Today I was rudely awoken by a fire alarm sometime around 9:30am this morning. I don't remember much of it, except that I could hear girls and people cursing the world and screams of disapproval and unhappy. I think some people almost made it to the doorway leading downstairs when the noise stopped and we found out it was a fire drill test at an unhappy hour on a Saturday morning.
I don't remember what I did then, only that I finally went outside to enjoy the sunshine (in a single layer of clothing!) and down to Waterloo. I walked along the seafront and went to an installation called "the Speed of Light" at the Oxo Tower Wharf. It was scary!!
Basically it was a light/sound installation in an old building. Everything was dark and spooky, the noises were more sound effects like static and clanking and a drum beating time and snippets of conversation and words. I was glad I walked in with a man and a woman, or I probably would have been too scared to walk though it. I mean yeah, there were custodians and safety guards in each room but still! It was spooky. I took a few pictures, but only of the last room. It was all laser lights too, which was really interesting. The first room there was a microphone set up and two projectors or something. You had to walk up to the mic and a question would etch itself onto a wall. When you answered your answer would reverb around the room, and the question would change.
After that room was another room where it felt like I had just walked into Tron (it made me really happy when the couple I followed in made the exact same connection) except like...a dystopian version of it. Blue lasers would flash randomly with the sounds and etch the room in thin lines of light. Everything else was dark.
My favorite room though was the room room, as I called it. It was just off to the side of one of the hallways and when all of the lasers lit up it was a blank empty black room, except that the red laser lines would fill it in- couch, TV, curtains, It think a table too. Like...they drew a room in! With laser lights! New set design? Probably not. Really sweet? Absolutely!
Anyway, I got out of there all amazed/scared and headed to the National Theatre. I reserved a space and so now tomorrow I'm going to get to take a backstage tour of one of the largest theatre spaces and theatre companies in the UK. Should be awesome, so long as I wake up for it.
After that I walked to Covent Garden, and after being there briefly and seeing all the tourists and magicians and statue people (silvermen, goldmen, etc) I went up to Seven Dials, and then back to the Tristan Bates theatre and bought a ticket for the Midnight Matinee on April 17th.
after that I went down to Picadilly Circus and the Trocadero Market. I spent several hours there in the newly opened Trocadero Underground where they were having beatboxing/breakdancing presentations and events. The beatboxer (named "Hobbit") was amazing. Like...it was insane. When I find a way to upload videos, I will show you, but you probably still won't believe that it was only him. I only believed it after they had serious tech issues and I saw the laptop, the backup laptop, the ipod, and the sound desk shut down, so they had to have Hobbit stay on longer and perform until they could rewire and get the backup ipod to play directly into the speakers.
I left when the guy drumming on buckets came on. His cymbals bothered me. Did I mention that until this point in the story, I walked to get everywhere? Yep. Apart from the ride from Gloucester to Waterloo and for the rest of my day today, I walked to all of these places. mm-hmm.
So then I went up to King's Cross to see if I could get tickets for a happening tonight (which it turns out I'm not going to. I'm still digesting dinner and writing to you and it started about five minutes ago.) The happening (would have) included indie bands, indie music, indie art, and an interactive theatre performance, but it was in a slightly shabby building, the guy at the box office wasn't very polite or nice and turned me away basically immediately, and I didn't feel like being in that area at night by myself. Soooo while it probably would have been an amazing experience, I am currently curled up in my bed figuring out what homework I want to do tonight. (answer? none. haha. too bad that can't be my answer.)
Oh! I got a nosebleed today. Only a little one though. I have no idea why, and it never really ran down my nose. Just felt like a runny nose but then when I wiped it away it was bloody and I went "uhh...?" but then it decided not to bleed out so I made a mad dash for the Burger King, got diverted by the Starbucks and covered my nose with a napkin before dashing out to safety. Still don't know what's up with that though.
Ah well. I think that's my day. Tomorrow aside- oh yeah I went grocery shopping and there was a scary russian lady in her 30s-40s with a man and she had the ugliest/largest midriff going on with this like...thin blue top/pants combo it was really really weird. Lou says that's getting to be pretty normal in Russia because the weather's warmer but ehhhh I think I'll pass on having that wheel past me with a shopping cart while I'm trying to buy bread and cheese, yunno?
Anyway.
Tomorrow aside from the backstage tour I am planning on staying in and doing some homework. I have a six page paper due thursday, an internship presentation I need to think about and put together, and a final exam to study/prep/essay for.
Bye!
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