love thy neighborhood

Today is day one - at least for the mighty Wolverines who all showed up in fits and starts throughout the morning. Some of them stumbled in around 10 am, a few around 11:30, some around 1, and Daniel Whiting around 2. But they all made it. In years past we stayed at Manson Place and there was no receptionst to let everyone in. I had to do it. So I would wait carefully in my room to hear the sounds of luggage bumping down the sidewalk and run up with my bag of keys. This year, in Metrogate, we have 24 hour reception. So the porters did all the work. And it was great. I still waited sort of anxiously in my room for them to arrive, but I didn't have to lift any luggage or anything (I'M TOO OLD FOR THAT.)

Once everybody got here and we assessed who had bad knees, who was dying and needed to sleep, separated those who had great flights with quiet seatmates and those who had terrible flights with chatty ones, we set out on our neighborhood tour. We saw all the sights of Kensington: The Natural History Museum, The Hyde Park Chapel, the respective homes of Benny Hill and Virginia Woolf, the #9 Bus, the Gap, the Pasty shop, and made it all the way round on the Circle Line from High Street Kensington to Gloucester Road. Gloucester Road is home base this year.

I knew the walking would be tiring for everyone, but rule #1 of jet lag is that you do not talk about jet lag. Rule #2 is that you keep going. So we went downtown for more walking. EPIC WALKING.

Daniel Whiting has been assigned to be "tube captain." His job is to tell everyone which stop to get off. He has also devised a way to do this via "sign language."

Nicholas Grossaint has been assigned to be "house captain." Unfortunately, this is a holdover title from ACTF, and has no real power in London. But the title makes Nick feel awesome about himself so we let him keep it.

Speaking of Nicholas, I'm not kidding about that jet-lag.

Look! It's Royal Albert Hall!

Check it out! It's Albert himself.
Dang, we saw something REALLY funny at the Trafalgar Fountains. I can't remember what, but it was SO FUNNY.

Here's the Admiral's Arch. There is a cement nose sticking out of one of the walls. It pokes out and you can touch it. Apparently soldiers used to touch the nose for good luck when they rode by on horses. I'm not kidding. There is a nose sticking out of the wall.

Maybe you have heard of the London Eye? (tourist trap, literally, keep moving)

Ah, the panoramic views from Hungerford Bridge!

I just need someone to explain this hat to me. It wasn't a joke. He really put that on and felt good about it. I'm sorry if I come across as a snob. Grown men just don't wear mauve bonnets where I come from. And if they do, they got it at Hot Topic so you know it's awesome and ironic.

We had to take a breather on a grassy knoll in St. James park.

Speaking of horses....we caught the tail end of this group! (did you see what I did there?)

Our epic walk lasted three hours, and everyone walked like troupers. I was very proud of them. They crashed hard tonight - but it was a great way to start life in London! I'm glad everyone is here, safe and secure. I feel like a dad again. I want to go tuck everyone in and say goodnight, but that's probably inappropriate.

photos by Alex Ungerman and Nicholas Grossaint

the habit of london

Alex came to pick me up this morning at the ungodly hour of 9:30 and I thought I was going to punch a hole in the wall. 7 hours of sleep was clearly not enough for lady jet-lag, but I fought her bravely. Actually I went back to sleep for about 30 minutes, and then I got my act together and hit the showers. I'm wearing these new 30 day contacts; you are supposed to leave them in day and night. I like them mostly, but I don't like how goopy my eyes are when I wake up in the morning. I shuffle around trying to find door switches and light handles, squinting through a haze of eye boogers. I'll get used to it! My eyes are the windows to my soul, or whatever.

I made the mistake of thinking there was a Hyde Park church service at 11. Actually, the INTERNET made the mistake of telling me that. Turns out there is a Portugese Ward meeting then, and even though I'm going to Portugal next month I really felt that I needed to come let us anew in English. So Alex and I ate our chicken tikka sandwiches in Hyde Park until it was 1:00, and then we joined out brothers and sisters in the (english speaking) gospel.

After church we changed clothes and hustled to the National Theatre to see The Habit of Art. Don't judge me! I bought my ticket on Saturday and none of the actors are LDS so they don't mind working. I assume they aren't LDS. They swear and smoke cigarettes. So if they are LDS I'm just going to quietly be judging them. We've gone full circle! I loved The Habit of Art. It's a new play by Alan Bennett who wrote History Boys, The Madness of King George, and the fantastic BBC screenplay of Little Dorrit. The play is about W. H. Auden meeting with his friend Benjamin Britten, who is writing an opera of Death in Venice. But it's also about the rehearsal for The Habit of Art. So there's a stage manager watching, someone prompting lines, and actors who jump in and out of the scenes and watch from the sidelines. Anyone who has worked in theatre would love this. It feels the way rehearsal feels. The conflicts, the collaboration, and the compromise are all there under a bunch of fragile egos. The play was funny, touching, and smart. It's going on tour this Fall and I can see why.

