vervet_monkey

Continuing in the Shakespeare theme of late I took Mum to see Hamlet on Saturday for her birthday. Her birthday was actually in May, but I wanted to take her to a show I know she knew, so we didn't go until now. Also given that my Grandma's funeral actually fell on Mum's birthday it was good to be able to celebrate again and properly.

Spent the day wandering round London on my own with my now fixed camera. Lots of fun and I felt very much the tourist. Visited Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and St James Park. Got some pretty good photos too that I will share should my laptop stop being stupid and actually let me download them from my camera.

Met Mum outside the Globe and went for a posh dinner at the Swan (the resuarant attached to the Globe) very tasty and dessert was by far the biggest portion, as I think it always should be!

Our seats weren't great, but I knew Mum wouldn't want to stand for the performance and my budget would only stretch to the cheap seats. We were to the left of the stage, slightly angled behind the actors. Not too much of a problem, but it did mean that they were often hidden behind the pillars in the middle of the stage.

The performance itself was very well done, particularly Hamlet and Ophelia. I've never seen Hamlet on stage, only the BBC production on a few Christmases ago. This was different first in that it was in period dress, and that it felt a lot more dramatic. Not over acted, but Hamlet was played much more, I almost want to say loudly? While Tennants speeches felt like he was talking to himself, this was proclaimed for the world to hear. Which works beautifully in the Globe, especially with the audience standing below. It was also surprisingly funny for a tradegy, which I hadn't really realised before.

The Globe always makes Shakespeare feel more accessible (in fact that's exactly what Mum said to me as we were leaving), this production did so more than Macbeth which I saw there last year. Which is particularly surprising as I didn't know the story of Hamlet, while I studied Macbeth and generally consider it to be my favourite of Shakespeares plays. It was big on the physicality of it all, so even if you're not understanding all of the words (which I never do!), you can still understand. In fact we shared a booth with an American family with children who must have been no older than 12, and they seemed to grasp it just fine.

 Have been visiting the parents all week, they go out to work during the day and have a computer with photoshop on it, so these are the product of my week:


( Much Ado About Nothing Icons )

 Admittedly Easter holidays would be more exciting if the majority wasn't going to be spent working, but never mind!

Not that I can complain too much, France last weekend and Wales tomorrow :)

France was awesome. It had Jess, of course it was awesome. We did quite a bit this time, constantly talking at a million miles an hour too! Got up late on Friday, having stayed up talking when I arrived on Thursday, and went to meet up with one of her friends in Toulouse. Which I love as a city, so beautiful and old and... French. Which I really need to learn to speak. Jess has clearly got the language completely now, more than she had last time. Although she was fairly fluent last time she still recognised when something was in French and had to kind of, switch gears, to understand. Not so much this time, jumping between languages without noticing. Which is good for her, but does mean she doesn't notice when I'm looking at her blankly for translation when someone asks me something. Oh why did I never learn? Thankfully everyone is lovely and spoke English for me the whole weekend. 

Saw acrobatics on Friday night which was really good, and mostly visual so language wasn't an issue. Then to the pub for a while before back to her room to sit chatting again. Which led to late getting up on Saturday also. Did very little during the day, went for a wander along the canal, which is so beautiful, had a picnic lunch then wandered back to cook dinner. Watched Dr Who over dinner (The Unquiet Dead) and then went to watch The Black Swan with another of her friends. Which is an amazing film (although very triggery, should that be an issue... clearly labelling something as triggery is firmly stuck in my brain...) how it builds up with really very little in the way of story line or speech. And really scary too. Although the sub-titles did ruin it a bit. They were ummm, interesting? The word swan got replaced with pelican a few times and it definitely said the opposite to the screen more than once.

 New theme to the journal... although I'm not sure if I like it. Mostly triggered by a change in default icon (have a definite Ten thing going atm, I'm blaming revision, DVD's, Shakespeare and baby/wedding news) and it kinda clashed with the old theme. 

Guess what... exams done! Yay. Have just had a very nice evening with the 2 other girls who also finished today (most of our other friends still have one wednesday as they did a different module). Pub for tea drinking for me, cider for them, then to ours for pizza and DVD. Cool runnings which I'd never seen before but is an awesome film! Was really nice to have a non-alcoholic end of exams, as they will go out to celebrate with the others next week, but means I got to do a bit of catching up and relaxing too. We also have a big poster on our living room wall entitled 'Questions every good zoologist should be able to answer' with all the questions my housemates have asked over the past two years, which caused much amusement!

( My plans for the week that probably aren't that interesting )
Mostly I'm looking forward to a week that doesn't involve pouring over notes and memorising studies. That's not really learning and throughly boring. Even dissertation writing seems like a good break from it, as at least that has something to show at the end of it!

( Not really any spoilers but just in case )

If you haven't watched it, watch it now!