Saturday Off - Week Recap

I'm not working this Saturday and it feels refreshing to finally have an unplanned day. I must admit that I do miss having a free day to just explore. That's one reason I'm looking forward to spending term break here. I'll take some time to catch everyone up on some happenings.

On Tuesday, I saw a production of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart (yes, the Captain Picard of Star Trek). I've never seen a professional production of Shakespeare and it was quite good. I must admit that I would have had almost no idea what was going on had I not read the play in high school. It was a pretty tense performance and from the start, I knew I would be stressed out a little during the play. The setting was Stalinist Russia (I think) and it was a very sterile, eerie set. The Weird Sisters were thoroughly creepy and with all that stainless steel and projected images around the stage, I was glad to relax at a bar afterwards. For kicks, Jared, JP, and I decided to go to a Soho strip club to see what it was like. There's a first time for everything and I thought, why not try? It was a memorable experience. From television and movies, I had a preconceived idea of what a strip club would look like. But since this place was more bar/pub and less strip club, it was much different than I expected. No tables and chairs or couches facing the main "stage." Just a bar and open floor space in front of a small area with a pole and crossbar. A bit awkward for a set-up I thought. There were two strippers who didn't really phase JP, Jared, or me. It was kind of similar to a background music video playing at a club: it's there but you only turn to see what's playing once in a while. Anyways, I thought that was interesting and blog-worthy.

My Thanksgiving was pretty quiet. Thursday is like my "day off," since I work Wednesday and weekends, so I just wanted to get some laundry done and relax. I tried to go to Roseberry, another LSE hall, for a turkey dinner but there was no food left by the time we arrived. Jared and I improvised and headed to The Monument pub for some Thanksgiving-ish sandwiches. Unfortunately due to the bird flu, the turkey was replaced with chicken but it still had the other necessary ingredients: cranberry sauce and stuffing. It was good to just relax and have some pints. Definitely a unique Thanksgiving though. It's strange to think that my Thanksgiving for 20 years has been characterized by all these traditions and now, for the first time in my existence, I'm switching things up.

Two friends are in town this weekend, Jeff whom I visited in Dublin and Josh from Oxford/Gtown. Yesterday after class and rock climbing, I met up with the boys at The George, a pub in my area. For the first time, everyone decided to actually come to Southwark! It's a cool place and I like it a lot, but it's not necessarily somewhere I want to coerce everyone to come to in case things are disappointing. So after freezing a bit at The George among inadequate heat lamps, we learned that two pubs I had planned to go to were charging ridiculous cover fees or requiring stricter dress codes. Luckily, we ended up at a pub nearby that charged only 2 pounds for pints and was a cool, cozy student bar.

Today I met up with some friends in Covent Garden for lunch and we walked around the Jubilee Market for a bit of exploring. I love markets despite their aim at tourists and such. Tin placards, license plates from North Carolina, framed photos for 10 pounds, caricature artists, jewelers, leather goods, etc. Glitzy Christmas decorations hung from the ceilings and it had a very seasonal feeling. California, perhaps because of its weather or landscape, has never really been able to manufacture that feeling for me, so I almost feel more in the Christmas spirit here than if I were at home. The Santa and reindeer lights display near Costco just doesn't cut it.

I think I've rambled on for long enough. Everything is going well, I think. A highlight today was a street performer's rendition of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)." I was moved enough to throw in 2 USD worth of change.