Sarah In London

Sigmund Freud—the Rush Limbaugh our society actually takes seriously.

Inga Muscio

May 5, 2012

Count Down

Posted on Monday, November 30, 2009

The end is near! I can’t believe I have less than 10 days left here. As much as I miss my family and am looking forward to the holidays, I’m not feeling as homesick as some of my classmates… I’m really, really sad to see this semester come to and end. My one consolation is that I applied for a summer internship here (and I have a friend who put in a good word for me) so I MIGHT be coming back this summer. I also have an amazing Spring semester planned and my 21st birthday over spring break!!

Okay, to make myself feel even better, here are a list of things I miss/am looking forward to (besides the obvious, family) when I get back to the states:

Free refills. Drinks are SO EXPENSIVE HERE. As soon as I can I’m going to go to some casual restaurant and order just a drink WITH TONS OF ICE and sit and read a book there all afternoon!

Driving my car. I really love living in a city and being able to walk everywhere, but I am over public transportation. I can’t wait to get in my car and put in my music and just drive wherever I want with no delayed subways or randomly terminating buses to worry about. And I will sing as loudly as I want.

BABIES. With a grand total of three itty bitty babies (well, two babies and one toddler) with whom I will be spending the holidays, I will be taking approximately one million billion pictures. I am excited.

Home cooked meals. Free, made to my liking food.

Christmas lights! Enough said.

Moe’s Burritos. That terrible, wonderful communal tradition: Moe’s Monday.

Being able to work on theater. Studying here has been great, but I want to get back to working on SHOWS. I want to work with my hands, build something, write something, work with an ensemble.

Seeing the sun. OH MY GOD. I didn’t even realize how long I’d been in the gloom of London until traveled out of the country one last time and felt the sun on my face. I don’t know what it is about London, but it’s like there’s a giant tinted glass bubble over the whole city. I NEVER really see the sun out. And it has been raining non-stop for the last few days and is expected to do so until we leave. Absurdly mild Florida Winter: here I come.

I’m sure there are more things and I’ll probably realize them in my first few weeks back. For now, I’m going to go enjoy my last big West End show: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with James Earl Jones!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Posted on Thursday, November 26, 2009 1 note

At the moment I’m laying in my hostel room in Dublin. I spent Thanksgiving day in Galway and came back to Dublin for Thanksgiving dinner of deli sandwiches and chips from the grocery store. It’s better than fast food and all I can afford on this trip!

You know what they don’t tell you about Dublin? HOW EXPENSIVE IT IS. Yikes.

My classes are going well. I took advantage of the long weekend to visit Ireland with some friends. So far it’s been a quiet trip with visits to museums, strolls around the city, visits to bookstores and the like. Though, the end of the semester is fast approaching and I’ve got papers and final assignments piling up. I turned in early tonight in the hopes of getting some of that done.

Tomorrow my friends are going to visit a castle half an hour outside of the city, so I’m going to have the day to myself. I really enjoy having these days when I’m traveling for the obvious reason of being able to do what I want, go at my own pace, but also because they always end up being very full, reflective days.

We will get back to London on Saturday, and in the evening my friend Nathaniel and I are going to cook a belated Thanksgiving dinner for our Brit friend Matthew, who’s never celebrated it. I’ll probably spend all of Sunday working and studying and then it’s back to class on Monday!

And that’s my week at a glance. I’ll try and update more often, promise!

I’m Still Alive!

Posted on Sunday, November 15, 2009

Whoo! What a crazy couple of weeks I’ve had… I’ve been super duper busy with work. Our workload has really picked up since I got back from my 10 day trip. In addition to classes, I’m writing a short play with a group for my Encounters Class, rehearsing a scene with a vampire and a talking dog, keeping a “voice journal” for my voice and movement class (what exactly I’m supposed to write about my voice each week, I’m not sure). I’m also trying to see as many shows as I can, go to all the festivals and markets in town as well as periodically taking day trips to other places in England. I’ve also started writing a short play on my own.

I still make time to have a quiet night out with friends. Last night I went to a pub called the Captain’s Cabin with some of my flatmates and my friend Cameron. There’s something really satisfying about just walking out into the city and finding a new place to hang out. We then walked back to the flats and passed out.

