I Have Friends!!

Whoops! Look at the day - time sure does fly. My apologies to my readers, I know this is supposed to be a weekly blog, but I've been getting busy and I missed Sunday's update.

So, "what have I been up to?" you ask... well, as many of you know, last week was half-term over here. The way the school year works over here is that students get a week off halfway through each of the three terms. You may think that sounds like a lot, but it balances out by shortening the summer holidays to 6 weeks. The holidays are more spread out, which is something I quite agree with - 6 weeks is long enough for most family vacations and the children have a shorter time to lazy around and forget what they've learned. One of the downsides is that it’s a shorter time for summer jobs...

During this half-term, I decided to stay in London and did a bunch of day trips (thank goodness the weather was beautiful). These included going to Westfield Mall, the National Theater, Nunhead Cemetery (see photos), playing Magic and visiting various other places. Also, as my title suggests, these have not all been solo activities – surprisingly I’ve been able to meet quite a few people (thanks in a large part to the handy Facebook groups and a few awesome organizers). I can really see some strong friendships forming (it’s like Korea all over again lol).

The Westfield mall is this massive collection of stores and beautifully built (fairly new I believe). About half of the shops were either clothes or shoes... June, you (and a fair few other ladies I can think of) would have been in heaven. The fashions I saw were a bit different than in Canada... the only way I can think to describe them is “trendy European” lol. I’ll definitely be back to purchase some of the shirts!

At the National Theater, I watched the play, “Mother Courage and All Her Children”. It was translated from Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 play “Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder” (oooh... I feel so cultural) and is quite bleak. It follows the life of a merchant woman and her three children as they profiteer from the Thirty Years’ war between the Germany and Poland. Mother Courage is enthusiastic about war and how much money they can make from selling merchandise to both sides. However, as the war drags on, supplies and money run low and, one by one, her children die leaving her to pull the cart alone. The music, performed by Duke Special, was perfect and I loved every minute of it. Click here to see what I mean.