That said, I suspect I will be very tired this semester. 13 classes is a lot to balance, and a few of them (just two right now, but I suspect a couple more will join them) of them require a lot of physical exertion. I was hesitant about Period Dance, because I find English Country Dance overly structured with no opportunities to engage with the dance or your partner, but we're starting off with dances involving lots of jumping. Which is a lot of fun but also requires a lot of exertion. Not to blow my own horn, but I think I will soon move to the forefront of that class, thanks to my not insignificant folk dance background. In the words of my friends, "It's not a competition, but if it was, I'd win." Not that it matters at all--everyone has their own talents and training, each of which is equally valid and will be equally useful.
The other exhausting class right now is Movement. Our professor is from South Africa, and is absolutely crazy. She calls us poppits and I'm pretty sure could beat me up, despite being probably three times my age. We're jumping right in with this course--our first session entailed us rocking forward, then using the momentum to rock backward onto our shoulders/head and touch our feet to the floor. We did this for about 5 minutes before we started jumping in between rocks to create the serial-killer-cousin of the burpie, which we did for another 5 minutes, and we didn't slow down for the rest of the class. Everyone was sore after that class, but we all agree it's going to be one of the most enjoyable, if one of the most masochistic.
I've seen my friend Abby a lot, actually. The Tube is great. Museums are free. What's not to like? So far we've been to the Natural History Museum (which has, among other things, a fantastic dinosaur section, a cross-section of a giant sequoia, a first-edition Origin of Species, and rocks from Mars), the Victoria & Albert Museum (which has, among other things, a medieval spiral staircase, several Raphaels, and approximately three miles of silver and gold and porcelain). It also has a plaster cast of the Trajan Column. There's a picture below, but it doesn't nearly communicate the awesome scale of this incredible achievement. I think the last thing that took my breath away was the Grand Canyon, but this had the same effect that 16-mile-wide monument to the power of nature. It was awesome in every sense of the word. They had to split the cast in half to get it into the museum. Each piece is 60 feet high and every inch is carved. I couldn't get everything in the picture (which I took from about 30 feet away), so the picture is of the bottom. You can see a bit of the other half in the background.
Today we hit up the British Museum, which was a huge collection of things that the British have taken from other people. Stuff from the Parthenon, and about half of Egypt were some of the coolest stuff, but we also saw pottery that was 6000 years old. Literally. The sheer amount of talent that has passed over this Earth staggers the mind, and both the British Museum and the V&A (mainly the V&A) are testaments to the creativity and tenacity of the human race. Refreshing, really.
I know I've gone off topic a bit, but hey. It's my blog. I do what I want. Long story short, I'm having a fantastic time. I love my program, the people in my program, and London as a whole. Where cities like Chicago have a definite center of activity that's constantly bustling, London is much more spread out. It arose from a collection of villages that grew together, so there really is no center. You can hop on the Tube, travel wherever, hop off, and still be awestruck by the beauty and history of this amazing city. I'll definitely be coming back.
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