I only have one week left and i'm sad about it. I wish I could come back after winter break.

Aberdeen
Aberdeen was the next stop on my trip. It was kind of just a little blip of a town on the east coast of Scotland, you can see the ocean from the town, actually the town has a little port . However, the Aberdeen regional tartan is also the Stout tarten. And they have a college. Isn't it pretty.


Inverness
Inverness is a little town on the River Ness, which flows from Loch Ness. Loch Ness is to the south of the town and i could swear that the river runs north, up from the lake. It's kind of a cute town, but as it was the off season things were pretty closed.

THis is the castle, but it's used as a government building so you can't do inside. The day was rather damp and windy, so i'm shocked this picture makes it look so nice. The grass was mushy.

Loch Ness

This is the ruins of a castle on Loch Ness, called Lochgilphead, or something close. I didn't see any signs of Nelly either, well a few in the gift shop.

Glasgow

Glasgow wasn't as nice as Edinurgh. It has the feeling of a city still trying to regain the glory that it had during the industrial revolution, but hasn't has since.
But the city does have some nice legends. Glasgow was supposed founded by St. Mungo. (brilliant name).
This is the Crest of Glasgow, except normally its says "let it flourish" underneath. The symbols on the crest are 1)the tree that never grew 2)the bird that never sang 3)the bell that never rang and 4)the fish that never swam. They are all related to miracle performed by St. Mungo. He resurrected the bird from the dead. The bell was built in his honor, but took a hundred or so years to do. I can't remember the tree and the fish is a long story. There were this married couple and he gave her a ring. For some reason she gave the ring to some one else. He found out, took it from the other person and threw it in the Clyde(glasgow's river). THen he asked to see the ring. She freaked out and went to Mungo, who sent another monk to go fish in the river. when the monk caught a fish, Mungo gutted the fish and the ring was inside and everyone lived happily every after.
This is Glasgow Cathedral.
THis is a cute building in Glasgow. This is the People's Palace of Glasgow. It has a winter garden. which is a giant green house with a little cafe in it.

Glasgow wasn't the mose exciting place. What I really wanted to do in Glasgow was see the petrified forest-it's more like a whole bunch of petrified tree trunks. But still it's really cool. Anyway, sad thing being, it was closed for the winter.

So that's Glasgow.

London

I've been staying quiet in London. I've got a play to finish writing, but I have finished the first act and i think the second act will just whizz by.
I will be going to Paris the 4th and 5th to stretch my french muscle.
There are so many things in London I still have to see though. I'm suddenly feeling very pressed for time.

I saw Maggie Smith.

Scotland Journey

This is a map with my travels through Scotland highlighted. The path changes color to signify that I was traveling on a different day. RED-Fri Oct 20, ORANGE - Sun Oct 22, YELLOW - Tues Oct 24, GREEN - Wed Oct 25, BLUE - Thurs Oct 26, PURPLE - Fri Oct 27, PINK - Sat Oct 28, BROWN - Sun Oct 29, AQUA - Mon Oct 30 where i returned to London,

Scotland

I was in Scotland a week and a half ago for 9 days, so I'm going to start posting the pictures from that trek.
I traveled with my friend Julianna, who is also studying playwriting in London. We started out trip in Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH

I fell in love with Edinburgh as soon as I got out of the train station. The city is breath taking. On a rock cliff over looking the entire city is Edinburgh Castle. The castle walls seem to be part of the rock cliffs they rise up from.
The rest of the city is a wonderfull combination of old ornate buildings and new ones, whose facades are covered in bills.

Right along the main shopping drag of Edinburgh is a giant memorial to Sir Walter Scott, the Bard of Scotland. It is the largest memorial in the world dedicated to a writer.


Of course there are lots of bagpipe players in kilts. It was the best thing ever to just see men walking around in kilts. Why don't american men wear kilts more often. I saw one guy in a black leather kilt. I'm not sure what that was about, because plaid is so awesome, who would give up and oppurtunity to wear it?

This is the front corner of Holyrood House. Rood means cross. But the royal family still uses it when they're in Edinburgh and they stop here every year on the way to Balmoral, their summer residence. It's alright as palaces go. There is a hall with portraits of all the kings of scotland, including MacBeth, which was really cool.

