Had my final day of classes today……No more Shakespeare with Lynn or Modern with John or Movement with Jackie….incredibly sad.  But tomorrow is Open Day when all of the groups present their pieces….So I’m ready to perform Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters….I think I really had a break through for both pieces today in our final rehearsal…I finally felt grounded in all 3 of my roles and didn’t feel like I was rushing over my words or being too sporadic.

So my debit card is actually never coming, but Kathy wired me over another $500 (which comes out to 300 pounds) for me to use when I’m in London for the next 3 days.  I plan on seeing Hair Monday night and either War Horse or La Bete on Tuesday…..I wanted to see a matinee and an evening show on Sunday but most theatres are dark on Sundays in London so there are about 6 shows playing (when normally there’s at least 30 on any given night)….And what is one of the shows, none other than Legally Blonde in the West End….maybe I’ll see it…..I really wanted to go see As You Like It at the Old Vic Theatre, everyone says its phenomenal, but it’s playing in rep with The Tempest and it’s not going up on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday…Maybe I’ll see the Tempest but I heard it’s not as good, and since AU is doing As You Like It, I would really like to have seen it here.  Oh well.

We had a surprise Masterclass/Q&A with Alan Rickman on Wednesday night.  I asked him about his feelings about having a 10 year project that is Harry Potter come to an end: Is he relieved to have it finally finished, sad, or is it just like any other production coming to the close and he instantly moved on to the next thing……He seemed to feel the most like the last option - but said how unique it was to see 3 acts grow up over the course of that 10 years.  He also spoke of how significantly the movies have changed….for the first couple they filmed on location in Oxford, but now absolutely everything is done on a patch of grass with green screens in the background…..He said he was filming a scene with Michael Gambon who plays Dumbledore once (who hasn’t read the books) and they were surrounded by screens and Michael Gambon asked “Am I dead in this scene?”  He is just starting rehearsals on a show with Fiona Shaw, who we met 2 weeks ago.

We had the final Masterclass with John Barton and watched him work on 5 speeches from Henry V with Jane Lapotaire….it was very interesting but very long….about 2.5 hours sitting on the floor of the JCR….it was really hot and my back was killing me by the end.

Also, last Friday was BADA’s annual Entertainment Evening - many people sang - there were a few skits - but me and Lyndsay whipped out the R&J Sassy Gay Friend skit…..It was quite a crowd pleaser.

Off to go buy some Oxford clothing, since I haven’t been able to yet.  Yay!

Currently sitting in Starbucks with Meg and Hannah at the start of the final week of BADA…..It’s so hard to not feel like its over, even though we still have 1/4th of the program to go….it felt over last week when we were only halfway through it.

We’re people watching from the second floor of Starbucks checking out the European flare passing up and down Cornmarket St below.  I can’t really name what it is, but there is such a definitive style to European clothing…..It has a lot to do with skinny sweaters, small horizontal stripes, and cut off jeans….and the hair just has to be as crazy as possible.

I stayed in Oxford yesterday, when a lot of people went into London….that would have been impossible without my Debit Card…no way I could borrow another 70 pounds in one day from people.  Hopefully, my card arrives tomorrow…please, please, please….If it doesn’t, I’m convinced Bank of America fucked up and I’m never getting it.

Anyway, a bunch of us went to the Ashmolean Museum yesterday in Oxford, then Meg and I took a nice walk along Christ Church Meadow and saw a lot of the other colleges….There was a wedding at Magdalen and the bells in the chapel were ringing for a straight half hour….we doubled back to go inside Christ Church and see the Great Hall (a decent way to spend July 31st - Harry Potter’s birthday) but by the time we got back it was closed…..I’ll have to head down there on Wednesday when I don’t have class…..I also want to get a haircut on Wednesday….I don’t know why but for some reason I really want to get a haircut in England.  But again, that will be hard if I don’t have any money by then!

