No more classes!?

Oh my gosh!!! I am done with classes! WHOA. Today we gave all of our teachers presents and James Bundy (my modern teacher) got teary-eyed and said we were the only group who had ever given him a present. We made him a t-shirt that said "how did that feel?" (he always says that after a scene) and on the back it said "off you go" (which is always what he says before you start a scene). I will REALLY miss him. He is by far the best acting teacher I have ever had and we all became very close to him.

To celebrate the end of classes today, my acting group (we are called Lorca) went and played an awesome game of laser tag at a local game place. We also rode one of those mechanical bulls...so fun. Tomorrow is open day when parents and friends come to watch us in our classes. I am playing Cassius in a scene from Julius Caesar and Olga in a scene from Chekov's Three Sisters. I can't believe it is already open day! AH! I am sad, but SO excited to go home at the same time. Only a few more meals of fish pie and cabbage.

Time to head back to school and get ready for all the celebrating! Miss you! Oh, and Dad, that parrot article was hilarious!

Monday

The talent show was hilarious! Everyone was so entertaining....no kidding(!), I guess we ARE at an acting school. After the show, we all went out to a dance club and chilled with some British folk--fun fun fun. British people think that Americans are bad dancers and Americans think the same about them, so it is kind of funny to see them interact at clubs.

I can't believe I am coming home so soon! I can't figure out how to read my plane ticket though, so I am going to go to the nearest STA and figure it out. OH, I learned some new funny English phrases! My teacher once said that someone's performance was "the bee's knees" (meaning good) and she told another student to "put some welly" into her performance (meaning gusto or something?). Anyway, that was random.

Alrighty, time for a Question and Answer session with a London director. Cheerio!

One more week!

No worries everyone, I am doing ok. They apparently found 4 more bombs on the tubes in London, which is very scary considering the fact that I will be ON those tubes in a week, but otherwise I am doing well. I only have one more week left!!!!! I can't believe that! It feels like I never lived anywhere else. It is going to be so strange to go back home, but it'll be so wonderful too.

Man, one thing I will NOT miss is the food. Every day we are fed red meat slop on rice and it is so gross. The worst part about it is that it is basically a variation of beef stew, which (as you well know) I hate with a burning passion. The desserts are delicious though, so I just tough it out through dinner to get to the sweet stuff.

Classes have been going well and I am still in awe of my modern acting teacher. I feel like I am a little bit smarter about life every time he speaks. I love it. Tonight we are having a talent show in the main dining hall and I get to see a bunch of my friends sing and dance and all kinds of fun stuff. I'm not performing because I wasn't in the mood to audition, but it should be fun to see the show they've put together.

I think I am going to go try to steal some non-beefy maybe chocolate item right now! Miss you all!

Sunny Sundays

Thank God for Sundays! Today is so beautiful and despite the fact that I have tons of work to do, I feel so content and happy. Yesterday I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream in an outdoor theatre and I really enjoyed it. I have some good friends here who go to Fordham College in New York...they are very laid back theatre people, which I love. Well, this post is small, but I just wanted to say hi. I miss home!

Ol' Julius

I'm not sure where the title for this post came from....I guess I just have Julius Caesar on the brain. Classes have been going great. I have the most amazing modern acting teacher. His name is James Bundy and he is the dean of the Yale Drama School. I can't even describe how much I have learned from this guy in the last two weeks. Everything he says is so clear and understandable and AMAZING. He can take a scene that is already amazing and make it 500 MILLION times better. I feel so lucky to be in his class.

My Shakespeare class is ok, though I am often frustrated by my extremely British and crazy teacher, who is actually an actress, not a teacher. The other day she made me recite my sonnet while kicking a shoe around and swaying back and forth. I am sure there was a lesson to be learned from that exercise, but I would sure like to know what it was! I also have a class called physical where we are doing some really funny exercises with masks.

In other news it is extremely hot here and I am boiling to death as we speak. It is so beautiful though, so that makes up for everything. Alrighty, gotta run and memorize a new sonnet!

Flashback...

Thanks so much for the messages and good thoughts....this week has been crazy and scary. Most of us here at school had no idea what was going on because we do not have internet or television, so we all got extremely scared when we were silenced at lunch for an announcement....definite flashback to September 11th. A lot of our teachers live/have families in London, so everyone was on eggshells that day, but it seems that all is well. I was freaking out because I had been on the tube that blew up only 5 days earlier. Such a scary world right now.

In lighter news, school is great. Today we have a question and answer session with David Schwimmer, who is a BADA alum. Right now I am working on Julius Ceasar and Chekov's Uncle Vanya. We have class everyday from 8am to 6pm, so I am generally exhausted all the time, but having so much fun. I have become friends some kids from Boston College and all kinds of other places in the states.

The things that have been going on lately really make me stop and think about the people that I love. Kisses and hugs to everyone... I hope all is well!