Alex and I tried to go hang out at the Somerset Fountains, but they were turned off and some kind of reggae concert was being set up, so we didn't stick around long. We wandered around The Strand a bit, and found some hidden Roman Baths which had been locked up. Then I told Alex that if we were just going to walk around, and I'm more than happy to do that, we should go to Mayfair - my favorite neighborhood in London. So we did. Here's where we present Grandpa's Super-8 Films of Stuff We Saw in Mayfair:

Berkeley Square: less nightingales, more pigeons:

These sacrelicious pastries!


A building covered with super cool vines!


The future president of the US:


A whole bunch of hosers in front of the Hard Rock Cafe:


The new Harvey Nichols window display (school supplies - everything school supplies):


And after that our dogs were barking like banshees. So we headed back feeling like we had seen enough for the day. Alex said that he felt like his eyes were full, and I agreed. He also said that his eyes were bigger than his feet. And I agreed with that as well. But man, London is a cool city.

videos courtesy of Alex Ungerman. And yes, they're supposed to be silent.

2010 starts now

I didn't sleep much on the plane over. This has something to do with the fact that I never sleep that great on planes, despite druggery. It may also have something to do with The Clash of the Titans, a movie so ridiculous and yet so paralyzing at the same time. It's odd, if you think about it, to watch a computer enhanced movie about Greek Gods on a six inch screen 33,000 feet above the Atlantic at 2:00 am. These are strange days.

London is, as ever, London in mid-July. It's a constant morphing of weather, so you never know how to dress. I spent most of the day slightly cool, but never enough to put something else on. At any time I can develop odd bouts of sweating, and the less said of that the better, but I do not want to take my chances in London humidity. So I'm keepin' it cool!

I wanted to sleep for about ten hours when I got to Metrograte and checked in, but Alex Ungerman, who arrived yesterday, was having none of it. So I unpacked my stuff, showered, and then we headed out. Metrograte, incidentally, is where I stayed my first year of study abroad in 2006. It's closer to Hyde Park, and just off of Gloucester Road. So it's a little bit of a homecoming, though I did get used to Manson Place and miss it a little. My room this year is roughly half the size of my room last year, which was roughly half the size of the year before. It's a worrying trend. But when I think I'm feeling cramped I just pretend I'm Gene Kelly in American in Paris, with his shoebox table and Murphy Bed and then I do a little dance. Anyway, when I think of my first summer at Metrogate I remember when a bird flew into my open window and sat on my bed and watched me get out of the shower. Yikes!



Alex and I bought tickets to see The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Theatre. The Donmar is great because it's incredibly intimate. It's where I saw The Chalk Garden and Streetcar Named Desire and something I else I cannot remember no matter how hard I try. Because today was the final matinee performance it was sold out, but we got standing tickets. You still see everything great, you just stand to do it. This was actually a good idea, since I would have otherwise fallen asleep. Not that the play was boring, but jet lag is a beast. So we stood and sometimes I hunched over, and sometimes i pulled my shoes on and off, and sometimes I shot stink eyes at all the greedy old people who bought up all the tickets and then talked through the show. One old lady at intermission asked the ticket counter if they could tell the cast to "speak up." And I knew that this was the most pointless request ever, but I didn't say anything. In the end, I liked The Late Middle Classes. It didn't set me on fire or anything, but I admired the work. It's all about this repressed English family in the 50's and who take turns playing this grand piano and accusing each other of things.


Alex and I had errands, which involved getting my phone topped up and buying awesome new trousers at H&M. We also wandered a bit around Kensington, and found some cool back alleys and a back street where you can see how 18th Century Inn Stables have been turned into Jaguar dealerships. It never fails to amaze me how the streets of Kensington can be so quiet and removed even though they are barely removed from the busy High Street. There is probably some kind of magical insulation. Some kind of Mary Poppins double glazing going on.

This was my dinner at Wagamamas. Have a looksee:




At 9:30 we went to see Carmen Funebre, a play by the same Polish company who did Macbeth on stilts a few years ago. We got there at 9 so we could be first in line, which we basically were. So we got the best seats, which were benches. This company performs outdoors, so we were in an enclosed space outside of the National Theatre. This show was all about Bosnian refugees and dictators, but mostly it was about running around in terror while giant orange men with Zarahelma breastplates on 4 foot stilts snapped whips. Scary! Sometimes the stilted men were poor beggars with clanking money jars, and one time they wore death masks and purple robes and threw a bunch of shirts around. One time a group of the male actors drank wine (seriously I bet it was grape juice) and then spit it all over this lady. And another time they had little lit-up Japanese paperhouses which they tied to balloons and let go, to symbolize the loss of their dreams. The show was visually stunning. There was all of this relentless metronomic chamber music which kept us sort of hypnotized. I loved it. At the end they basically lit the set on fire and let it burn down while we watched. Which seemed a little ironic, because they kept talking about what a poor little Polish theatre troupe they were and yet they burn their set down night after night. I think they could make better financial choices.