We had a big picnic on the Balliol lawn for dinner and then a bunch of people went to see this random show in town, but I skipped out on it and hung out with Seamus.  We crossed over the Magdalen St. Bridge to a part of Oxford that I hadn’t been to yet.  Went inside the Cape of Good Hope pub….it was all right, but a very weird place.  There’s a lot of pubs over on that side of Oxford that I won’t have time to go visit - my coloring poster of pubs will be very incomplete when I leave….I’ll just have to come back to finish it…..Then we walked around a bit and ended up at the Jolly Farmer & Castle - a couple of gay pubs (that sounds weird), we had a good time just hanging out with a couple of guys we met.

We have our final Q&A with Deborah Warner today - a director for the RSC.  I also had my final masterclass with John Barton this past Thursday - it was definitely the most beneficial of all of them….at the end, he had the 9 of us in the workshop sit down on the floor and deliver our sonnets to each other like we were sharing stories late at night at a party….It really helped us make the words our own and feel way more comfortable with the language.  Rehearsals for Cherry Orchard/Three Sisters are finally having an effect now that we are all off book and using props.  Its been hard to get through both of the shows thought because half of Kane has fallen sick for some reason or another…actually, a lot of BADA is sick….luckily I have avoided the plague…*knock on wood*……I always get out of Shakespeare class early because Lynn uses the classroom time to coach individual scenes, and Deanna and I are way ahead of the game with our Taming of the Shrew scene.

I had Madeline Potter for Audition Techniques yesterday and she is simply wonderful.  A lot of my friends in the Chekhov group have her for Modern and they’re working on this play called “Absolute Hell”….anyway, she is simply phenomenal and sooo much better than Linda Gates was.

Time to go spend my final 1 pound and 10 pence and borrow more money from people for lunch…..urgh

So the money crisis has temporarily been averted…..I went to Barclays yesterday afternoon to get a temporary card, and they looked at me like I had 3 heads…..They said they couldn’t help me and they couldn’t even give me any cash out of my account…..I was kinda horrified at this point….So I headed to Movement in the Aldates building, but my class wasn’t there, so I figured I misread the schedule and headed to the University Club, which is in the complete opposite direction from Balliol….So I was going to be 15 minutes late, but I really didn’t care given my financial disaster….But then I got to the UC and no one was there either….So I figured class must be in the Sheldonian which is right across the street from Balliol…..So I took the 10 minute walk back to the Sheldonian and sure enough class was there.  We spent the day talking about all the different drama schools available and learned a lot about Jackie (our teacher) as a performer and instructor….She’s taught Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellan, and tons of other names to pass through BADA & RADA…..then we spent the rest of the day doing traditional English dancing.  Kinda like what we did at the end of Tartuffe.

After Movement I went to the BADA office to see if they could help me with money, and they let me use the phone to call Bank of America….the woman I spoke to was incredibly helpful and is expressing me a new Debit Card which should arrive either tomorrow or Thursday.  In the meantime, BADA gave me a loan of 40 pounds to get me through the next couple days….Then I can pay back the 120 pounds I owe to friends and BADA for all my weekend/London expenses & meals.

I’ve come pretty far in my Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters rehearsals….still not quite off book for Andrey but that will happen by Thursday.  My Taming of the Shrew scene with Deanna is phenomenal…She is such a great actress, she gives me so much to play off of….I’ve never had such fun with word play before.

In Movement today we ended up just playing Mafia again…but I was killed first in 2 of 3 games….rude.

I have 2 tutorials (one on one coachings) tomorrow….one with my Modern teacher John Gorrie and one with my new voice teacher John Tucker (my old voice teacher Andrew Wade was only here for the first 2 weeks)….I’m not too sure what I will do for either, hopefully I will try to get my Sweet Bird of Youth monologue under my belt tonight so I can work on that……But I also want to start working on a hilarious speech by Launce in Two Gentlemen of Verona and a really dramatic one from Claudio in Measure for Measure…..so much to do and only a week and a half of classes left! No!!!!!!

