London Photos

The following photos are from my trip to London on Nov 21st.

Random Statue
HMS Belfast
London Bridge
Barbican Centre
London Jazz Festival
Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath, and Bradley James
Group Signing
Bradley James and me
Southwark Playhouse

Some Notes

I have seen two plays since I last wrote here: T:24's production of Women Laughing at the Gulbenkian and The Tartuffe at Southwark Playhouse in London. The former was a good student production - nothing outstanding but not bad either. The latter was a great show that I happened to go to on a whim and am really glad that I did. I also saw a presentation about the television series Merlin at the Barbican Centre that same day (photos to come later). Overall it was a pretty awesome day trip to London, during which I only got mildly soaked by the afternoon rain (even if I had taken my umbrella it wouldn't have helped in that wind).

The novel for NaNoWriMo is coming along, but I'm quite a bit behind. Only a few more days left so I better start pumping out those words. We had a write-in yesterday, which basically means we all go to someone's house for about six hours and write as much as we possibly can. It was good fun and quite productive too.

I finally booked my next trip - I'll be heading around southern England and a bit of Wales. That's not for another two weeks though.

It seems like I'll be going home all too soon. Didn't I just get here?

A Few Things

I've been back for a little over a week now so you might be wondering what I've been up to (or not, but I'm going to talk about it anyway).

Theatre! I saw Time for the Good Looking Boy at the Gulbenkian Theatre on campus. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I think it achieves what it aims to accomplish. It is definitely a show that is aimed at 14/15 year-olds (although it's advertised as 14+) and the audience full of school children seemed to respond well to it. I don't think I've ever been to a performance where there is cheering as the lights go down...before the performance.

This week I will be attending T:24's production of Women Laughing, also at the Gulbenkian. T:24 is the drama society at the University of Kent.

Archery! I am still doing archery (although it was cancelled this past Wednesday due to rain). I went today and there were very few people out there because of the cold. I'm not complaining - that means I don't have to queue to use a bow! On the other hand, until today I never realized exactly which muscles I was using...shooting constantly will show you pretty quickly.

NaNoWriMo! I have opted to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the fourth time. I've met with a group of lovely people at the local coffee shop for writing sessions (which sometimes admittedly turn into general goofing off). I'm at about 15k/25k words (25k is where you should be on the 15th of November, aka the middle of the month). It's still feasible to catchup, but perhaps I should start counting my blog posts in my word count...

Classes? Yup! And of course I am still going to classes, even if it doesn't seem like it according to this blog.

A Little Photo Crazy

Welcome to Edinburgh!

I couldn't narrow down which photos to post here, so the following is a list of links to the unedited versions (unedited because there are so many!). I've attempted to order them geographically instead of chronologically, so if you see a large jump in the picture number that means I probably visited the place more than once.

Five days, four nights, and this is all I packed (clothes, toiletries/essentials, and snacks for the train):
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A few shots from the train window:
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Random shots around town:
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(retakes because it was sunny the day I left)
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They were shooting a promo for the upcoming production of Zorro:
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The heart - walk around it because it's good luck to spit on it.
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Statue of Hume - apparently good luck to rub his big toe.
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Writers' Museum:
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High-tech security of the day = a trick step. Robbers in the dark wouldn't know which one to jump so they would trip, generally creating a lot of noise and making your job of throwing them back out on the street that much easier.
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Castle!
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(sunny the day I left of course)
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Graveyard - school in the background was the inspiration for Hogwarts in Harry Potter. Apparently there are also tombstones from which J.K. took character names.
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The legendary dog that returned to its master's grave every day for several years:
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Princes Street Gardens (some with a view of the castle and other buildings):
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National Gallery (and the view from the terrace):
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Another graveyard:
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Calton Hill:
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Scott Memorial:
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Cathedrals (I visited St. Mary's, St. John's, and St. Giles...now it's hard to tell which photos are from which, although they should be in the order I just mentioned.):
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On the way to Arthur's Seat, including Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace:
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I tried Haggis! Why? Why not?
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Waiting for the train so I can head home:
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Overall an awesome adventure and one I'm very glad I took!

Mini-Post

I apologize for the lack of recent posts. From last Tuesday until Saturday I was in Edinburgh (and having the time of my life!). Eventually I'll get the photos off the camera and post them here.