Wicked.

Day 15

So today we get up and go to the New London School of Drama for an acting for camera class. The first half of it was the guy basically telling us about his life and asking us about our life plans. Then the second half involved doing a little basic following of direction while on camera. Frankly, I was unimpressed. This class was followed by an annoying pitch for us to come study at their school. But they fed us tiny sandwiches and tea. So that was ok.

As soon as this was over, a bunch of us bolted to go to Primark. Many had already experienced this magical place, but i was behind on the times. Primark...there are no words. Primark is a clothing store. Primark is a cheap clothing store. In the middle of London. Let that sink in for a moment. Now imagine you are at the mall of black Friday. This is what Primark is like EVERYDAY. So yes, a little terrifying. It is the size of a department store and is filled with things like £1 sunglasses. And £1 leggings. And £5 dresses. Best find so far? Knee high hot pink argyle socks for 50p. Needless to say, we will be back.

Then the most exciting part of the day, hands down.

WICKED. Some of my lovely trip mates waited in line this morning to get FRONT ROW student tickets that are held for £25. I am aware that I have already seen this show at the Fox Theatre. But £25 front row seats are nothing to sneeze at! You can feel the mechanical dragon breathing fire down your neck! And I love this show so much! So I splurged. Something that my bank account tells me is a frequent occurrence on this trip. You only live once, right?

Australians?!?!

Day 14

Today I planned an adventure for the whole crew! We planned to meet George and Anthony at London Bridge Station at one. He was shocked to find out that not 4 or 5 of us were going on this outing but all 16 of us were coordinated enough to attend a rather impromptu event. So the 18 of us get a little lost, as per usual, and end up at the London Bridge Pier.

Another of the multiple forms of public transportation available to Londoners is the clipper ships that travel up and down the Thames River. It just so happens that one of these stops is GREENWICH! Yes. The birthplace of TIME ITSELF. ...well, you understand. It is an adorable little place filled with tourists and ice cream trucks and a maritime museum. Not to mention, the view of London from the observatory is breathtaking. As we always do, the group gets split up and sort of lost, but we manage to make our way back to a Light Rail Station that will take us back to our neighborhood. I’m getting so good at this public transportation thing!

After the Greenwich adventure, Erin and I decide it is finally time to do some laundry. Enough is enough. So we pack everything we can into duffel bags and get lost on the way to the “laundrette.” It is a pretty classy place. Can someone tell me how much it costs to do a load of laundry? Anyone? Try £8. I have officially resolved to do my next load of laundry in the bathtub of my flat.

HOWEVER. Positive note. Erin and I are loitering outside the laundrette waiting for our laundry to dry when we see a very attractive man doing the same. View from the laundrette.

Once inside, a conversation is sparked and we realize that THE MAN IS AUSTRALIAN. And heaven shines upon us. He has no idea how to work the dryer and is a helicopter pilot visiting from Sydney...yadayada SO ATTRACTIVE. With our eyes, Erin and I have a silent conversation practically amounting to:

“I saw him first.”

“No, I will kill you.”

“Share?”

“Never.”

So we leave, knowing he will be gone in 48 hours to Paris. And all we get is that his name is John. John from Sydney. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY OF THOSE THERE ARE?

We do. We looked.

London is BACK!

Day 13

This blog post was lost to the sands of time. So I am rewriting it.

Today I wake up early with Stephanie, Chloe, Victoria and Jordan to meet Anthony and George for their weekly trip to the borough market. And what a market! I have never tasted such exquisite food. Everywhere I look there are fresh cheeses and breads, fruits and vegetables I had never heard of, and cuisine that smells absolutely heavenly. Anthony takes us by the hand and explains to us what everything is, how to purchase fresh food, and some of the finer points of quality cuisine. After tasting everything and drooling for a couple of hours, I settle on green curry for lunch. This is a new experience for my taste buds, and they are not unpleased.

After the market, we part ways and a group of us head to Hyde Park, green haven of London. It is huge, so I have no idea where I actually am within the park, but I think I remember passing the Princess Diana Rose Garden. We find a nice grassy patch and just lay out in the sun for awhile. Shocking isn’t it? Sun in May? Apparently everyone else was equally surprised for half the city was out there to soak in those usually elusive rays. We spent a good hour or more relaxing in the grass and taking pictures before we decided to make our way back to Bloomsbury.

That evening, I make my way to the Duck and Dive for the Champions League match with Nick, Ryan, and Patrick. For a girl, I am a pretty big sports fan and my brother has taught me to appreciate real football. So we order some cider and watch the match. I also try to begin writing this blog post, but Patrick breaks my pen so that effort is futile.