This Friday was the annual BADA River Party.  Everyone took the 20 minute walk from Balliol to the Oxford Boat House just north of campus.  It was a very lovely evening.  We were allowed to rent out punts (kinda the combination of a canoe and gondola) and cruise along the river.  Then they provided dinner and drinks for us all and the evening culminated in a big dance party by the river.  Everyone dressed and up and looked very nice, and I ate waaaay too much food.  That’s another thing: I was expecting to come to England, hate the food, and lose a little weight, but exactly the opposite happened.  I love everything they feed us here.  And they feed us a lot.  We get 3 meals a day in Hall during the week, and have to provide our own meals on weekends, but lunch and dinner are always great.  Another thing about Oxford/Balliol - it’s like they are in 2 separate worlds.  When you’re inside the walls of Balliol it feels incredibly private, quiet, and studious, but the moment you walk out the giant, wooden door-within-a-door at the front entrance, you are immediately transported into busy Oxford.  I swear, the temperature goes up 10 degrees, the noise level jumps incredibly, and you are just hit by this rush of business and tourists.  Having a bedroom on the first floor with a window right on Broad St, I get a taste of noisy tourists every night when I’m trying to go to bed, but I can sleep through anything.  I would shut the window, but it’s too hot in the room to not have it open.

Anyway, after the River Party we went out for a few more drinks and dancing, and ended up crashing at around 3am, with plans to go up to London in the morning.

Now, I wish I could say my first day in London was incredible, but it was actually pretty disastrous.  We left Balliol at 8am and when I tried to use the ATM to get out enough money for the day, it rejected my card.  I figured it was just the ATM and decided I would just get money when we got into the city.  We walked 5 minutes over to the bus station (where I was first dropped off from the airport) and bought our roundtrip bus tickets to London for 13 pounds.  However, when I tried to use my debit card to pay for my bus ticket, it was rejected once again.  I thought it was probably just a fluke, so Pamela payed for my ticket and I said I would pay her back that day.  I slept pretty much the whole busride and when we got to London we jumped off the bus and got a one-day pass for the Tube.  And once again, my debit card was rejected by the machine.  By now, I figured something was really effed up.  So Hannah helped me pay for the Tube card.  Once we got off the subway, I took out my card and tried to call the “Calling from out of the country” number on the back….but the machine it took me too was not helpful and started asking me about taxes and house leases.  So I hung up after blowing 5 pounds of my pay-as-you-go phone on this pointless phone call.  (And I just topped up for 20 pounds on Thursday night, and I was hoping that would last me the rest of my trip.)  So I decided to look for a Barclays bank to talk to a teller.  We crossed the footbridge over the Thames and looked out at Parliament and Big Ben.  We stopped first at the National Gallery of Art and spent about an hour in that museum, hanging out with DaVinci.  

Then we headed up towards the West End.  We passed a Barclays, but of course, it was closed.  So I took a pound and headed over to an internet cafe I saw, so I could check my bank statement online while everyone went ahead to Leicester Square.  I spent a good 45 minutes online talking to this Bank of America associate online.  Everything was perfectly all right on my bank statement, there were no odd purchases and my balance was what it should have been, so I was very confused as to why my card was not working.  The guy online told me my card had a block put on it and gave me a number to call to get the block removed.  He also said that I never informed Bank of America that I would be using my card internationally, which is total bullshit, because I made that phone call weeks before I left the country and told them the exact dates I would be gone.  Anyway, he gave me the number, and I called it from my little pay-as-you-go phone.  The women on the line told me that my account was stopped after a bizarre $92 fee was charged (which is about 60 pounds) - which is the amount of money that I usually take out of the ATM.  So I told her this was a normal purchase and that I took out $92 on the 16th of July, but she said this purchase was from the 24th.  And I definitely didn’t make that purchase, so they were very right to put a stop on my account.  But the women told me that my card had definitely been tampered with so they had to send me a new card, and that would take 7-10 days.  Obviously, that wasn’t going to fly with me being in England and everything.  But she said I could go to a Barclays on Monday and get a temporary card, which is what I will have to do.  Oh, but it gets worse……as I was on the phone with her, she told me if I go to an ATM she will unblock my account for 2 minutes so I can withdraw enough money for the weekend.  So I quickly signed out of the Internet Cafe and went to the ATM just outside, by this time I had been on the phone with this women for 14 minutes and I got to the ATM and put my card in just as my fucking phone died.  I used up all my minutes talking to this women (the minutes that I just added 3 days ago and was hoping would last me till the end of BADA.)  And since the woman had not unblocked my account before the call dropped, the ATM ate my card because it recognized a fraud, blocked card.  So basically…..it was noon, I was in London alone, with no debit card, and no phone.  Luckily, while I was talking to the woman, Hannah texted me that she and everyone were at the restaurant Rendezvous in Leicester Square, which was right around the corner from where the ATM was.  And I could still read her text because she had already sent it to me.  So I met up with them and recounted my whole trauma story for them.  They bought me some pizza for lunch and we headed over to the British Museum - where we saw the Rosetta Stone and very cool Grecian reconstructions.

