Weekend in London (Part Two)

On Saturday after we saw Westminster, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Trafalgar Square, we received a call from Harriett Thorpe. Beth's brother Russell lived in London when he was younger and went to drama school there. He met Harriett at school and Harriett has become a fairly well know actor in London. She has been in some British TV shows and has performed in many plays and musicals. She currently is starring as Madame Morrible in the hit musical Wicked. Beth had contacted her thanks to Russell a couple of weeks ago and she arranged awesome tickets for us about ten rows from the stage. She was calling to invite us by before the performance to meet some of the actors and see behind the scenes. Monique was beside herself as Wicked is her FAVORITE musical. She could hardly contain herself. We arrived and I first took a picture of Monique next to Harriet's poster outside the theatre. We then got to enter through the stage door and were escorted up to Harriet's dressing room (which was bigger than our hotel room in London) and got to meet Harriet. Beth has met her a number of times, but it was a first for Monique and I. She was absolutely delightful. The second picture is her without her makeup and wig. Harriet said that her two wigs alone cost the production 6,000 pds each which is about $11,000. Her outfits and jewelry were amazing. She then took us onto the stage which is the great picture of Monique in front of the all powerful OZ and under the stage to see where all the sound, costumes and smoke for the production were. It was simply unbelieveable to see everything that went into a major production.(132 people every show) We got to meet the actors that played Boq and Glinda (she was a brunette even though she plays a blond). Finally, after the show, one of the assistants came and got us from our seats and Monique got to meet Fiyero and Morrible (Harriet) right after they had come off the stage at the end of the musical. Of course Monique and Beth thought Fiyero was gorgeous. All and all it was a tremendous afternoon and experience. Thanks again to Harriet for being such a wonderful host.

Cheers

Weekend in London (Part One)

Once again I am sorry to all you loyal readers that it has been awhile. I will reward you with three different posts this week from our weekend in London. We left on Friday morning and took the train down to London which was fabulous, we loved taking the train. The only exception was the bunch of rowdies that rode from Edinburgh to Newcastle and sang to their music the entire way. One of the members of my new department got us some discounted rail tickets through his family so it was a great way to travel. The main purpose of our trip was an invitation to the American Embassy. All of the Fulbright exchangees in England and Scotland were invited along with British teachers who have done exchanges in the past. After some fearsome security (two days after the Yemen bombing) we had an awesome time in the lobby of the embassy. The decorations alone made it all worth while. Unfortunately we were not able to bring our cameras into the embassy so I have no pictures. However, there were amazing scuptures of Lincoln, the Constitutional Convention and unbelieveable art work. (I know I am a history geek) I was also amazed at the number of famous people who have been American ambassadors to Britian including four future presidents. After the reception we went to dinner with a number of the other American families and Monique had a blast with a girl from New York who is spending the year in Brighton. After we left them we walked around London until midnight. Again, I did not have my camera, but it was an outstanding evening. These pictures are from the next morning. The first one is Monique and Beth eating a traditional English breakfast in a London pub. The second one is the traditional guards in front of Buckingham Palace, but they are not out front of the gates like they used to before modern terrorism. Finally, off to the side is Beth and I in front of Buckingham Palace. Stay turned for part two, the musical WICKED.

Cheers

The highland games at Braemar

What an amazing day. We were picked up at 9:00am sharp by Bridget. She exchange to Vancover nine years ago. They have an exchange club here in Edinburgh that is for all current Australian, Canadien and American exchange teachers. It is run by former Scottish exchange teachers and they have a great list of events for us throughout the year. All the books that I read said that I had to go to the Braemar games. It is very hard to describe. It is like a typical track meet, except that they have events that few Americans take part in. My personal favorite and the crowd favorite was the throwing of the Caber. This is a nineteen foot tree trunk that weighs 135 pounds. The contestants must flip it onto its opposite side and then it must land at 12 o'clock. They get graded on style. See the picture at the side. They also have a 57 pound hammer throw which they throw over their heads over a 18 foot bar. But the most amazing event other then the caber is the hill run. This started on this exact spot in 1314 and the winner each year would become the king's messenger for that year. They run up the hill in the picture and back down. The winner finished in 25 minuts. It would have taken me a day just to get to the top. It was an unbelieveable feat. This picture is them halfway up the hill, at about ten minutes. Beside athletic events they also have Scottish dancers and bagpipers which compete for prizes and best of the event. All of these events are going on all at the same time so you are kind of overwhelmed by all of the sounds and colors and action. Finally, if your not sure that it is the kind of place that you might want to go look at the kind of people that hang out there. For all of you americans, that is the QUEEN, and yes I was that close. Kind of cool. Hope every weekend is this fun. Cheers.

You can tell that school has started

Sorry to all of my loyal readers and to the smart aleck Gracie down in Houston but you can obviously tell that school has started. I taught my full second week and then went away for the weekend with students and then had another full week of school and finally went to the highland games yesterday, so I have gone two weeks without an update. I will try not to let that happen again. I have so many pictures and stories to tell I will probably do two different blogs. After my second week of school, I was invited by some of the staff to go to a place called Dalguise. It is the former summer home of Beatrix Potter, author of peter rabbit and a small castle. They have turned it into an adventure camp. 23 staff members took 70 students. Our dorms were in the former stables, and were very nice. We had six to a room in bunk beds. On Friday night they had a Mr. and Ms. Dalguise, except that the boys were girls and the girls were guys. Then after a water fight between the students and staff, they got a little sleep. The next day they did things like raft building, ziplineing, rapelling, the giant swing and jacob's ladder. It was fun to watch students overcome fears and do things many of them would not normally do. My personal favorites were zip-lining and the rappelling which I did numerous times. That afternoon, one of the crazy staff members started a huge shaving cream fight which spread all over the courtyard of the dorms. The following day they did more team building and then we finally came home. That was on August 31st, which is also the last night of the festival with a final fireworks show over the castle, so even though Brian and I were tired, we took our families to the show which was one of the best I have ever seen. We were sitting by the orchestra and the castle made for an amazing backdrop. Everyone's favorite was the waterfall effect down the side of the castle. What an amazing three weeks it has already been.

Cheers