What a beautiful dream that could flash on the screen in a blink of an eye and be gone from me...

I got back from my trip to Amsterdam late two nights ago and was up at 7am the next morning and this morning for all day Julius Caesar rehearsals. Also I have a cold. Definition of a rude awakening.

Thankfully, I hate flying... so I took a train to Brussels and then a bus with Leah to Amsterdam. No volcano was gonna mess with my trip.

Amsterdam is my new favorite place in the universe. Okay, well it's tied with sitting on a hammock, overlooking a forest in the Dominican Republic. It's my new favorite city definitely.


It was so beautiful and sunny out almost every day... On Saturday, we walked around the Jordaan and everyone was out on their little front stoops, playing with their families and their dogs, or reading, or smoking a pipe, etc.... and they were picnicking on their boats with their friends with some wine and food... it looked just like a movie. Leah and I are trying to find a way to move there.

Also, Dutch people are amazing. They are so sweet and were never rude when we asked for directions or got confused or needed to be directed to the nearest "shnack bar" for some potato oorlag.

Favorite moments: Van Gogh Museum, tagging along on a walking tour led by an Australian local, sitting in Vondel Park whilst listening to Lauryn Hill, Indonesian food... there are so many more, I'm just too sleepy and stuffy to think of them.

One of my favorite songs kept running through my head while I was there... probably because it's about Amsterdam and Anne Frank.



Some of the lyrics are:

What a curious life
We have found here tonight
There is music that sounds from the street
There are lights in the clouds
Anna's ghost all around
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me
Soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

Just some random thoughts...

Why can't I do an English accent? I've been here for more than six months, all but two of my friends are English, during term time I'm with said English friends for hours a day... what the hell?? All of them can do American accents! Granted, they sound WAY too nasally, and it seems like they learn American accents by watching the Hills, or the OC, or Laguna Beach... not everyone in the States speaks like a Valley girl, thank you very much. But they're still better than I am. Is it just because American movies and TV pervade popular culture here, so they hear the accent all the time? Do we really sound THAT nasally?

And sometimes, when my friends want a laugh, they ask me to do an English accent... and I end up sounding like an idiot and possibly insulting them. All I can do is the "Chah-lay" from the Charlie Bit Me youtube video. I actually do that really well.

I'm just really upset by this whole thing, though.

You know how a lot of times in movies the villains or antagonists are played by English actors? Yeah I didn't notice that either.  Kind of pisses some English people off, actually. The theory is that Hollywood likes sophisticated villains, and what spells sophistication better than English accents? Ready for a list? Here we go...
- Die Hard
- Mission Impossible 2
- Matilda
- Mrs. Doubtfire 
- Rush Hour
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- North by Northwest
- Jumanji
There are many more, I just can't think of them. In TV shows, too. In Friends, Ross' horrible wife who makes him stay away from Rachel is English (ooooh my flatmates hate that).

So why can't I do the accent yet? I've picked up the intonation (as Bethy will tell you), and some words and phrases, but I can't get the BLOODY ACCENT.

Teehee.

I would like to work the word "odious" into my vocabulary...

Here I am in London Town, more specifically, in Golders Green, the super Jewish part of the city. I arrived Thursday and my friends immediately took me to a shwarma place, followed by a bakery where I got rugelach (I love friends who feed me). Everything was delicious and reminded me of the *ahem* good ol' days back at Tehiyah. I'm staying with my friend, Abi, and hanging out with a lot of my friends from Warwick... lots of them live in or around London.

I saw Liz for little while on Saturday... We went to Platform 9 3/4, to the Tate Museum (not my favorite museum here, as it turns out), and to St. Paul's to feed the birds. She has good Granada stories... I wanna go there. It sounds warm and sunny... I wonder what that's like...

My friends had a little get together the other night... made some bolognese, drank some wine, went to Tesco to grab some dessert. It was really nice... I like London. Maybe I'll go to grad school here? King's College has a Shakespeare Studies MA... you take classes at the Globe and the program's students get the stage all to themselves on Wednesday nights. What a life that would be.

Now I'm hanging out at Abi's house. Watching some Pride and Prejudice. Swooning over Colin Firth. Eating some kosher for Passover chocolate. Snuggling on a comfy couch.

I spoke to Bethy and Eyal on Skype the other day, who made me realize that while I haven't picked up the accent, I have picked up the intonations. I can hear it, I just can't control it! It'll go away once I get back to California and people make fun of me...

Silby out.

Sort your life out...

That's one of my favorite sayings here.... and it's also what I need to do.

For the past two weeks, I felt like my life was spinning wildly out of control, but in a good way. The Taming of the Shrew performances were on Friday and Saturday and I had 8500 words due in for Monday... so for the past two weeks, when I wasn't in rehearsals, I was researching and writing. I haven't been getting much sleep, my room looks like a tornado hit it, I have no food left, and I think I'm getting a cold. But it was all worth it. The performances went so well (lots of people told me afterward that it was their favorite thing they'd seen this year), and I handed in my essays yesterday, on time and with more than enough words. Now I can relax and write my blog again.

I have a lot of great things planned for the next month, so I'm pretty excited. I'm going to Stratford with friends to walk around and then see King Lear, followed by a sleepover. Next weekend I'm staying with a friend in London and doing Passover dinner with her and her family and seeing some musicals. Also, that weekend Liz will be in London so I'll get to see her and we can explore London together! I haven't seen her in what seems like years. Then, my friend Meagan and I are going to roam around England... maybe do some Lake District, some Cotswolds, some Brighton, we don't really know yet. AND THEN (drum roll please) Leah and I are going to Amsterdam in April!