We then went over to Buckingham Palace, or The Buck, as I dubbed it.  The coolest part of The Buck was the gates outside the palace.  Every time I thought I had found the coolest gates ever, cooler gates kept appearing!

We headed back across the river and ate dinner at Strada….a nice restaurant right on the water and by the National Theatre.  After dinner, we got 10 pound tickets for a show called “The Habit of Art” at the National.  I really enjoyed the show….it was like a less farcical, more serious Noises Off.  A rehearsal of a play within a play about WH Auden’s life.  In order to evoke a real rehearsal, there were a couple actors onstage playing “Techies” who didn’t say or do anything but sit there.  The “rehearsal pianist” was even a character in the show who never spoke, just played the piano occasionally.  The woman playing the Stage Manager was phenomenal as were the guys playing Auden, Benjamin Britain, and Stewart (a Rent Boy.)  It was very funny every time they had to stop rehearsals to yell at the playwright for issues they had with his script.  And since 2 actors were missing from rehearsal that day, the Stage Manager and Asst. Stage Manager read their parts.

Today is Sunday, and I need to finish memorizing Cherry Orchard tonight.  We have another Q&A this afternoon, but I do not remember who it is with.  Let’s hope I can make it through the day with no phone and cash.

I forgot my camera in my room, but I’ll upload photos from this weekend in a couple days.

This week was much more tiring than Week 1 and flew by.  First of all, the Q&A with Gregory Hicks & Kelly Hunter (the 2 lead actors from The Winter’s Tale which we all saw in Stratford on Saturday - which you can see pictures of here (https://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/winters-tale/production-photos.aspx) or on my Facebook to better understand my description of the set) was awesome.  Way better than our first Q&A with Brian Cox.  I definitely have a much better appreciation for the show itself and the production that we saw after discussing it with them.  I can’t believe that Gregory Hicks will bounce back and forth between playing Leontes in Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar in Julius Caesar, and Lear in King Lear throughout the week, sometimes in the same day…..and Kelly Hunter also doubles the roles of Hermione in Winter’s Tale and Goneril in King Lear.  And both of them will be traveling with the production when it goes to New York next summer - maybe I will check it out again.

Modern class is tough - Chekhov is effing hard to act, but I’m learning a lot….I will definitely be much better off when Three Sister’s rehearsals start in a month had I not been studying Chekhov at BADA…..speaking of that, I have a good 2.5 acts to memorize by Monday.

At BADA, some people have a “Physical” class and others have a “Movement” class (it just depends on what the faculty members strength is, or how they classify their style of work.  Anyway, I am in Movement and I enjoy it a lot - today we went through various exercises where we had to be earth and air and then apply those physical traits to characters….we were water earlier in the week and we will get to be fire next week…..but then class ended with a good 1 hour game of Mafia….my absolute favorite - not too sure what it has to be with “movement” but I’m not complaining….in the 3rd and final game, I was the Mafia and I won!  I made it to the final 4 with Colleen, Tamar, and Michelle and was able to convince everyone to kill off Colleen and then I killed Tamar - making me victorious with Michelle the loan survivor (I had to save Michelle because she was defending me and thought I was innocent the whole time.)

