A Semester in London: A SURPRISE!, CAMBRIDGE, MUSEUMS, AND PLAYS!

Well, last week started off with a huge surprise! Todd Von Bastiaans, a 1994 Alum theatre major who is the President of Alios Lighting in Las Vegas and Bryan McCarthy are going to be coming to London the first week of November. They will join us seeing the production of No Man's Land on November 1.

Todd and Bryan

Todd then told me that he booked me into a hotel on Park Lane, as a retirement gift, on November 5th where two tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be waiting for me so myself and a guest can join Bryan and he for both Parts 1 and 2. So excited!!! I cannot thank him enough. Those tickets are impossible to get, yet again Todd worked his magic.

If that was not enough, Todd said that he wanted to take ALL the students and myself to the Harry Potter Studios on November 4th and after have dinner for us that night in his Hotel! So the 15 of us will be touring the Studios. This is something I have always wanted to do. Students are really excited! Again, Todd you are awesome! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you from all of us!!!

In addition to classes and rehearsals we had our second day trip and went to Cambridge. We have also been to Canterbury and are going to Blenheim Palace today. I will post those photos next blog. In Cambridge the students had a guided tour where they learned the history of Cambridge and the British educational system. Here are the students with their tour guide.

This is Queens College which is the oldest and one of the many colleges in Cambridge

St. Botolph's Church is at the entrance of town where visitors would come to pray after entering town or leaving on a journey. It is still intact.

While waiting for the tour guide to arrive, students were checking out a scale model of the city in Queen's Park.

The famous clock in Cambridge donated by an alum. Blue lights revolve around the clock.

The Eagle Pub is a pretty famous pub in Cambridge. It is near a science lab where many, many discoveries, such as DNA were discovered. They were then announced in the Pub. It was also a hangout for the US and British Air Force. In one part of the pub the soldiers wrote on the ceiling with cigarettes or lighters.

The top right window always needs to be kept open and never closed. This is written in the lease. There was a fire where a young girl was killed in that room and the "ghost" needs the window open to escape. One time someone shut it, and a fire broke out in the kitchen downstairs. It has been open ever since!

The part of the pub that the air force wrote on the ceiling. It is all still there.

I paid extra for the students to enter Kings College and especially enter the Chapel which is amazing!

Henry VIII. Further down the road their is another statue of Henry VIII where he is holding a chair leg instead of a sceptre. A college prank! The higher-ups got tired of replacing it so they have kept it there.

The rose which is a symbol of the Tudors and the Fleur-de-Lis which is a symbol of France. We will see these symbols again in Canterbury.

Graffiti which was left by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers when they used the chapel for housing for the troops.

The Senate Building. This is where students go to find their grades posted at the end of the year. Speaking of pranks....some students in the middle of the night put a car on top of this building, and it took the higher-ups quite awhile to figure out how to get it down.

As part of an initiation students had to jump out of the window in the tower on the right to the roof of the Senate Building.

Thought it was fun running into St. Marys Street and Great Saint Mary's Church.

Cambridge has a great outdoor market in the city center.

One of the unique things to do in Cambridge is to go punting! It is mostly college students trying to round up people to go on the punting boats. You can do your own punting or have a student do the punting and give a tour along the way. Lots of fun to do!

The Art in London Class went to the Tate Britain Museum and the National Gallery which is in Trafalgar Square. This photo is taken from the steps of the National Gallery. Here are some pics of a few of what they saw. The Tate Britain has a great collection of Turner paintings. He is one of my favorites.

Paddington Bear

Ophelia....one of my favorites!

We also saw two shows that week. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Play That Goes Wrong.

Some students met the actor who played Christopher, the lead. It so happened, he was the understudy and he was incredible!

The Play That Goes Wrong is one of the funniest plays I have ever seen. Non-stop laughing! Perfect example of a farce which was one of the topics in the Theatre in London Class.