The past few days have been filled with excitement and wonder. I was able to explore the London countryside with some friends and explore a very cool Zoomusement park (A mixed with an amusement park). We didn’t get to ride a lot of rides, but the one we did ride was decently fun, but it wasn’t worth the hour and fifteen minute line we had to wait in. All in all, I loved it because I got to look at a bunch of animals and annoy the shit out of my friends with all the false animal information I was spewing. I love animals, but I don’t know enough about them to be confident in anything I say. That doesn’t stop me from talking my ass off. The day before that we went to see Newsies down in Wimbledon, and that was an experience. I have never seen a more well-designed and well-danced show. The set was sooooooo fun, and it even had a zipline! The dancing was borderline Broadway level because goddamn, those kids could fucking boogie! Now here comes the bad news, the singing was not good. It wasn’t bad, but it sounded like a bunch of british children trying to do a new york accent based solely off the Godfather which they watched one time in class. Overall I’d give it a 7/10, good show with some flaws, but I had a great time.
Now today, Momma you’re gonna love this, we went to the Tate Modern Art Museum. Before I go too deep into this post, I want to say that I am not the biggest fan of modern art (other than Ren Ahuja’s art) so I was going in with a negative mindset. The exhibits did not change my mind on modern art, but there were a handful of pieces that affected me in some fashion. The first was this one piece that kinda looked like a Pink Floyd album. It just had a lot of color that looked and felt purposeful. It both engaged me and made me feel happy, which is exactly what I want from art. On the contrary, there was a piece that pissed me off. It was a receipt that had a list of items bought from a Co-op. All the items on the list were white, and as viewers we were supposed to “imagine how white the items were” and “what they would look like together.” What the fuck is that? Were they so lazy that they bought all the materials but didn’t feel like actually putting in any effort to make the art, so they just told us to pretend like they did?! It was art made by rich people, for rich people, so they could laugh at poor people for not getting it. I hated that thing so much.
I almost forgot, we saw a production of A Midsummer NIght’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. Although the theatre was not the most comfortable, I really did enjoy the show. The actors did amazing and were really easy to understand, and the design elements seemed very simple but still purposeful. Iat was a great show, but 2 and half hours is a long time to sit in a chair with no backrest.
Good first week, excited for what the future holds!
Theatre in London U of A 