A few days ago our program took a day trip to Stratford upon Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the site where he’s buried. It don’t want to say it was a bad trip because I enjoyed myself, but there’s really nothing significant in Stratford having to do with Shakespeare or his work. His house has been turned into a Disey-esque walk-through. Nothing there really helped me understand him or his work any better. However, the actual town of Straford is really beautiful! It’s small and all the old architecture has been preserved. There are also a few great little pubs and restaurants. I would have loved to have a little more time to just explore the town, but we had quite a few scheduled activities. We did get to see a production of Twelfth Night which was actually an understudy run. It was hit or miss for me, but considering that they had a week to put it together, it wasn’t bad. The trip back was a little rough as we caught rush hour traffic in the city. Three hours on a coach. Yeuch.

In other news, my good friend Nathaniel is staying in London until February or so and he just came into town last week. I’m excited to show him all my favorite places and things to do. We’ve both been really busy with school and work, but hopefully this week we’ll get to go out to a show.

Tonight I’m going to an improvised musical! I’m really excited, especially since my friend was able to get me free tickets. This weekend I’m taking a trip to Liverpool, hometown of the Beatles! I might just pick up something for my dad there. Maybe. Then over Thanksgiving break I’ll be traveling with a few friends to Ireland! Dublin, here I come!

Photos from Prague! This was everyone else’s favorite city, but Berlin was at the top of my list.

November 1, 2009

Back in London now and scrambling to get things ready to go to class tomorrow. Here are a few of the pictures from Berlin!

★

Got a haircut =)

October 22, 2009 2 notes

Eurotrip 2009!

Posted on Thursday, October 22, 2009

I’ve been trying to upload pictures from my trip to Little Venice in London for a week, but the internet connection is so wonky here, I haven’t been able to. It’ll be about 10 days before I’ll get another chance. And here’s why!

Tomorrow at 3 am I’m leaving to get on a train to take me to a plane to take me to Berlin! Starting today, we have a mid-semester 10 day break. I’ve chosen to travel to Berlin, Prague and Budapest with 5 friends. We booked our planes, trains and hostels and now we’re running around making sure everything is set for go time.

I am SUPER excited for Berlin! I’ve studied German for five years and until this year I never thought I’d get the chance to actually go to Germany! It’s been almost a year since I’ve had a class, though, so I’m rather nervous. More nervous than for Prague or Budapest, where I won’t be able to speak a word of the language.

I’d write more but I’ve got to finish a CV for an internship I recently found out about. So much to get done before I leave!

Goodbye for now! There will be a million pictures after the trip!

Pictures From Bath and Stone Henge!

October 15, 2009

Bath and Stonehenge

Posted on Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hello Readers! Yesterday we took a day trip out to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge looks exactly like it does in pictures. It was kind of mind boggling to think about the history of this spot and the people that built it.

Bath was fun and we saw a bath house built by the Romans. That was really interesting, but they’ve sort of built a museum right on top of the site, so you don’t really get a chance to take in the actual remains of the bath house by themselves. I was a little disappointed. Bath is very much a tourist town, but I still had fun.

I registered for my Spring Semester this week. I’ll be taking computer literacy (blech. a requirement), play writing, contemporary British theater, and hopefully two DIS’s. A DIS is a directed independent study in which you take on a long term project or assistant-ship or something like that and you have a faculty member to oversee your work and give you a grade at the end and it counts toward your graduation credits! It’s a really great way (for theater majors, especially) to carve out their own specialized education experience. My adviser suggested getting involved with a devised Shakespeare project that the school of theater is putting on. I’d also like to arrange a DIS based on me putting together a small company of improvisers to work on long-form improv skills. I have to write up a proposal for both of them this week.

Some folks are going out of town to Ireland this weekend. I’ll be staying in London and working on an essay (in between seeing shows and going out with friends!) I’ll also be doing some planning for my 10 day trip, which I’ll talk more about later.

Other than that, classes are going well and I’m still having a wonderful time every day. And now for some epic pictures!