before and while there were a few questionable directing choices, the show was fantastic and the relationship between the two lovers was convincing and sincere. It was a production where you think to yourself "ya know what? I think these two are gonna make it this time!". Also fun fact, my voice teacher is friends with the woman who played Juliet, a very convincing looking teenager - turns out she's 32. Impressive.
Thursday was my big night out with Blake so I took him back to Brick Lane for authentic London Indian food, which was also for my benefit and a good ole English pub - it was such a great night and so exciting to have him in my neck of the woods (continent) this time!
The weekend brought warmer weather, and by that I mean that it was 40 degrees instead of 30, but it did melt the snow and allowed for a beautiful day on Portobello road Saturday morning. I did some impressive haggling at one of the stands and when the guy asked me where I had learned to be so stubborn I had to give credit to every angry Israeli I had ever encountered in a shuk - it is a good life skill. That night was the last LAMDA sponsored theatre trip we had to The Old Vic again to see "A Flea in Her Ear". Aside from some issues unrelated to the show, the performance was wonderful and it was so great to see a show where I didn't have to think. Farce, gotta love it.
Today proved to be one of the best Sundays I have spent in this city so far. After a leisurly morning, Maddie, Margy & I walked over to Harrods, a mere 20 minute journey, and had our first experience with proper English High Tea. We had a 3:30 reservation at the Georgian on Harrod's top floor and all thoroughly gorged ourselves on tea, scones, finger sandwiches, pastries, and chips - which are not normally a part of traditional High Tea, but we made it work. We ended up spending about 2 hours just sitting there, drinking tea and enjoying the experience, and after making friends with the French waiter, getting the piss taken out of us for our improper American ways of speaking, and playing name that tune with the pianist playing a Broadway medley, we spent the next 30 minutes wandering around the palace that is Harrods. I think that if I was ever forced to pick one place to be stuck in for the rest of my life, Harrods would be that place. Everything about it is over the top and unnecessary, therefore, completely exciting and enjoyable.
Now it's back home tidying up my room, thinking about packing (but clearly not doing) and trying to figure out where the time went. As for a brief reflection on my classes; I don't know how I got so lucky. Yes, there were times that I never wanted our lunch break to end, or I thought that doing one more roll down would make me scream, but I am so thankful for what I've learned and how I was pushed. I will take so much away from each of those lessons, and not just about technique, but about how much I can really take and how important it is to put your all into something, because it's the only way to really make the most of it. I should probably wrap this up now that I'm starting to sound like Mr. Rogers episode.
Onto my last week at LAMDA... saddest phrase in the world.
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