The peak on the left is an extinct Volcano, called Arthur's Seat. yes, that Arthur, the mythic king. Isn't it pretty. The one of the right is just more rock formation called The Crags, it's so Tolkienesque.

This is the remains of Holyrood Abbey, which is attached onto the back of Holyrood House. The abbey was built first. Some composer saw the ruins of this Abbey when it was covered in plants and had a grass floor and his Scottish Symphony was born. I think this picture's just pretty. It is Edinburgh.

Glastonbury

Glastonbury is in Somerset, which is between Wales and Cornwall.
That is Glastonbury Tor. The tower on top is the remains of the church of St.....something. I forget and feel horrible. In ancient legend, it is thought to be the entrance to the celtic underworld and the Gywn ap Nudd - the god of the underworld. It is also called the Isle of Avalon, because the surrounding lowlands used to flood and the people who lived in the area would come here to escape the flood.

This is a view from by the top of the Tor. It was really misty the day I was there.

THis is the well at Glastonbury. It is legended to be the hiding place of the Holy Grail.
This is a waterfall from the well. The water here is also filled with minerals - like in Bath - so it also stains everything red. That is why it is believed to be the hiding place of the Holy Grail. Since the grail has Jesus' blood and the water is red, like blood.
The difference between water here and in Bath, is that here it is cold. So when I tasted it I couldn't smell the minerals and it's really yummy. I poured out the tap water in my water bottled and filled up with this stuff. It is sanitary, they test to make sure everyday.

King Arthur and Gwenievre are thought to be buried at Glastonbury Abbey, this is where the monks moved their bodies - after they found them - and erected a giant black tomb to them, but King Henry VIII, after making the church of England destroyed the whole abbey, including King Arthur's grave. Henry VIII was actually the 2nd son of his father, and only became King because his brother Arthur died. Arthur was a patron of Glastonbury Abbey, because he was named after the hero. I think sibling rivalry made Henry

VIII do it.

Glastonbury Abbey was founded by Joesph of Arimethea, after he traveled to Britain with the blood and sweat of Jesus. [i think the sweat also plays a role into why the holy grail is in a well] In Glastonbury Joseph is said to have trust his staff into the ground where it stuck and grew into a thorn tree which flowers twice a year. They say the tree that was actually his staff is now gone, but another one from a branch of the original grows on the Abbey grounds. The original grew on another hill.

I walked past Dame Judy Dench on the street.

Where did I leave off? I went to Bath and Glastonbury 3 weekends ago and was in Scotland for the past 9 days.

BATH



This is one of the smaller baths. The cool part is you can see the different layers of history. The water, is of course super-ancient, the Roman put a lead liner on the bottom of the pool, so that the water would hold. The lead liner is still in use and still functions. The Victorians gave this pool the shape it has today, but they raised the water level to the top of the part that has that red stain. The level in the picture is as the Romans would have seen it. All the arch ways are from the Victorians and this particular bath was used to cure people like lepors, and the monks would take the sick people into the water where they would hold on for dear life on the edge, because the Victorians weren't overly inclines towards swimming.


This is actually just a drain pipe out of the pools to the river Avon - yes that same one Shakespeare lived on. The drain is red because the water at Bath has a really high mineral content and after 2000 years of flowing through the same drain (this drain was built by the Romans) the minerals are going to leave deposits all over it. I tasted some of the water - which is allowed and safe - it smelled funny, but tasted fine, except that it was really warm, about the tempurature of bottled water left in a car on a hot day. But the smell was really the problem. Hot minerals smell really bad and don't make me want to drink them.


This is a section of the relief that was over the entrance of the baths in Roman time. This piece shows the feet of a winged Victory standing on a ball made of bands. The ball like thing actually represents earth. I didn't know that the Romans thought the earth was round. I think that's really cool, but it begs the question: When did human thought turn around and start believeing the world was flat? Makes me feel sorry for Galileo as a historic figure.



This is a picture of the main baths. The shape of the pool is from the romans, but the colums of Victorian. At the far end of the pool, behind the columns is a piece of the brick Roman archs that supported a roof over this pool. In roman times the water was clear because the roof blocked out the sun and then the algae couldn't grow. Again, this is the water level from the Romans, the Victorians raised it.