As everyday in London, this one never ends. After the match, we meet up with the gang at The Rocket, our apparent pub of choice. It is on this day that I officially befriend Paul, the bouncer lovingly mentioned on Day 5. Paul is unfortunately a Florida Gator fan and played football for the University of Pennsylvania. Then he worked for the costume house that supplied the costumes for Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. And now he is a bouncer at the Rocket. Good life. He is very nice and looks out for our whole crew. We Americans need all the help we can get.

Merry Christmas!

Ok. I'm sorry. I know that I owe a lot of you a ton of blog posts from London that never got posted. In my defense... this semester was incredibly intense, filled with internships, graduate research, web design, theatre rehearsals, and entertainment law. These are forces to be reckoned with, indeed.

However, that is no excuse for abandoning my fans. Speaking of fans, I am famous today. Check out the front cover of the Athens Banner-Herald. Oh yeah. Susana Maria Baker, in all her Christmas beauty! One day, you'll feel honored to have known me.

I suppose this is an update post of sorts. For those who have been woefully uninformed of my whereabouts, I got an apartment in August with 3 lovely roommates: Lindsay, Megan, and Corinne. We decorated it beautifully and do a decent job of keeping it clean and presentable. Our unofficial roommate, Jordan Shoemaker, frequently stops by and fills the apartment with her fabulous energy and cheer.

I was cast in the University Theatre production of Arabian Nights where I played many characters, including Sympathy the Learned and a Genie. We sold out every performance!!! You can view pictures from the production here: http://susanab.myweb.uga.edu/shows_thearabiannights.html

That page is part of the resume website I designed and built for my graduate web design course. Take a look around if you like. I had a lot of fun putting it together.

I was offered an internship at the box office of the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center. I trained in the state of the art ticketing system called Tessitura which was developed by the Metropolitan Opera. And after a full semester of interning there, I was offered a paying job for next semester! I am thrilled to actually have income. I love the people I work with and I really enjoy the job. Based on the internship I had in London and the internships I have had here, I have restructured my career interests to be a little more focused on the business of theatre and am looking into graduate programs in theatre arts administration.

Also, law school is now a back up plan. That is how my life functions....law school is my back up plan. Go figure. I really enjoyed the challenge offered by the Law of Public Communication course that I took and have developed an interest in first amendment and media law. If I could make it through the first two years of law school, the third year of specialization in entertainment law would be fascinating. We'll see.

Next semester I will also be interning with the professional theatre in Athens, Rose of Athens Theatre. My duties will increase in the fall as I take on a full internship with them. I hope to learn a lot from them during my time with them. I'll also be taking a graduate course on the role of video games in a user-generated society with one of my favorite professors, so I'm pretty excited about the challenges that is sure to offer. As for what else I'm taking...who knows! Nothing I need to graduate or even just want to take for fun is being offered. No big deal. I can't think about it or I'll stress out.

I bought myself a DSLR for Christmas!!!!! I got a Nikon D3000. Now I have to figure out how to use it... maybe if I get lucky I can sneak a spot in one of the photojournalism courses. Also, I am incredibly poor now.

Now for some fun things. I have developed some obsessions this year. And I would like to share them with you:

1. http://verymarykate.com/

This is an unofficial biography video blog of Mary-Kate Olsen. There is a new 1 minute episode every Tuesday and Thursday and it is absolutely hilarious. Linsday made me watch them all at once when I was upset one day and now I am addicted. It totally worked as a pick me up. I blame her.

2. Mumford and Sons

I am crazy about this new British band. They made the PASTE Magazine list of Top 20 New Bands of 2010. They are sort of folky, with lyrics that are hauntingly beautiful and powerful. I can't stop listening to them.

3. Mike and Molly

I may be the only person following this show. I don't watch tv normally, but I have started to religiously watch this. Every character is just that...a character. I haven't seen a show with characters this well written and lines so sharp in a long time. Hopefully it won't get cancelled soon. CBS Mondays at 9:30pm.

4. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

This blog is a hoot. This girl writes hilarious stories about her childhood and accompanies them with computer drawings that look like she does them in paint. A new post will inevitably brighten my day.

5. Dinosaurs

I love them. Especially the cartoony cute ones. Not the real scary ones.

So there is a basic year in review. I hope to update this more often in the hope that I can brighten your days with dialogue, tales, and pictures from my life...maybe slightly fabricated.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALL!

I think I'm totally museum saturated, guys.

Day 12

Today is full of sketch. We got a little flier from the AIFS office a few days ago with a list of all the cool markets in London. We decode to explore one of them today and pick the Queensway market. It was described as having “antiques, retro clothing, punk gear, jewelry, and a little bit of everything” so it sounds promising. We ride the tube to the Queensway station, get a little bit lost in a questionable part of town, and finally ask someone for directions. He exasperatedly points to the door next to his shop…you know, the door with the huge sign that says QUEENSWAY MARKET. Oops.

