Jumping with all (sore) body parts in...

Hey everyone! It's been a very eventful, jam-packed first week. Ian (the director of BADA) really wasn't kidding when he said there's really no easing into the semester.

So, last Sunday was our bus tour and orientation before starting classes. Whoever was supposed to be our guide never showed up, so the bus driver, Stevie became our surrogate tour guide. I don't know what the other guy was like, but Stevie was awesome and funny and just overall, a cool dude. Unfortunately, we only got off the bus once, so my pictures aren't very good of many of the sights since they came from a moving bus window. Definitely going to have to go back to some of the sites to take pictures. The one place we did get off though...

Just saying hi to William and Kate and Her Majesty, of course...

First week of classes: That 45 minute walk to BADA from our apartment building ain't no joke. Most of the first week was fine because it wasn't that cold, but it's been getting colder as of late and I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't take a nice warm taxi cab if I could. I guess I'm getting a lot of exercise.

The first week of classes went really well. It's really intense -- most of our days are 9am-6pm with only short breaks in between classes. Since we have the almost hour walk to BADA and back, you could say that a typical day is 6:30am to 7pm. Definitely going to take some getting used to.

But the quality of the classes are amazing. This semester I'm taking Acting Shakespeare, High Comedy, Movement, Theatre History, Stage Combat, Voice, Dramatic Criticism, and one-on-one acting sessions with the faculty. Hard to pick out a favorite class because they've all been great, but High Comedy is definitely towards the top of the list. For those of you who don't know, High Comedy refers to comedies written during the Restoration in England. Farce was the child of High Comedy, so think in that vein. Anyway, the professor for our class is this guy named Norman who looks like he may have lived during the Restoration and who I firmly believe will have us acting like snarky, vain, wealthy hypocrites in no time. Today, we learned how to walk in curves (because curves were totally in) by walking in zig-zag around a line of chairs without actually looking or touching the chairs. Easier said than done. Anytime anyone so much as brushed a chair, we would hear a very exasperated "Nooooooooooo!" After doing this exercise for a good 15 minutes, Norman sighed and said in what only can be described as "stiff upper lip" "I just don't understand why you are all so clumsy." Guess we've got some work to do.

One of the other amazing things about BADA is the fact we get see a London show just about every week. They make for very long days, as we often have to go straight from class to the theatre, but it's completely worth it. Last week we saw "The Magistrate" which is playing at the National Theatre starring John Lithgow (Lord Farquad in Shrek). The show was good, John was great, and the set absolutely blew my mind.

Sorry this post is kind of short with not many pictures, but it's around 2am here which is a little too close to 6:30 for my liking. So until next time!

Rookie Mistakes

#5 - Turns out pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way here. I was wondering why that stream of oncoming traffic just looked like it was really not going to stop.

#6 - When a native gives you directions, you should follow them.

#7 - Pulling an all-nighter turns out to be not any more fun in a foreign country. Bummer.

Rookie Mistake Counter: 7