The rest of the city of Bath looks very uniform and i think most of the buildings where built at the same time inorder to accomedate all the people coming to the baths for health reasons, when doctors still prescribed such like that.

So here are some more Cardiff Pictures.
These are from the Museum of Welsh Life. aka the Best place in the World!!!

Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen? The houses are real. They were all actually built in the period of time they look like, or older and are furnished appropriated with really furniture. And the smoke it real too, all the houses had wood burning fire places with fires in them.
well, i guess you've got to look at this one sideways, but it is a tower from St. Albans castle threw the gate of the rose garden. The rose garden is on the other side of the gate.

I went to Stratford upon Avon today. Shakeapeare's hometown. Everything, absolutely everything tries to associate itself with shakespeare, but he's not the only good international success that came out of Startford, so did the teletubbies. I guess Billy beats the teletubbies in most peoples' books. Anyway, here are pictures.

so this is suppose to be the house of Billy's birth. He's said to have been born in the room of the window on the left. They've believed this for 400 years. However, if you look at when Billy's dad bought the parts of the house, Billy was more likely to have been born in the bit on the right, in a room actually out of picture.

these are a bunch of really cute buildings, which are original and annoying people, who would not get out of my picture - because they were there first and trying to save old greyhounds, but that's neither here nor there (actually it was there). SOOOOOOOOOOO the school little Billy went to is just up the street and the building in the middle is now a pub where 3 little dramatic writers grabbed a pint before catching the train to London. Flowers brewery is a local Stratford brewery and their beer tasted soapy, but that might have been because there could have been soap in my glass. I should have asked. But the inside is completely original and that was the really exciting part. it was soooo cute.

i have a feeling that the pink wall is not neccessary original in color. And all the other wooden beams were so old and amazing.

And poor dead Billy's cursed grave. The curse is actually carved into the stone, but the lettering goes the other way, so they've reproduced it the right way around. The flowers are real.

Cardiff

Cardiff was absolutely amazing. I didn't actually spend all that much time in Cardiff central, but everything I was in and around Cardiff was amazing. The castles are better than Disney land, and I really mean it, because they have all the elements of fantasy, but they're real.
The red Dragon is the symbol of Wales. This is a red dragon in a flower pot - new - with a roman section in the CArdiff Castle in the background.

Tis is the keep of the Castly with the Welsh flag flying above it.
THis is the tower that has been decorated in the 18oo's. The entire interior of the living areas of the castle also are decorated with massive carvings and painting, even more so than the tower, but i couldn't take pictures on the inside.

THis is from the inside of Castell Coch - the Red Castle. It was decorated on the inside by the same person who did Cardiff Castle, but here you can take picture. This was above a fireplace in one of the rooms and it is a carving of the 3 fates from Greek mythology. The one of the left is spinning the thread, the one in the center is measuring it and the one of the right is cutting it. Beneath the women are little depictions of the 3 ages of men.
This is a detail from the fireplace of the Lady of the House's bedroom. Its Psyche, cupid's wife - notice the butterfly wings - holding the family shield.

CAERPHILLY CASTLE

prounced ka-phily
The castle is huge. It was built as a strong hold to keep out invaders. Not only did they build giant walls and a moat they built 2 lakes around the castle, because what's better at keeping out invaders than a moat? A LAKE.

This is the outer gates from the bottom of the hill.

There are a lot more pictures and i'll have to put them up in the next post.

I'm really excited to be going to Cardiff this weekend. Pirates of Penzance is playing down there this weekend and I can't wait to see it. It's my favorite musical ever. I'm also going to try to see a radio play recording. that should be interesting.

Also next weekend, i'm going to Stratford with my class and we're seeing The Tempest with Patrick Stewart as Prospero. How exciting. Patrick Stewart!!!!! and Tempest, which i am required to love.
I was talking to me Shakeapeare prof and she said she met her husband doing The Tempest. they played miranda and ferdinand. sound familiar? they got a lot of chess set for their anniversay.

I just want to clear up my last comment. One of my flat-mates is a math major and she's great. She's not the type of math major who i was talking about. I'm talking about the ones who can't really do math either.