So we walk in and find that this place doesn’t quite live up to our expectations. Had we been looking for hookahs and drug paraphernalia then perhaps this would have been the place for us. We bolt and decide we are hungry, so we stop into a Chinese place down the street. Apparently they think we are ugly Americans because they remove the chopsticks from the table and replace them with silverware! What if I had wanted to use chopsticks? My inability to maneuver those wooden sticks aside, they don’t know. The food was…decent. After the Chinese man in the restaurant chases us because we counted our pounds wrong, we stop in at a souvenir shop. I get some postcards, and Ashley gets a flask. Classy. We split from that part of town, never to return.

Nicole, Ashley, and I part ways with Erin and head to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I’ve only heard good things about this museum and I’m really excited. It is much more art and design oriented than the other museums. We did not anticipate, however, getting tired after only one floor and decide to come back later. We did get to see a fascinating exhibit on the development of Fashion over the years and there was even a piece there designed by Emilio Pucci, a UGA grad and a Demosthenian Alum. After the sculpture exhibit and some historical exhibits, we go out to a very peaceful area with a wading pool and grassy areas and just sit for awhile. It is very nice and we just watch people and take some pictures.

London, WHAT? Dear London. The last thing I want is to see someone snog as I eat my frozen yogurt. WHAT?

Elephants on Parade

Day 11

Today George hosts class in his lovely and adorable flat near Highbury and Islington. Apparently it is a 2 million pound flat. Geez minetti. He has tea and biscuits ready for us…could we be more British? During the class, we present our reports on the background info of the shows we are going to see while we are here. I guess I didn’t realize how wide of a range of shows we had tickets for. I’m really excited now.

After class, Nick, Katie, Erin, and I head to Covent Garden with the intent of procuring tickets to Avenue Q. Since Erin is with us, we stop at every elephant in covent garden, and let me tell you, there are quite a few. Oh, London is currently doing a city wide exhibit to promote awareness and to raise money for the endangered Asian elephant. Various artists were asked to paint an elephant, and 250 distinctly different ones were placed all over the city. Many of us have made it a goal to see how many we can photograph while exploring London. They’ll have their own album on facebook. No worries!

Covent Garden is bustling and busy with street performers and markets and an arcade full of cute boutiques. After much wandering, we finaly stumble upon the Wyndham Theatre where Avenue Q is playing. This is the first show we’ve seen on our own and we are excited to find that as students, we can get 20 pound tickets in the orchestra. I love this city.

We go our own separate ways and decide to meet back for the show. It is hilariously funny (and I’m glad I saw it before Gary Coleman died. They cut 21 lines out of the show, and I would feel bad…)

After the show, we stage door it up like we always do, meet some of the actors, and head back to Bloomsbury. And what do we do once back in Bloomsbury? The Rocket of course! Today there is a replacement DJ, and he is no good. Dancing opportunities are minimal.

Lugano

Day 4 Switzerland

There is so much going on in these five days on Bank holiday that I can hardly handle it. I told Felipe that I wanted him to take me wherever he thought I needed to go, making for an extremely stress free trip, a nice break from the constant decisions I make in London.

Today he takes the four of us down to Lugano, Switzerland, about a 3 hour drive.

Lugano is in the Italian part of Switzerland (did you know there was an Italian part of Switzerland? I did not. It does make sense however.) It is like an alternate universe. I’m still in Switzerland, home of the Alps and snow and Heidi, yet suddenly I’m surrounded by palm trees, gelato shops, and fashionable Italian speaking people. The colors are bright! (a first for the parts of Europe I’ve seen) and the atmosphere is that of a beach resort area.

But before we explore Lugano, we go to an amusement park of sorts called Swiss Miniatur.
Basically, it is all of Switzerland’s landmarks…in miniature. Everything works and moves and there are sassy little people in all of the models.

I'm a GIANT.

She's so sassy! Look at her!

It is pretty amusing to say the least.

After we finish there we head over to Lugano to feel very Italian and eat at a great restaurant named Tango. Classiest meal I’ve had in months. I ate a real Italian pizza with mozzarella, gorgonzola, and prosciutto. So delicious.

Check out how epic this picture is. I feel like I'm in an action movie with the car and the motorcycle gang...

Switzerland is sort of strange. It definitely has a national identity, but it seems to lack a cultural identity of its own. The culture near the German border is distinctly German, marked not only by language but also customs, architecture, lifestyle, etc. The same goes for the Italian border and the French border. How does a country simply become a spillover of other countries?

This is what happened when I found out Heidi's village was featured in Swiss Miniatur. I loved that book.

Switzerland, WHAT?

Dear Switzerland. You make smoking sound like a dating service. WHAT?