I could get used to this.

I have been here for almost two weeks now, but it feels like much much longer!  That is a good thing though because 8 weeks really isn't that long, so if everything feels longer than it is maybe I won't feel so sad when I have to leave. I need to tell you some things that have happened since I last wrote.  I will list them off and then elaborate. I have: Toured the National Theater, Seen Wicked, Toured the Globe and Rose Theaters and seen their adjacent museums, eaten at a restaurant named Wagamamas, read Hamlet, written three large papers, done a load of laundry by hand in our bathtub, gotten lost in a ghetto, taught a Sunday School class with three wiggly little boys (one of which peed his pants badly during class), attended a fireside about WWII and London, and explored some thrift/vintage shops with Ellen.  Yeah.  I'm really that busy. Sometimes, while I am riding the tube I just stare out the windows into the underground blackness and wonder how more has happened to me in the past week and a half than I ever thought was humanly possible.  Every experience is valuable and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but often I fall into bed at the end of the day completely exhausted. 

So to touch just a little bit more on some of the significant things that have happened lately, Wicked was like pouring liquid cocaine into my brain.  I have never abused any illegal substances or gotten "high" but I would imagine that it feels like how I felt immediately after watching that show.  The music was amazing, the acting was superb, the writing was fantastic, the spectacle incredible and the plot touching.  In other words it was A MASSIVE WINNER!!!  There is a reason that it has blown up in every professional theater around, and that is because it is the perfect storm of excellence.  

Moving on, I would just like to say that the tour of the Globe was very educational and interesting. They rebuilt it exactly as it would have been, right down to using wooden pegs instead of nails, and using animal hair in the plaster, cashmere to be precise.  This is very cool, but it makes me wonder a little about the structural integrity of the building. Haha.  The "tour" of the Rose theater, or what is left of it, on the other hand was weird, and I felt a bit of a waste of time.  Yes it was one of the rivals to the Globe, and yes Shakespeare produced his first two plays there, but it isn't even a theater.  It is the stone foundations that are buried beneath a layer of sand and then concrete and flooded with water to preserve them.  You can't even see anything! So that was weird and disappointing. But the tour of the National Theater was very satisfactory. Built in the 1970's and championed by Laurence Olivier it is one of the most practical, useful, yet comfortable theater spaces I have ever been in.  It is huge first of all, and the architect talked to actors, directors, audience members, and members of backstage crews to see what was most needed and most desired in theaters, then he visited Greece to view the theaters there, and he combined all of the best elements of existing theaters and that is the National Theater.  Pretty impressive.

Next.  I have decided that my motto when it comes to reading all these Shakespeare plays within such a short amount of time is "skim to survive."  I cling to that for my very life.  

Today was our first day in our assigned wards and I am in the White Chapel ward, which takes about an hour to get to. We ride one line on the tube, and then transfer to another line and ride until the end of it and then we walk for about ten minutes and there we are.  My ward is predominantly African, with people from Nigeria and Ghana mainly, and the cutest little kids ever.  The little boys in my primary class today were named Sames, Ceaser, and Efa, and WOW were they active!  The primary president was at her wit's end when we got there, lots of her teachers just didn't show up I guess so we got to jump right in with both feet.  There are only about 10 kids in the whole primary and I can tell there hasn't been a lot of consistency for them, but then again about 80% of the people in the ward are recent converts and it is very transitional.  They were very friendly and welcoming and I think we will be able to be of service to them. 

I am not going to skip any more days of writing on here so I won't have to play this catch up game anymore haha... it just is too hard to remember things from two days ago! Seriously though, every day seems like a week! In a good way. :)