Anyway. I'm going to Cardiff this weekend. I'm super excited. Cardiff is in Wales, so its like a pretend different country from England - but don't tell the Welsh it's pretend. They do have their own culture and language, so its only pretend in a political sense. Anyway, WELSH people!!!!! Dad says i need to learn how to say "sheep" in welsh. I say i need to eat sheep in welsh. hahahahahhaaa

soooo.
I have a children's play being done at YES factory. its a "dramatization" of The Jungle Book. I wrote it. Its very not disney! yippee. it you're in LA go see it. It opens late October.

I hate Math majors who think playwrights don't actually do work. Playwrighting is so much harder. Math majors are taugh how to do the problems then they do them. You can't teach a playwright how to make a 3D character. You can give a playwright a list of uber-hard question they have to answer about their character, like "What is the character's concept of self?". Math problems don't have concepts of self, now do they? GR!!!!!!!

HOT

It is so hot in London. I don't understand. It's nearing the end of September, shouldn't it be getting cold? I heard London is getting the tail end of a hurricane now, which I thought would mean rain, but no. It's hot!!!!

Dover Pictures

These are the white cliff, from the harbor. The town is off left of the photo.


This is part of the fortified castle wall, looking through a tree, from the bridge over the dry moat.

THis is the Keep of the Castle and a modern apartment building in the foreground.


THis is a view from the castle of the harbor.


This is me admiring in the view and hoping that i get myself and the view in the shot.


These are the trenchs on the other hill. The castle looks shadowy in the background.

Dover

I went to Dover over the weekend. Yes, the cliffs are very white. In fact they are chalk white - because they are made of chalk. There's a castle in one hill on one side of the town and a military entrenchment in the hill on the other side. And there are tunnels absolutely every where.

I do this the Chunnel hurt the tourist industry in Dover, because they stopped getting over night guests stopping before the took the ferry to France, or after the ferry from France. Either way the town isn't all too exciting.

The DOver Musuem does have a boat from the bronze age, which is pretty awesome. There is also the remains of a Roman Villa, from when the Romans rules Britain. The Villa is has giant sections of the original painted plaster walls. Its supposed to be the only one this side of the Alps.

The Castle was pretty cool, because it was sooooo old. The oldest complete standin structure was from 1120 ACE. The bottom half of a light house was also from the Romans, but the top fell down and was rebuilt later be other people.

I'd put up my pictures now, but the internet doesnt have a good connection. Sorry folks.

Alright so now i need to talk about what i've been doing. Let's see i told you about the Globe. It was fun standing through an entire performance, I also enjoyed seeing a play in the space. As for the play itself - Comedy of Errors - i don't think its my favorite. They did it very slap sticky and squeezed every last joke out of it (even a few that weren't there, like adding sugar to cranberry juice). Its supposed to be one of Shakespeare's very early plays, and that seems rather apparent as his style has developped into the depth he achieves later, although his puns and word play are right on mark and as clear as ever.

Last wednesday i saw "The Life of Galileo" by Berolt Bercht (or however you spell it) and translated/adapteb by David Hare - an english playwright. It was really really good. Very un-brechtian, except for the caberet number, which i didn't understand. But the rest of it really made me think about change, and how a single fact ( being that the earth revolves around the sun and not the sun about the earth) can change entire systems or belief. The Catholic church of the day was absolutely scandelized. They said it could make god not exist. I didn't understand how 1 fact, could change so much. I'm trying to think of things that i hold as a firm belief that affects my daily existance - i can't - and what if someone came along and said "no, that's wrong. It goes the other way". How would that resinate through the rest of my life? I also wanted to know how the earth not being the center of the universe changed the status of god. A good job was done to explain the complete system of belief of the church at the time and how they believed that the bible said the sun goes around the earth, but still why would god not exist it that changed? The church asks if god got it wrong when he wrote the bible (leaving other fallacy aside), Galileo even suggests that man might have interpreted the bible wrong. Wouldn't the church find it easier to jump to that conclusion that accuse god of being wrong. Ultimately they don't accept that the earth revolves around that sun. But i found the portrayl of human belief against overwhelming odds absolutely fasinating. If i try to think about it from the otherside - that being that i believe that sun revolves around the earth. Galileo's belief in his own truth causes the same thing. everyone was against him and he still held his belief even after he renounced himself - or so the play believes.

well thats alot to think about. So i'll stop and go do homework now.