Shakespeare is definitely my favorite class - my teacher, Lynn, is totally the type of actor that I connect with (less so with my Modern teacher, John Gorrie) but she has an incredible insight and energy that I just feed off of.  My Iago monologue is great and she has given me a comedic monologue by “Ford” from “Merchant of Venice.”  I am also working with a girl in my class, Deanna, on the wooing scene from “Taming of the Shrew.”  We are hoping to add a lot of physical comedy to the scene.

My voice teacher, Andrew Wade, who I adore is only here for the first 2 weeks of BADA, so we are getting a new teacher on Monday, but I will miss Andrew dearly.  I learned so much about language from him, and so many of his exercises brought me back to the days of Voice & Speech and Linklater.

I have audition techniques for the 2nd time tomorrow and Linda Gates wants to see our Shakespeare pieces……I’m deciding if I want to show her Benedick or Iago, but Lynn suggested that I go with Benedick cause Linda will probably say I am too young for Iago….even though Benedick is in his 30s…..I will probably do Benedick (which I worked on with Lynn in my tutorial yesterday, so I have a lot more faith in the piece now.)  And I’m still learning my new contemporary monologue from “Sweet Bird of Youth”…and I’ve pretty much dumped my “Suburbia” monologue after talking it through with Lynn and deciding its not a very well written piece and doesn’t suit me very well.

We had our Masterclass with Fiona Shaw yesterday, and she was absolutely brilliant.  You know, Fiona Shaw….Mrs. Dursley from the Harry Potter films….Hedda Gabler….Medea….incredible Shakespearean actress…….Anyway, she is simply hysterical - I couldn’t believe how funny she was…..She worked on a mixture of contemporary pieces, Shakespearean pieces, monologues, and dualogues. We saw Corey, and NYU grad student who is at BADA, do Coriolanus….the Harper & Joe scene from Angels in America from Jo & Seamus (a Julliard and Yale grad student, respectively)……a Lady Anne monologue from Samantha (who is in my group and goes to Northwestern)….and a Ms. Roj monologue from Colored Museum (a hilarious play that I read in Comedy Styles this year)…..for each scene she brought extras up onstage to give the people doing the monologues someone to play off of……I played a transvestite during Patrick’s Ms. Roj monologue which ended up with him slapping me in the face….it sounds weird, but it was absolutely hilarious, and he made such strides with the piece.

Today was my 2nd of 4 workshops with John Barton…and I definitely got a lot more out of it this week than I did last week…….I really liked the way my sonnet turned out and I think I made a good impression on the faculty and students that were observing the workshop.

Tomorrow is the annual BADA River Party with punting on the river and an open bar, so that will be a lovely evening. And then on Saturday most of us are heading into London - taking a 8am bus there in the morning and hanging out all day….very exciting - I definitely want to see a show…..To quote Hannah:  ”Here’s the plan: 8am bus, then we fucking blitzkrieg London”

Yesterday we went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the day to experience the life and times of William Shakespeare.  Had a traditional English meal at the “The Rose & Crown” pub and took the tour of Shakespeare’s birthplace and home.  I may have accidentally let some gas slip in Shakespeare’s bedroom >.<  After the tour we watched a 4 person troupe do a ton of scenes.  It was Shakespeare On Demand.  We called out Taming of the Shrew, Benedick, Midsummer, Hamlet, a history and they could do any scene on the spot.  They were incredible and really appreciated having an engaging crowd - rather than the usual asian tourists who couldn’t speak English and didn’t know any Shakespeare.  We stayed for a good 45 minutes to watch when most people stay for a scene or two.

