Cambridge, Globe, Mummies and Blue Socks

I have been shamefully neglectful of this blog so I'm just going to have to work backwards from what I've been doing so sorry if it is a little long! On my way home from my internship I pass a bunch of theaters and last night I decided to walk into the one in the West End that was playing the Lion King and see if they did student discounts. The guy at the box office said they had seats for that night so I thought why not! I keep saying how much I want to go see plays and I figured there was no time like the present. I got a ticket that would normally have cost 57pounds for 21 and it was a great seat, right in the middle on the middle balcony! I'm notorious for wanting everything planned out so acting spontaneous for once was nice; I may not know where I want to be in the next 20 years but I knew where I wanted to be in the next 2 hours!

On Tuesday for my Shakespeare in London course we visited The Globe! The English nerd in me was super excited- we did a tour of the theatre (which isn't in exactly the same location as the orginal theater, but close enough and is on the South Bank of the Thames) Here are some pics:

Last Sunday everyone from the program took a bus down to Cambridge, which was beautiful. We had lunch and Cauis College (pronounced "Keys") which apparently is a big deal since they don't let many people in and we couldn't take pictures. What was great is we got a free lunch! Had about 10 glasses of free orange juice to build up my reserve of vitamin C because there is no way in hell I'm paying the ridiculous amount of money for juice here. After eating we explored a bit (it was actually sunny!) and then went "punting." Punting is where you go on this flat boat pushed along by a pole- so kind of like a gondola I guess, but flat.

View from the Boat Punting

The day before I went to the British Museum with Hannah and Christine, which is huge! The nice thing is its free so you don't feel like you have to run around and see everything to get your money's worth. I pretty much focused on Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece and will go back another time to see more. They are doing an exhibit of the "The Book of the Dead" which I am tempted to go read from, unwittingly set off a chain of events that will bring about the end of the world and wake up a mummy and then wait around for Brendan Frasier to burst in heroically and clean up the mess I made.... yeah, "The Mummy" is a guilty pleasure; I'd apologize but I'm not the least bit sorry! Daydreams aside, here are a few pics from the Museum:

This mummy is Cleopatra. I don't know if it's "the" Cleopatra... who knows that name could be the Megan or Katherine of Ancient Egypt, but the sign said Cleopatra so I'm calling that pretty awesome regardless.

So far I really like my internship, my supervisor is great. Bought me lunch yesterday and I tried Thai food for the first time which was delicious! One of her contacts in the Health Protection Agency is interested in me helping on a project for them all about stockpiling medical supplies in the event of a nuclear attack, which should be pretty cool. Yesterday I got to sit in on a meeting that is the start of a project about protecting the Critical National Infrastructure of the UK (which are things like energy, water, transportation, food etc. that are critical to the running of a nation and are particularly vulnerable to a terrorist attack). I didn't understand a lot of what was going on but it was interesting to see how these sorts of million dollar projects get started and how professionals from totally different backgrounds like social psychology and computers try and communicate to each other what exactly needs to be done to make sure energy and transportation are resilient by 2050. I also have been making a terrorist profile where I look up information on past terrorists- which is chilling but interesting. All in all really liking my placement! My supervisor is really insistent she does not want me to be bored or just stuck in an office. She wants me to find speakers and conferences to go to and she also is letting me audit her master's level course she teaches "Responding to Terrorism" which meets on Wednesdays from 3-5. The class is going to be super interesting and relevant to my internship, especially since each class she brings in a professional to talk about how they actually deal with terrorist threats in the real world. People like emergency responders, police officers, insurance agents, government officials etc. All in all going well!

I turned all my socks blue two days ago when doing laundry, but I figure if that is my biggest complaint about London so far then I'm doing ok :) So far I've learned: Don't be afraid to take a different street on your walk back from work as you find some pretty cool places (ended up on Drury lane and have been singing the muffin man song all week), don't feel embarrassed about cultural slip ups (because honestly, who gives a damn if I have to sit there and take an extra second to figure out the coins, I'll get it eventually and if I get a weird look for asking where the "restroom" is... meh.), the washing machines here take at least 3x as long to clean anything and our dryer is probably broken, walk into a theater and see if they have cheap tickets because the end you get to watch I man dressed as a lion get whacked on the head by a chick dressed as a baboon as one of your favorite Disney movies comes to life on stage.