Continued adventures...

                                        

                                               Wales


First off... I found two amazing discoveries. 

One: A DANCE STUDIO!!!! I found the most amazingggg dance studio in Covent Gardens which is a beautiful area only a tube ride away, and I couldn't be more excited. It is huge with TWELVE different studios offering different classes seven days a week.The classes range from normal Jazz which is what I took all the way to..."sensual salsa," "Michael Jackson style," "Street Flava," and "Egyptian dance". I think I'll stick to the jazz and ballet classes. Everyone there is around my age or mid 20s and it's at a good challenging level for me...needless to say it's exactly what I've been looking for (for the past three years!). So although I am extremely sore and can barely walk since I've taken the class last Thursday.. I'm going back tonight and plan on going a few times a week, and I'm very happy about that!!

Two: A Whole Foods. Although it's a little bit of a commute, the second I walked in I was in gluten free heaven. I've searched high and low at grocery stores all over and have yet to find a cereal I can eat, but here I had four different options!!! It's huge, and is worth going to just to eat at the cafe. So that was very exciting and I will be making my way over there (in Kensington) often. 

Last Wednesday I went to my first play for my performing arts class. It was part of a "Young Writer's Circle," which is putting on a bunch of plays written by...you guessed it... young writers. I was wrong to judge the show upon entering the theater when I saw it was just three rows of seats on each side of the stage, probably seating no more than 75 people, which is something I have never experienced before. The show was called "Shades" and really shed light onto a new side of Islam that I had never thought of before. You must know that my school is probably half Muslim. The city of London has a huge population of Muslims and you see primarily religious Muslims with the head-wraps (not to mention only one side to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Anyway...the show was about a young non-religious Muslim woman who falls in love with a religious Muslim man. It talks about the difficulties of being non-religious in a primarily religious atmosphere. She talks about how she doesn't believe you should have to wear a head scarf to show you are religious, and fights for her beliefs although she is willing to change them to be with a more religious man. Also in the show her roommate is a young gay Muslim man, who refuses to talk about it, scared that his family will not understand. It was very interesting...  extremely radical, very entertaining (it was actually pretty laugh-out-loud funny at times) and a really good experience overall. Next week we are seeing Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," which is supposed to be great!

Last Saturday Michael and I went on a day trip to Cardiff, Wales. We had way too much time in Bath..so we decided to make it a shorter day trip which was definitely not enough time...can't seem to get it right yet. Imagine a big city American football game-day atmosphere and multiply that by like 25. It just so happened to be the England vs. Wales Rugby match that night in Wales, and these people are rugby CRAZYYYY. I put a picture up of the line to one of the bars...and this was how the lines were to EVERY bar from about 11 am on...and this was a 6:00 in the evening game. It was a really cool atmosphere to be in, and although we thought about trying to find tickets, it seemed basically impossible and even so they would have been around 70 pounds. It definitely would have been an experience though...and I hope to go to either a rugby or "football" match in England soon!

   

We climbed to the top of this castle which is a huge part of Cardiff.  The main castle which you can see in a picture above was unfortunately closed for an event . They said that the castle holds big events often..including something a couple years ago for the Queen and Nelson Mandela, and it also holds big concerts. The whole courtyard is absolutely beautiful. It was too bad we didn't have more time, because there are a lot more castles in Wales that we weren't able to see, but this wassss a fun climb up. There are lots of old staircases, windows, and crevices mostly made for protection factors. 

Best find of the day: a Neili-sized window in the castle. Michael was jealous, as you can see.

and some more pictures of Wales..

The Rugby Stadium
The line for one of the bars
Inside the Cardiff Castle courtyard

It was a very beautiful city...weird that they speak a different language only two hours away!

Last but not least, I must tell you that today was actually somewhat warm. I know it' s been semi-warm in the US... so warm is really a relative term. But the high was 50 today and I was sweating in my peacoat! YAY.

Cheers!

It snows in London..?

Yes, it snowed, and one thing this city does NOT have is snow ploughs. Thus, the entire city shut down. No tube, no buses nothing. The city apparently lost some 2 billion pounds, which is pretty funny considering the roads were CLEAR. "Most snow seen in 18 years...?" Really?? because it  snowed no more than about 5 inches... although I must admit that a. it was very beautiful and b. I was excited that (unlike madison) classes were cancelled! It really only snowed the one day though.. and I'm being optimistic that the weather is getting better. I think we've hit the coldest, which wasn't even that cold.. so I'm ready for no jacket weather now!!

                                     

Okay rewind a little bit...last weekend I went with Michael and our friend Ross to Bath...which just so happened to be pretty much like it sounds. An ancient city marked by lots of Roman baths. They are hot water springs that fell as rain about 10,000 years ago, and are still 115 degrees. There are 40 or so minerals in the water, which in medieval times was helpful for curing paralysis and other diseases.  You can see the steam rising which is kind of cool..?

(This is a cute little area of apartments called "The Circus" in Bath)

So, it was very neat seeing the baths themselves, however an entire day in the city of Bath was a little too much...it really is a beautiful place, but in the freezing cold (it just so happened to be the coldest day we've had so far), it was a long day. We were so cold (and bored) that we went to see Milk which was amazing. 

I also went to the Borough Market with some friends which was absolutely amazing. I would love to go at least once every couple weeks to buy fruit and things. I loved the atmosphere, and I bought entirely way too much chocolate. 

homemade chocolate truffles.. I couldn't resist.

  As (I think) I mentioned before I'm in a class        called "Historic London," in which every Wednesday we take a different field trip. Last week we had our first trip which was to Shakespeare's famous "Globe" Theater. It is a pretty accurate replica of the original, which unfortunately burnt down. They do have a spring show season, which hopefully I will get the chance to see!

And last but not least.. in honor of my lovely father from when I went to the wax museum...

 

                                         

                                   Cheers!