It's the final countdown...

I can definitely tell my time in London is winding down.  I've been spending less time sightseeing and more time shopping and hanging out with the friends I've made here.  My sister Meg arrives for her visit tomorrow (yay!), so I'll get one last week of being a tourist with her, and then a few days after she leaves, I head home too.  Some of the fun I've been up to lately:


Last Wednesday I spent most of my day shopping on Oxford Street, the main shopping street of London.  The street and shops were full of their famous lighted Christmas displays, and it definitely put me in the holiday spirit.  I meant to do some Christmas shopping but ended up  just buying a lot of clothes for myself.  Oops.  I really like shopping in London: this city is all about the big departments stores (Harrods, Selfridges, Liberty...) and I think that's so much nicer than huge shopping centers.  They offer the same variety of products that you can get in a mall, and department stores just seem to fit so nicely into cities, while shopping centers/malls just make me think of suburban sprawl.  I touched a bit on malls and their impact on suburbia in my senior thesis, so I'm actually really interested in them from an academic standpoint (hence this random little blog detour).  I've been to the big shopping center here, Westfield, a couple of times--it is absolutely massive, a tourist attraction in itself.  But big malls like that just feel so incongruous with Europe to me; every time I go in there, it screams "America" at me, even though many of the shops are British or European.


After my afternoon of shopping I went to see the play Deathtrap, a mystery thriller.  I'll be honest, the only reason I had any interest in seeing it was because Jonathan Groff--who starred in Spring Awakening on Broadway and is also in Glee--was in it.  But it looked like it would be good, and it was!  I considered lurking outside the stage door to get Jonathan's autograph, but I thought better of it.


The next day I got to see even more celebrities when I went to the red carpet premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!  I knew it was going to be a MASSIVE event, but I didn't arrive until about 6:30, after the red carpet walk was already underway.  When I walked through Leicester Square the previous MORNING, there were already a few people in tents, camping out to get spots right at the red carpet.  There were even more tents when I walked by Wednesday evening, and by Thursday it was packed.  Since I arrived late, I just stood at the back of the crowd, where it wasn't as crowded and where there were screens showing the action going on down on the carpet.  I got to watch interviews with a lot of the Harry Potter actors--Hermione, Draco, Lucius, Voldemort, Bellatrix, Fred and George, Molly, Neville, and JK Rowling...it was very exciting!!  People had come from all over the world for the premiere, and while it would have been fun to be down in front and get all the celebs' autographs, it was fun to just be there and see everything happening.

Emma Watson getting interviewed

The Weasley twins

Friday I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's home at the beginning and end of his life.  I saw Shakespeare's birthplace, Nash House and New Place (where Shakespeare lived in his later years and where his granddaughter lived with her husband), Hall's Croft (where Shakespeare's daughter lived with her husband), Anne Hathaway's cottage  (her home before she married Shakespeare), and Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried.  The town of Stratford was cute, but not nearly as cute and charming as I was expecting.  It was a weird combination of 16th century thatch-roofed buildings and modern shops.  It kind of felt like a village that was trying too hard to be a suburban town and should have just embraced its quaintness.  In any case, it was a fun trip and I enjoyed seeing all the historic Shakespearean buildings, although I was ready to leave more than an hour before my train was scheduled to go back to London.  You definitely don't need more than a day to see everything!

Anne Hathaway's cottage

Shakespeare's birthplace

On Sunday I went to Shoreditch House (sister club of Soho House, where I celebrated my 23rd birthday) with Beth, Josh, Xavier, and their friends visiting from Paris.  We had lunch and went bowling, and I did surprisingly well--4 strikes! (I'm modest, I know--but I can brag because usually I get gutter balls).  I also did some shopping at Portobello Market in Notting Hill and at Brick Lane Market, which is full of cute vintage stores.  And this week I finally got to use the mani/pedi gift certificate that Beth and Josh gave me for my birthday, which it was a lovely treat.


Yesterday I got to see the new Harry Potter movie!!  I would have gone to the midnight showing, but oddly enough there wasn't a midnight showing on Thursday night, so I went at 10am on Friday.  In the afternoon I went to see Chicago, which I've wanted to see for a while and was fabulous.  Today I had hoped to go see An Ideal Husband, because I love Oscar Wilde and I studied that play in my Play Analysis class in the spring, but unfortunately I'm sick in bed with some sort of stomach bug.  I also had plans to go to the Hyde Park Christmas Market with some friends tonight, but that will all depend on how I'm feeling later...I really hope I can go for at least a little while!  In any case, Meg arrives tomorrow, and I'm planning on going to the market with her, so at least I'll still get to go.

And in celebrity news: it's kind of weird being in the UK in the midst of all the Prince William/Kate Middleton excitement.  It's given me a different perspective on the monarchy: as an American, I've always viewed foreign royalty as little more than celebrities.  But being here and seeing what a big deal the engagement is has really emphasized to me that the monarchy is still a big deal, even if the monarch is just a figurehead.  Sure it's sort of an outdated and archaic system of government, but it still has an impact on the lives of British citizens.  It will be interesting to see how the monarchy changes under Will and Kate's leadership.