Then we continued on to the Shakespeare bookshop.  To quote Hannah, “We’re doing a bookend tour.  Started with birth, now we’re getting some life, and now we heading over to death.” Where we continued onto the Holy Trinity church where Shakespeare is buried.  We started walking along the River Avon towards the church and after about 20 minutes realized we were on the wrong side of the river from the church, so the 7 of us had to double back and take the ferry across the river for 50 pence.  It was all very amusing.  The river was beautiful.  We finally got to the church just as it was closing - thank god - because it is breathtaking inside.  The stained glass alone is incredible, then there’s the architecture itself and and graves.  

We went to the Black Swan for dinner - a pub right next to the Courtyard Theatre wher we saw The Winter’s Tale.  The theatre itself was stunning - a thrust stage with these 2 towering bookcases at the back of the playing space.  Every book on the shelves was absolutely real, as we found out when the bookcases toppled over in the middle of Act 1 after the trial scene when Hermione dies, and hundreds of books went flying across the stage.  It was an incredible spectacle.  The books laid there in piles in front of the destroyed bookshelves for the rest of the play.  And to symbolize the cold, desolation of Leontes, loose pages of books represented snow and were constantly flying across the stage in gusts of wind.  It was quite cool.  And the bear that comes out was a giant puppet made out of pages!  And after intermission when the play jumped forward 15 years and moved to the forest, there were these beautiful trees that had red, yellow, and green pages on them to represent the leaves of the tree.  The show was incredible visually - but I wasn’t in love with it for the play itself.  It took me a while to warm up to Leontes - he was great at the end of Act 1 and Act 2 - but I didn’t care for him at the beginning.  Hermione was great.  The daughter was okay, but I really liked her lover.  I think my biggest problems are with the play itself - I definitely see why it’s a “problem play.”  It couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a comedy or tragedy….all of Act 1 was dramatic then the first half of Act 2 was like “As You Like It” with fools, tribal dancing, and a much brighter, lighter tone.  But the second half of Act 2 brought the show back into desolate depression - but while Leontes is mourning the “death” of his wife the character of Paulina keeps delivering these funny side comments.  It just kept juggling between tragedy and comedy and I couldn’t find a good through-line for the show.  Most of the kids at BADA keep saying how beyond incredible it was - I enjoyed it - but it definitely wasn’t life changing - only technically was it phenomenal….in my opinion.

We are having a Q&A with the two main actors from the production today. Greg Hicks as Leontes and Kelly Hunter as Hermione (both of whom I thoroughly enjoyed, after I warmed up to Leontes) - so I should get a little more insight into the show as a whole.

Finished with week 1.  It encompassed an incredible Masterclass from Julian Glover on Julius Caesar on the Quad.  It was about mob mentality as Brutus and Antony sway the crowd in different directions after Caesar’s death, and it ended up with 106 people running/screaming across the quad and beating the shit out of the smallest girl at BADA playing Cinna the Poet.  It was awesome.

I had the first of four Masterclasses with John Barton and we worked on my sonnet.  Now I have to learn a new one for next Thursday.  In my Modern class we are doing all of Act 3 of Three Sisters - I’m playing Chebutykin and Andrey; and I’m playing Lopahkin in Act 1 and half of Act 2 of The Cherry Orchard.  On top of my Iago monologue and new sonnet, there is soooo much memorizing to do.  I’m also in the process of searching for new contemporary pieces.  I had Audition Techniques today and the tutor liked my Miss Julie monologue but said I played it too American, which is very true.  She liked it but said I shouldn’t use it as my primary piece - very valid.  She recommended Chance Wayne from Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth” but I looked it up at Blackwell’s (the bookstore) and the character is way too old for me.  But I found a great monologue for another character that I really liked so I will probably look back into that.

My favorite class is definitely Shakespeare - I am in love with my tutor - We’ve been doing mini-scenes in class and group monologue work.  There is an incredible speech by Caliban from “The Tempest” which I am obsessed with and may use that to replace my usual Benedick monologue, which I’m not sure I’ve ever been doing correctly.

We are going to Startford upon Avon tomorrow to see the RSC’s production of “The Winter’s Tale”….We’ll have all day in Startford before seeing the evening performance.  Then I think I’m heading into London next Saturday with a group to sightsee, see a show, and check out the nightlife.

