When You’re Tired of London, You’re Tired of Life {days 34, 36, 37}

~Day 34~
Today Sam K, Rae and I were looking for something new to do while Sam H was gone for the day. We skimmed through the magazine Time Out, which is a fantastic weekly publication that you can pick up for free and has all sorts of interesting things going on in London that week. We happened to find an article about the Great River Race–a boat race of 21.6 miles along the Thames. It takes about 3 hours to complete. so we headed to the finish line in Richmond to await the boats. There were food booths from countries all over Europe and various activities to do. Perhaps the most exciting part was the cannon–every time a boat crossed the finish line, actors dressed in period clothing fired a cannon and a musket in celebration.

       

It was a random things that ended up being a lot of fun. It’s one of the perks of living in London, rather than just vacationing for a week–having time to go to other events beyond the “major must-see” sights. The race was great fun, but more than that Richmond is a beautiful area. We plan to return to ride bikes or kayak along the Thames at some point later in the semester.

       

~Day 36~
For our theatre appreciation class today we had the opportunity to go on a backstage tour of the Royal Opera House. It was a great privilege and an amazing experience. The ROH is a repertoire theater, meaning that they don’t have shows that run for weeks on end in the theater, like in West End or Broadway. Every night is a new opera or ballet, and it cycles through for a period of time. This is because operas and ballets simply require more effort and the performers can’t do a show every single night. To accommodate this, the backstage crew has an extremely intense schedule of setting up and taking down sets.The day begins at 7am with a blank stage. The crew puts up one set for a morning rehearsal. By afternoon, the rehearsal is over and the set is completely taken down. This is quickly followed by putting up the set for that night’s show, which is taken down after the night’s performance, leaving the stage blank so it can start all over again the next morning.

Looking down at the stage, bustling with activity while taking down the set from the morning rehearsal

The various flies and backgrounds that drop in during a show

The way they accomplish this craziness is by building the sets to be stored on what they call “wagons,” which are sections of stage that can move around like a sliding puzzle. The sets can then be easily and quickly moved on and off stage. In addition to the stage, we got to see the props room and costume areas, as well as the actual front of stage theater house, which was beautiful.

The fiber glass workshop in the props room

Moving a set piece, a bridge, off the stage

~Day 37~
Today was one of my favorite things we’ve done in London. At the Old Truman Brewery off Brick Lane in East London is an exhibit called “The Art of the Brick.” It’s an exhibit of about 85 sculptures by Nathan Sawaya all made out of Legos. We expected it to be impressive, but it ended up being incredible. Not only was the talent and skill used to make them amazing, but so many of the sculptures were truly moving and emotional. We were so glad we went and highly recommend it to anybody who has the chance to go.

       

The sculpture above is called My Boy., depicting a parent holding a child who has passed away. It was one of my favorite sculptures, simply because I never expected a children’s toy to convey such emotion and depth. The way the face captures such an expression of agony was so incredible and moving.

       

We’ve been in London for about six weeks now. It’s starting to feel less like we’re just tourists, and more like we’re actual Londoners, which allows us to explore more and more of the city. Finding hidden gems like these continue to remind us that there is so much to do in this city, and bring to life Samuel Johnson’s words “When one is tired of London, one is tired of life.”