Auditions (dun dun DUN)

Auditions went well, thankfully. Despite what I said earlier, we are not being split into beginning and advanced acting - yay. Instead they are splitting us into 9 different groups of 14 people. We will be doing scenes and working with those 14 people for the entire term. I think this method is a LOT better because it is harder for people to form cliques, etc. My audition was yesterday at 11 a.m. and I find out what group I am in today at 3 p.m. We are having a big party tonight at the school to meet the faculty and get ready for the first day of class.

Last night was really fun and I got to know a lot of people. We went to see "War of the Worlds," which was an ok movie and then we went out to a club. Everybody finally got a chance to relax and dance with each other. I became friends with a random girl named Annika who is from Oxford and she helped me work on a cockney accent. Then she really wanted to have a sword fight with imaginary machetes (no idea how to spell that word), so we did...hahaha. When I read that sentence, I can tell you are thinking "what???" but no worries guys, I escaped the machete fight unharmed. After the club we went back to Balliol and played some serious frisbee (flashback to ICS-awww) out on the lawn and looked at the stars and chatted about the program to come that we all know nothing about.

Tomorrow is July 4th and Michael Simkin is coming to visit me! Have fun in Washington D.C. Mom, Dad, Sean and Mike. I hope you're feeling better Mike!

I made it!

I finally made it to Oxford after many trains, underground tunnels and buses. It is good to hear people speaking English again. On the train ride from Paris I was seated next to a bald Hungarian man with an enormous white beard. He was really nice and we tried to talk, but my Hungarian is rusty. He kept asking "Is London bella?" After lots of sign language and topic changes, I managed to communicate that he would need to change his Euros to pounds and he was grateful. Very nice guy.

My room here at Oxford is exactly like a room in Harry Potter....so exciting! My window overlooks a graveyard though. I originally thought I was next to a resident advisor because there is a huge bag of condoms on the door next to mine, but that room is apparently called the JCR and it is where we have all of our meetings. Jessica Kaplan's room is VERY CREEPY. It used to be the "sick room" so it has a hallway and creepy bathtub room. The whole place makes the hair on your neck stand up....looks like I got lucky.

Tonight we are having a meeting in the JCR and then a big group dinner in the dining hall. The campus is really old and beautiful. The area seems nice too and one of my favorite British eating places, Pret a Manger, is right around the corner. Tomorrow we have auditions, so I better go practice!

OXFORD

Tomorrow morning I take off for Oxford! AH! I am feeling much better now, though I have a pretty bad cough. Hopefully it will clear up soon....I am taking some pills for it. I am excited about the next program, but a little overwhelmed! I will write again when I get there!!!! Miss you all!

Fever in Paris

Well I made it safely to Paris, but realized I had been awake for 42 hours by the time I went to sleep. I woke up thinking I was sleeping on a bunch of pockets and realized I had a fever. Thank God I came to Paris because I called Kate and she and Dan took care of me. Today I feel much much better, but still a little strange. The more I sleep the better, so I am trying to do a lot of that.

Paris is not the same without the group, but it is still amazing and beautiful. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things tomorrow. Miss you all!

Sniffles

Everybody is gone. I am so sad! How can you go from constant contact with 11 other people for 5 weeks and then suddenly have no one? This is definitely hard to get used to.

I take off for a train to Paris in 20 minutes so I better get going. I will never EVER EVER forget this amazing trip.......hopefully my next entry will be more upbeat.

Hiking in the Alps...

I spent today hiking in the most beautiful mountain ever. Zach and I took off on a train this morning and arrived in Sierre after an hour and hopped on a bus for a small town that starts with a V (can't remember). On the bus ride up the mountain a bunch of French kids were singing some really pretty songs in the back. After the pretty French songs they started singing Maroon 5 and the singing all went downhill from there. Once we got to the little town we headed off on a random trail toward St. Luc. Little did we know that the hike we were about to take would last for hours because of detours, but it was sooooooo worth it.

At one point along the trail we came to a little meadow where it sounded like there were sprinklers and we were a little perplexed. The "sprinklers" were actually thousands of crickets that covered the entire ground and leapt up as we walked. We could literally put our hands out and grab them. After walking through the forest for a while we suddenly came across this enormous meadow with a little wooden shack in the middle and when we turned around, our mouths literally dropped at the view of the Swiss Alps. It was so beautiful. We took millions of pictures and Zach took a video of me running in circles like Maria in "The Sound of Music."

After about three hours we started getting worried because our hike was only supposed to last an hour and we had nothing to eat or drink. We began to hear a tiny tinkling of bells ahead of us, which we hoped meant that a village was near. As we wandered forward we realized that it was a group of cows with cowbells around their necks.....they were so cute! The sound of the bells reminded me of reading Heidi when I was 11 and dreaming of living on a farm in Switzerland. It is funny because everything that happens here is like a story book.