I just started getting sick which is annoying - my throat is really hurting me today and I’m stuffed up - which is funny cause I’ve been in perfect health since I got here.

Also, my friends here have discovered my blog so I can’t trash talk them……but I’m watching you Hannah

BADA updates…….

We were all placed into one of 7 groups for classes.  Each group has about 14 or 15 people in it and is named after a playwright (Chekhov, Ibsen, Pinter, Wilde, etc)….I am in the Kane group (i.e. Sarah Kane - 4.48 Psychosis, Skin, Crave, etc)  Oddly, the name of our group does not reflect the type of work we will be doing.  I am in Kane and we are doing Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters in my Modern class (and since I’m doing Three Sisters in the Fall I might be a little Chekhov-ed out, but this will be really good preparation for the show at AU.)  I’m playing Andrey in Act 3 of Three Sisters and Lopakhin in Act 1 & 2 of Cherry Orchard.

I love my Shakespeare class, and I just got assigned an Iago monologue from Othello.  Very exciting.  And my Voice teacher is phenomenal - we do a lot of awesome workshopping with language and verse.  Heading to my second movement class right now.

Also, I was one of only NINE students (out of 107) to be randomly selected to participate in a Masterclass with John Barton (who is known as the best teacher of Shakespeare in the world).  I need to learn a new sonnet for it.

Gotta run to class now….more to come!

I eat dinner in THE Great Hall……Oxford is like Harvard Square with the business of NYC….its incredible and sooooooo beautiful…..so many pubs and so many great restaurants. I’m in love with cider…..Also, my bedroom is HUGE (although I think I am one of very few with this luxury)..I’m supposedly in a “third year” room” with my own couch, armchair, coffee table, dresser and huge oak table in addition to the typical bed, desk, wardrobe, dresser. Some people are sleeping in closets with beds and dressers…..They are called “Staircases” rather than dorms. So I live in “Staircase 3”….which is a 4 floor sprial staircase with about 4 rooms per floor and I’m on the ground floor with my window looking out onto Broad St. of Oxford (rather than having my window face in towards the gardens.  But people live in Staircases 1-20…so we’re all really dispersed but everything’s so close at the same time.  And every room is sooo different.  Meg has 2 rooms (in Staircase 3 with me)!  1 with her bed and dresser, and another down the hall with her desk and shelves.  Mike Kelly is in a regular room in Staircase 15 where a lot of students reside.

There is one girl here, Caitlin, who is a year round student at Balliol but is also doing the BADA program, so she has been great in taking us around and showing us the area and places to eat and drink.

I had my placement audition yesterday where we all had to redo our Shakespearean monologues, and it went really well. I find out what group I’m in this afternoon. Classes start tomorrow and one of my masterclasses is going to be with Fiona Shaw!

And pounds are way more fun than dollars.  I like having different sized, colorful bills and coins for 1 and 2 pounds.

My hostel on the first night was very funky - reminded me of the Hot L Baltimore with a misfit bunch of characters passing through life…but instead of prostitutes there were vegan hipsters with cut-off jean shorts and 7 year old flip flops.

The flight over was decent….tried desperately to sleep but got MAYBE 2 hours….I am all caught up now though.

No WiFi in my dorm, but there are internet cafes all over Oxford, you have to pay for most of them (1 pound an hour usually) but my friend Casey and I found that you can get a Starbucks giftcard for 5 pounds and sign up for unlimited Free WiFi in any Starbucks in the UK….and Starbucks is right down the street so that is very convenient.

I’ve spent a lot of money in these first three days, but I feel that it was all stuff that I NEEDED to buy in order to get settled in, and once they start providing meals for us tomorrow my finances will be much more balanced.  I got a pay as you go phone for a grand total of 30 pounds, so hopefully that will last me the month and I won’t need to add more money to it.

It is also incredibly awkward introducing myself as “Mike Litchfield or just Litch”…but the nickname is catching on. 

***Sorry these thoughts are so random, just writing them as I think of them…No order at all.