Here they are in action:


Immediately following Carmen Funebre we saw The Great Gandini juggling troupe, which was also fantastic. The Gandini's are a group of 9 English hipsters who wear tight suits and juggle apples to old songs from the 30's and 40's about bananas and linden trees. They don't really talk. As the show progresses they do more and more daring feats with their apples until the apples are everywhere, and it starts to resemble a giant fountain of apples. Then they sort of lose it, and they start yelling "rubbish" and "get a proper job" at each other. Then they lay out a bunch of tea cups and trays, juggle them, and then smash them all up. Somewhere in here is a terrific message about the snooty middle class, but I mostly enjoyed watching the mess being made. It was really terrific juggling!

here they are in action:


photos and video courtesy Alex Ungerman

austria

If I had a nickel for every time I had to go to Austria for a conference, I would probably just have one nickel. So I was really excited to go! This conference was held at Retzhoff Castle in Leibniz, Austria, which is just south of Graz (home of Arnold Schwarzenegger.) It was sponsored by IUGTE, which is a fancy acronym for the International University Global Theatre Experience. I went as a presenter at the conference, and travelled with my good friend and colleague Isaac Walters. It was a really fantastic experience: I made some great friends, had some cool experiences, and learned a lot. I also fell in love with Austria. I thought I would post pictures of our four days there, and tell you a little bit about what happened:

Here we are doing our early morning stretches with our teacher, a mysterious Russian named Ostrenko. Ostrenko is in the very front, and he is probably telling us something in Russian right now. His interpreter, Inga, was very good in her translations, though sometimes Ostrenko would say something and then Inga would say "HE SAY: run around like fish." And we would question that.

The weather was really beautiful for April. Austria looks just like it does in The Sound of Music. Castle Retzhoff looked just like the Von Trapp's house. But nobody blew any whistles and there weren't any Nazis (that I saw, anyway.)
This was a breathing class taught by Doris Hintsteiner. She touched us a lot. We had to breathe from our pelvis, though Doris didn't really touch us there. I'm in the back wearing the blue T and breathing from my pelvis.
The participants at the conference were from all over the place: Holland, Japan, Portugal, Italy, England, Russia, Australia...It was amazing how quickly we bonded as a group. Wonderful people.

This was a session of Suzuki taught by Antje Diedrich. Suzuki is very Japanese. You hold positions for a long time, and you stamp a lot and make a lot of physical efforts. It's actually exhausting, but I like the focus on physical control.
We held this pose for a long time.
Something here was particularly fascinating. I think I'm going to cry.
And then everything became chaotic and terrifying and I basically murdered somebody.

Here we are at our closing night party. Ostrenko is looking particularly dapper, as is his way. I think he managed three outfit changes per day. It really kept us on our toes. The food at this party was awesome.
Later on in the evening the spirits flowed freely and I found myself at the piano while people sang loudly. "Creep" has never been so heartfelt, nor have the lyrics been more mangled. Pictured are Christina, Giorgia, Juliette, and Ricardo.
Juliette is one of the best harmonium players in the world. I'm not exaggerating. There is empirical data somewhere to prove this.
This is Ricardo, who became my instant friend. Ricardo teaches jazz guitar in Lisbon. He knows every jazz standard you can think of, and he can rattle off the chords while I play. It's amazing. His brain is a computer for jazz standards. He's a fantastic guy.
The next day a group of us set out to explore Graz. It was May Day, and a really perfect occasion to see this town. Graz looks like a storybook village - red slate roofs and a bell tower, with touches of modernity here and there. Modernity like, for instance, a giant art museum shaped like a spiky blob:
In the middle of the Mur River is a bird's nest, which is also a restaurant! Oh, Europeans! What will you think of next?
We didn't eat at this restaurant, but Ricardo and I took a nap on the big funky couches.

Now that we had rested we ascended the Schlossberg, a hill with a bell tower and a crumbling fortress on top. It was quite a hike, but not as bad as, say, hiking the Y. I had no complaints. I thought it was beautiful.
Behold! The red roofs of Graz!


Here is the bell tower, where we memorably played my favorite game: "get in other people's pictures." Also I tried, for my first and last time, asparagus ice cream.
I have to admit that I was sad to say goodbye to a handful of new friends that I made here. I do this all the time. I´m a social guy and I bond quickly with people. But I'm so glad I came. I had no idea it would be this great of an experience. It was so much more than just a conference.

Everyone was teasing me about buying some lederhosen and wearing them on the plane home. I didn't do it, but I wish I had. They looked really comfortable! Also, I think Lisa would find them sexy.


photos by Isaac Walters, Inga Ryaznoff, and Olga Balomenu.