Once we passed the cows we heard the sound of water and got excited to cool off from the heat of the hike. The river turned out to be absolutely freezing so we only put our feet in, but it felt good nevertheless. Finally after TONS of walking, we came upon St. Luc and stumbled into the first restaurant we could find. The food there was SO good! I don't know if it was that good because I was starving or because hiking makes you feel like you've earned it or what, but it was sooooooo delicious. We had warm goat cheese on toast and ham and pepperoni and salad.....yum yum yum.

With full stomachs we wandered over to the bus stop and lay out in a field as we waited for the bus to come. What an amazing day. I am the luckiest girl on the planet. I am smiling as I type this because I am still excited by these adventures. Wow. With that, I think I will go to sleep. Love you all! Goodnight.

Flying high!

Today I jumped off a mountain! Yep yep yep. After some serious convincing, I went paragliding with a bunch of the girls and it was so incredible. You are basically strapped on to a guy who is holding a parachute and you run down this little hill and suddenly take off into the air 4,000 feet above the ground. It was so peaceful and beautiful and the sun was setting and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh it was crazy. I took lots and lots of pictures and even a video. Coolest thing ever! Anyway, I have to work on a paper now....only a few more days of the program left!!!!!

Nestle

I just got back from our last site visit...NESTLE! It was the best venue we have been too....hehehehe. They fed us a three course meal! Most places don't even give us water! We got a salad, chicken with mushrooms and noodles and the most amazing sorbets. I haven't eaten that well in a loooooong time. Afterwards we got to shop for any Swiss chocolate that we wanted!!!! So fun! I felt like Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka.

The sun is shining as usual here and the birds are chirping and Geneva is still as amazing as it was the first day. Tonight I am doing the most amazing thing on the planet, but I will not give it away for now to keep up the suspense......

Last night we all went out to a pub and had delicious sandwiches and laughed about good times. On the way back to the hotel I jumped into Lake Geneva in my clothes because it was so hot. It was a full moon and the water was so refreshing. I think I have found Heaven.

SO wierd!

Christiana was searching the net and randomly found this picture of our group at the European Broadcast Union....we visited them on Friday!!! Visit this site http://www.ebu.ch/en/union/news/2005/tcm_6-38578.php to see a picture....I am on the left, but you can barely see me. This is so funny!

Kayaking

How do I even begin to describe the day I have just had....? After sleeping in and having a delicious breakfast, I went kayaking on Lake Geneva with a bunch of people from the group. I could not stop gasping at the scenery. There was an enormous tree growing in the middle of the lake so we kayaked over. When I got to the tree (kind of like a willow), I paddled through some of the branches and underneath into this little area where the water was crystal clear and the sun was shining through the canopy..........SO AMAZING. The air was perfect, the water was perfect, the tree was perfect...AHGHHHH! How have I never seen these things before??? After staring at the tree for a good amount of time, I paddled out to the rest of the group and we connected our kayaks and swam around in the cool water. It was so refreshing and surreal. We kept asking each other "WHERE ARE WE?.....oh, that's right.....SWITZERLAND!"

Afterwards we took a bus back to the hotel and ate bread and cheese and cookies outside in the sun with a view of the mountains. I have never been more relaxed in my entire life. Then Michele, Zach and I wandered down to the lake to feed the ducks, but ended up swimming again and chatting on a bench in the fresh air.

Tonight we are going to a popular club in Laussane (do not know how to spell that), which should be fun. I think I will go lounge around now and take a nap....I can't believe I am saying all of this! I am in frikin GENEVA! Miss you all and I hope L.A. is sunny for you too.

Also, happy graduation, SEAN!!!

MONTREUX!

We are here! Our hotel is amazing. We get washing machines, free internet, free breakfast and a deck with a view of the Swiss Alps!!! It is so amazing. Everything here in Switzerland is so green, I love it! I am so tired, so I will sign off, but I miss you all!

Last Leg

Today is our last day in Prague and then we only have Geneva left. To celebrate, we are going on a boat cruise for dinner. It makes me VERY sad to think that this trip is nearly over.

Today we visited Burson Marsteller, a PR firm, and Ceska Television. Prague venues are especially difficult because of language differences and sometimes we have to have an interpreter. I am super excited for tonight....I get excited every night!! We got another homework assignment today though and I really really really don't want to do it. Oh well. Miss you all!

Black Light Theatre

Dobre Den!

I went to a black light theatre last night and had such an awesome time!!!!! It is basically theatre without spoken words performed in black light. All of the acts corresponded with Beatles songs coincidentally, so it was super fun to sing along and hear some familiar tunes. It is wierd how much you end up missing the music back home. Afterwards, Christiana, Zach and I had an amazing dinner. I got a goat cheese salad with cranberries, lettuce and toast.....SO GOOD.

We are about to visit the Prague Post, which is an English newspaper here that was established by some students from UCSB....should be interesting. Tonight we are seeing another black light show...this time it is Alice in Wonderland. Talk to ya'll soon!

Finally got a picture on here!

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This is a picture of some of us eating hotdogs in the freezing London air. I am not sure why I am having so much trouble with these pictures....but this one is pretty good!