Shakespeare

I went to the Globe with my class today. The tour of the reconstruction also included a walk top the places were The Hope, The Swan and The Rose theatres once stood and the location of the original Globe. Its really cool understanding how much history each part of England has and how many times different plots of land have gone through changes of buildings and the general atmosphere of the area. Far a long time south of the river Thames so a bad neighborhood. Its not anymore.

I got he Harry Potter pictures up, so go back to my post from the 5th and see them. They're awesome.!!!!


This is the Hogwartz Express in the station at King's Cross. On the column farthest left in the pictture there is a black sign that says 9 3/4.

Classes started Monday. We were all picked up in front of the cluster of dorms at 10:15 and escorted off to the library. Its kind of cute how they do that to make sure we don’t get lost and we get there on time. At the library they gave us an introduction on how their shelving system works, because they use a system that is completely unique to them, which is rather interesting and I can assume confusing. They do however have a section of books that NYU donated to them for the NYU students in London. We aren’t allowed to take them, out but these are American textbooks that we couldn’t otherwise get in the UK. Then we were given a little tour of the library. It really is a very extensive library and I want to join just so I can go see all the ancient first hand texts that they have in the library. I also feel that architecturally the library is prefect. There are huge wooden book cases with glass doors and mezzanine levels in rooms, with little stairs leading up to them. This is how libraries are supposed to look ancient a studious. If I can I want to try writing my play in there. They have these huge wooden tables that fill all the reading rooms. And the building has that old-paper-must-quite-musty smell about it. I can imagine Tolkien sitting in one of the study rooms, in a pair of cotton gloves reading over an original text in an ancient language no one else speaks. (I think I want to try to take Gaelic or Welsh or Scottish while I’m here. That would be awesome).

After we left the library we were taken down to ICA for “Housekeeping”. Every Monday at 1, all the Tisch students meet and touch base with Mary Jane Walsh (the program director) to make sure we’re all healthy, our classes are doing well, we don’t have complaints about housing and so on. They’ll also make announcements and hand out theatre tickets as necessary. It’s like homeroom in high school. We’re even going to have reps from each department, but unlike high school, here they’ll get paid. I hope top get one of the paid positions with ICA, although its only £20 a week anything will help. I’d prefer to get a little job in a pub but the reality of that doesn’t look so good. Oh well.

So then I had my Theatre in London class with Mr. Roy Kendall. He is a sweet Englishman. His hair would have you believe that he has a bald spot on the crown of his head like a Franciscan monk, but he doesn’t. He’s been around a lot and appeared to know what he’s doing. It will be a really good discussion class and will force me to talk in class.

Then I had Shakespeare back at ICA, taught by Kate Beales, who told us is kind of an accident that she started teaching Shakespeare. But this isn’t her first time and she definitely knows what she’s talking about. She went around the circle and asked us what our experience with Shakespeare was and what we expected from the class. I was the second one to speak and I feel like I turned bright red, because my face got really hot and I didn’t sound very smart. But I’ll change that as the class progress. We were asked to pick a play we want to do a little presentation on and I branched out and picked Pericles – one I don’t know anything about, but I’ve now read the first 3 scenes and am very proud of myself for getting a jump on the assignment.
On Friday, all of Tisch is going to the Globe for a tour of that and the foundation of the Rose theatre and then back to the Globe for a performance of “Comedy of Errors”, as a groundling. The lucky thing being that its Shakespeare’s shortest play, so if I can’t take the standing it will be over quickly. Also I’ve never seen “Comedy of Errors” which will be good.

I don’t have any classes on Tuesday and am eagerly awaiting the start of my playwriting class, which I have again with Mr. Kendall. There are only 6 students in the class and only 3 of them are from NYU Tisch. One goes to Wellesley and another goes to a community college on the West Coast and I haven’t meet the other one yet, or don’t remember. Theresa (from NYU dramatic writing) and I were talking about the other kids in playwriting and wondered if they would live up to the standards we are expected, but mostly if they would give us the criticism we need. I guess I’ll see on Wednesday.