More fantastic events coming up in my life:

I think I can travel around during third term as well, when I'm not taking tests, writing essays or "revising" (which basically means studying). During third term, there's this festival called Warwick Student Art Festival, where students can show some art, dance, and of course, put on plays. I'm already signed up to dramaturg The Canterbury Tales and The Servant of Two Masters, which I saw in Ashland last summer. There's also going to be a Shakespeare Week in third term. For that, I've been dramaturging Julius Caesar and I'm teaming with my friend to direct a sonnet and a scene.

So, yeah. That's my unsorted life. Today I'm going to return my library books, go shopping for food, clean my room, and maybe do some laundry.

We've been quoting Extras a lot lately and I thought I'd share it with whoever is reading this. Extras is possibly one of the most painfully hilarious shows ever made.

Kissing the Lipless

I have made a change in my life, a significant change.

My friends and I were having dinner a little while back and as we were eating I received a text message. I said something along the lines of, "Aw I love how English people put an 'x' at the end of their text messages," to which my friend replied sadly, "Yeah.... you don't."

Almost every text message I get, or facebook message for that matter, has at least one 'x' at the end, typically more.... Sometimes it's 'xx,' 'xX,' 'XXx,' etc. I never really thought too much about it, just thought it was cute, but apparently not putting at least one 'x' is a bit of a faux pas. My friends told me it was fine, since anyone who text messages me knows I'm American and may not know the ways of the 'x.' I went home and asked my flatmate Grace why she had not informed me of this cultural difference, as she usually does. Here are some rules she explained to me:

1. If you send a message to someone and you don't put a kiss at the end, it implies that you are upset with them.
2. It is okay not to put a kiss at the end if it's something like, "see you in five," but it's better to just do it anyways. 
3. Some boys do not put a kiss at the end, in which case it is appropriate to refrain from placing a kiss at the end of a message.
4. If you are texting a boy and you don't know him well, it is also appropriate to refrain from kissing. If he responds with an 'x,' you must end with a kiss from thereon out.
5. Many people have trademark kisses. For instance, my friend ends her text messages with 'XxX,' another with 'xxx,' and my friend James ends his with "jx."
6. If you are having a long texting conversation with someone, it is acceptable after a while to ceasefire on the 'x's. But you still should just in case.
7. Basically, just always put an 'x' at the end of your text messages.

There are way more. These are just the ones I can remember before my morning coffee has kicked in. I felt pretty terrible for a while... I didn't want my friends, even for a split second before they remembered I'm American, to think I was upset with them.

I keep wondering how this evolved.... I mean, really. How long have text messages been in existence? Less than ten years? And already there are so many rules and standards involved. Do we have stuff like this in the States?

It took a while to get into the habit, but I now put an 'x' at the end of my text messages. At first, my friends would message me back, "Nice x!" --- even the friends I hadn't spoken to about it.

I feel like a much better human being now, and a much better Anglophile.

Stop looking at me, swan!

Just got back from a weekend in Paris.... man my life is tough.

I was only there for a few days, but it was wonderful and relaxing.

I love the really well dressed businessmen on the train to London, who set up shop with their businessmen friends (not being sexist... I've only ever seen men). They have newspapers out, working on some chart things on their laptops, talking on their cell phones. Then I follow them off the train and walk to St. Pancras... passing by the British Library, some red telephone boxes, and nice looking pubs. This time, after I went past security and passport control in London, I saw that they had some performers set up in the Eurostar... terminal? Is that what you call that? Where I wait for my train. They were playing jazzed-up Disney songs to entertain the children who were waiting to go to Disneyland Paris.

Yesterday when I got on my Eurostar train in Paris, there was someone standing at the door to check my ticket.... which has never happened before. I thought maybe they upped the security for some reason. Then I got into my train and saw that the seats were bigger than the ones I usually sit in and they had leather headrests. I thought maybe they changed up the seats in the past two days.  Then I fell asleep for a few minutes, woke up and saw people drinking wine and soda all around me. I never get wine or soda on my Eurostar trip! I kind of let myself accept at that point that I was in a higher class seating.... but how the hell did that happen? I don't even know how to book first class seating on the website and I certainly did not pay for a first class ticket. So I started feeling guilty, like I had done something wrong and at any minute someone would walk past, see I was an impostor and kick me off the train by the coast of France. Next thing I know, a server walks by and hands me a tray with delicious food on it. I didn't respond at first because I thought I didn't deserve delicious food after conning my way into first class, but then he motioned for me to put my tray up... and I didn't want to look silly. This will remain a mystery for the rest of my life. Was it just a glitch in the matrix? How can it happen again? My seat was so big I could curl up in the fetal position!

Back in Warwickland now... and my workload is getting pretty heavy. In order to stay on top of things, I'm going to need to read about 200 pages a night, while attending lectures, rehearsals for two plays and one radio show, production meetings... and hopefully I'll find some time in there to eat and breathe. I'm not hoping for much sleep, though. Sleep will be put on the back burner. Anyone know a way to increase the number of hours in a day to 30? Maybe 32? It would be much appreciated.

Good to be back, though. Even if I was threatened by a swan today (and yes, I stood my ground and acted tough, but it was really big and wagged its tail at me, so I ran away). They aren't as pretty when they're out of the water.

Antarctica, my only living relative...

One of my favorite songs in the entire universe.



Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day, everyone!