Harry Potter Invades my Life!

Ok, so, the next installment of my blog! Here I go. Here I am. Writing.

Well, okay, so, here's the scoop. A lot of stuff has happened, but the most immediate and important thing I have to share is that I got spit on by Voldemort.

Yup. That's right. Voldemort spit on me. I was just sitting there, doing my own thing, not bothering anyone... and, well.

Okay, so I went to go see this play, The Tempest. It's a William Shakespeare play, and the main character was played by Raph Fiennes, who also just so happened to play Lord Voldemort in all the Harry Potter movies. I got to say, he looks a whole lot better with a nose. But man, is he a spitter. In fact, they all were. And how did I get so close that I was prone to being spit on? Well, the whole tale is that in London they have this deal called “Day Seats.” You go the day of the play and sit out for three hours and and cue until the box office openes at ten am and then the first eighteen people can get seats to the matinee or the evening showing of that day. Well, there are only matinee showings on tuesday and saturday, so I guess only on those days will there be eighteen tickets. On other days, there would only be about nine. This, I must qualify, is for this particular theatre- other theatres might have slightly different policies. So, I had gotten up early Saturday morning and went for a run- an hour and thirty minutes, and then ended up running to the theatre itself. I was the second person to be there; there was one other girl outside other than me. So, then, about five minutes later the three other girls in my group showed up and then we waited and waited for three hours (we got there at 7am) until the office opened, and then we got our tickets!

So, further explaination of Day Seats. These seats are in the very,very front row of the whole theatre. So, when we got to the theatre later that evening, when we sat down, my head was literally a foot and a half away from the edge of the stage. It was awesome! They were great seats; you would think that they wouldn't be because they are too close, but they were great! I loved every minute of it except when I got spit on. Next time I need to bring some plastic to cover my face or something. The whole cast was spiting up a storm; after that first, big lugie, I was paranoid the rest of the night that I was going to get sprayed again.

So, tonight I am getting my next shot at a play; however, I think we have different seats that are not nearly so close. We're going to go see “Top Girls.” It's sorta a feminist play that I don't know much about, but a lot of people really wanted to see it and John, one of our Directors, highly reccomended it, so I think it has potential. And it was only 14 pounds. So that's a plus.

This whole week has been interesting. The past few days (monday thru today, Wednesday) have been full of schoolwork- mainly art. We went to a bunch of galleries yesterday with our art classes, and then the day before I spent almost 8 hours doing art in the studio. Today, though, we took a turn around the city as a big group and we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. The “feed the birds” one, from Mary Poppins. I brought some bread to feed the birds (tuppence a bag!- which means, two pence, you know), but we didn't end up doing it. We'll go back another day or something.

We did a tour of the whole building; we climbed almost 1000 stairs up to the very top of the dome, at the base of the spire, and looked out on the city. It was a brilliantly clear day today, really warm too, so we could see all around. The Thames was shining down below us and the Millenium bridge (a strictly pedestrian bridge that featured in the 7^th Harry Potter movie- it got destroyed) was a white beam running across it, crowded with tourists. The London eye bit a chunk out of the pale blue sky, just down the river a ways and the Globe Theatre, which we get to go see “Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare, on Friday this week, was nestled in deep shade beside the factory-like brick Tate Modern just across the river.

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around, eventually ending up on Fleet Street, which apparently features in the Sweeny Todd film, which I've never seen so I didn't appreciate it like some other people did. We did wander inside the Royal Courts of Justice- our director had told us that he wandered in there once and watched a court session for twenty minutes. We had to go thru security, which baffled and freaked me a little, but then, wandering around inside the solem and quite building, which was like a gigantic, marble-pillared bank, we decided to leave. As we left though, we found a secret winding staircase next to a pillar formation that looked suspiciously like the bathroom sinks in the girl's bathroom in Harry Potter. And the secret staircase led into a deep, dark hole that we couldn't see the bottom to. The Chamber of Secrets! Or, at least, something very much like it.

Across the street from the courthouse, I saw a little hole in the wall building, shoved between two bigger and fancier buildings that said “Twinings.” That is the brand of tea here that's really prominent. We walked inside, out of curiosity, and found that it was a tea-shop full of box upon box of dozens of types of tea and coffee. And, the best part was, in the back there was a 'Tea bar' where we could go try a cup of tea for free! So, we sat down and had some “herbal infusions” (which aren't tea cus they have no caffeine, they are just herbs).

This day, now almost completed, has an ending with the promise of a play tonight, and tomorrow, we are off to Cambridge for a day! We are going to go punting in the river Cam, and walk around the university and take a hike in the country-side I believe. And we'll also get to hear Evensong, which is the choir singing at night. I guess it's similar to a Fireside, but just music, and for catholics or protestants or whatever.

Well, till next time- this has just been a week full of Harry Potter. I think the best part of my life is the fact that I apply Harry Potter to so many normal, everyday parts of it without even thinking or trying. It's crazy how much a book series has influenced my life. :D It's great.