The First Few Days

I’ve been without internet all weekend and its kind of bothersome. So I’m finally posting something.
On Thursday and Friday I had orientation. Thursday orientation was with everyone who is studying with NYU –London. There are a lot of people and the weird thing is that there are freshmen here. They weren’t accepted to the Washington Sq campus until spring semester but they had the option of coming abroad. I find it puzzling.
On Friday I had my tisch orientation, which was much more exciting then the first one, although I do find being lectured at a little more pleasant here, because of everyone’s accent. At the tisch orientation I was given my schedule of classes, for the first half of the semester. I have a feeling my classes won’t change too much for the 2nd half, but the know the BBC people and the RADA people have massive changes. My schedule looks really good. I have most Fridays off, unless I have private meeting with my writing professor – Roy Kendall. I have yet to meet him. The fun thing about these little meeting is that the English call them “surgeries”. Over here the word has many more meanings then just cutting people open to fix them. Also during this orientation I was informed that I’ll be given a printer to borrow for the semester – yippee!!!! And paper and cartridges – double yippee!!!! I started doing a little dance in my seat, but stop when I realized I was in a full room and no one else appeared as elated as I was. I do admit I kept dancing on the inside. I’ll probably do a little dance again when they actually give it to me. They also gave us all our own “mini A to Zed’s” which has already been emensely helpful.
Afterwards, they – by “they” I mean Mary Jane Walsh and Sally (didn’t get her last name) – took us out to lunch at a Chinese dim sum restaurant. I normally don’t like Chinese and this place wasn’t entirely an exception. They did a pretty good job, but I did eat a fried thing that was slimy inside, but I didn’t want to find out what it was so I just swallowed quickly and tired to forget about it. The dishes they gave us however, where good choices, so I can’t complain about that. I did eat and I wasn’t hungry after – maybe a little grosses about by the slimy thing, but otherwise good.

Then in haphazard groups we all walked to ULU.

ULU is the University of London Student Union – I’m not sure if they actually use the word student in the title.

The normal NYU in London program was having an activities faire and selling books for classes.

I went to King’s Cross Station today, for tourist adventures. King’s Cross is where the portal to Harry Potter’s platform 9 ¾ is. I wanted a picture of the wall. So I enterde King's cross Station and walked across to platform nine. The Station had set up a little sign that says, "Platform 9 3/4" and put a luggage trolley half sticking out of the wall. It was cute. I got a picture of a german guy with shaggy brown hair pretending to puch the trolley through the wall. He kind of looks like Harry. so its cute.



I turned to leave and was walking back across platforms 7-1 to the exit and I noticed there were all these movie lights set up and one of the platforms was blocked off. So i looked around and all the security were wearing tags that said "HP5" and a bunch of other stuff. THEY WERE ACTUALLY FILMING HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX!!!! I just about fainted.
The Hogwartz Express was in the station.


The signs for platform 9 ¾ were up on the walls.


The platform was covered in big wooden trunks.


It was like a dream. Then I saw all the actors, Ron, Hermione, the Twins, Ginny and lastly Harry. I just about screamed. I also saw a bunch of stand-ins and I think the real Mrs. Weasley. I think I saw a few other actors who are new to #5 as they are members of the Order of the Phoenix. There was a girl with purple hair, so I think that was Tonks and then another older man, but I’m not sure who he was, part of me hopes he was Gary Oldman, but I don’t think Sirius is in that scene as a human. I think I also saw Chris Columbus, who directed the first 2 and is producing the rest of them. I really wanted to see JK Rowling, but she needs to be at home finishing the 7th book. So that has been the excitement of my life in London so far.

Pictures of the actors:
This is one of the older Wealsey brothers, but not Percy and not Bill. Its the other one.


This is an incrediable bad picture of Daniel Radcliff. He's outlined in yellow. I have a better one, but its part of a video, so play along with me.


This is Ron. I know its really bad, but I outlined him for you. The small blob is his hand and the big blob is his head.

Okay, so i don't have internet at my flat yet, so my posts are rather haphazard, due to the fact that i'm just writing stuff in word and when i have finally gotten to a computer, transfered the file online. I have a whole bunch more pictures of my flat and my classes and everything, but i forgot them because of the Harry Potter pictures.