Wednesday was one of those terrible horrible no good very bad days, which I’m told exist even in Australia. I think part of the reason for the general bad luck of the day was that I was fighting a cold, which meant I was seeing the world through sniffle colored glasses, but even by objective standards I think it was a pretty rough day.
It had an auspicious beginning when I was informed that my experimental theatre class was cancelled for that day, which meant that I had no classes that day. I was thrilled. I made plans with my two other study abroad compatriots in the class to meet up when their morning classes were finished, and decided to put my free morning to good use, i.e. doing laundry and going to the gym. So far, so good.
However, when I returned from the gym to transfer my wash from the washing machine to the dryer, I discovered that I had forgotten to check my pockets. To my horror I found a pair of earrings, two pounds in coins and my cell phone had gone through the wash. The earrings and the change were undamaged, but my poor phone was squeaky clean but, I’m sorry to say not functioning. This proved to be an immediate problem because I had told one of my friends to give me a call when she got out of class and I would give her directions to my flat. I was now in a panic. I took my cell phone and dismantled it, drying every component part separately, but it was to no avail, it was lifeless in my now shaking hands. It was then that inspiration struck, and I decided to swap the sim chip from my telestial blogabroad phone with my every day phone. It worked like a charm, and I was able to send my friend a text telling her that I had had a minor delay and that I might be in the shower when she called.
After I had cleaned off and calmed down, I met my friend half way across the bridge and walked her back to my flat. We discussed our plans for the upcoming reading week. I was excited because I was planning to visit my friend from high school in Madrid. She was equally excited because she would be flying home to visit her family in New York. Wow. It seems that her sister was planning to come visit her in London, but because of the way the frequent flyer miles worked it was cheaper and easier for her to fly home, so she was now going home for her sister’s birthday. She asked me if there was anything I wanted from home, and I thought about it for a bit. More than anything I missed synthetic low calorie ice cream, but I realized that she couldn’t bring that back with her, so I asked for a jar of American peanut butter, a box of fat free popcorn and Kashi cereal. These were hallmarks of my diet at home that I have not found suitable replacements for over here.
Speaking of diet, once my laundry had been folded and we had connected with my other friend, we decided our occupation for the afternoon would be baking. We searched allrecipes.com, and settled on a brownie recipe. We made a list and headed out to the local store, but in keeping with the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad day theme they didn’t have half the items so we had to walk to the major super market in Soho. This isn’t a bad thing, even when you have wet hair and a cold, but it began to feel like little accidents were accumulating. When we got to the large supermarket, we purchased our items along with a frozen pizza for lunch and weighted down with baking cocoa and honey we returned to the flat.
The brownies came out beautifully, but because of our impatience they were slightly undercooked. Mmmmm warm brownie batter. The three of us ended up eating the entire pan, just sitting around and digging in with spoons. Between the third of the batch of brownies, and the frozen pizza we were feeling pretty sick by the end of the afternoon. We settled into a sort of torper that comes with being warm, slighty ill and with good company. Such a torper was lulling, but ultimately evil because we had tickets to go see The Anderson Project at the Barbican that night. We were required to see the production for class, as our first (out of only two) assignments was to write a review of the production. I had been in charge of procuring the tickets, and had been informed when I purchased them that there was to be NO LATE SEATING. That didn’t bother me at the time because I’m chronically, neurotically, on time for things. Especially when it comes to theatre curtains and movies—I’m not happy unless I’m in my seat a good half hour before the thing starts. You can see where this is going.
It turns out that not only is the Barbican located on the other side of town from our flat, it is located at a Tube stop that requires three tubes to reach. Because of the brownie torpor we were slow to leave, and then we fell further and further behind at each tube change. Once we reached the Barbican tube stop, with five minutes till curtain, we realized that none of us knew how to get to the theatre from the tube. We stumbled around for a bit, and even I was in favor of asking directions, but there were few people to ask. Eventually we got pointed in the right direction, and arrived at the theatre ten minutes after curtain. I was beside myself, and considered just turning around and going home, but my friends convinced me that it would be worth asking about receiving the tickets any way, so we did and were escorted to the “Late comers lounge” where we watched the play on a screen surrounded by the four or five others who had gotten there late. In the first transition, the usher beckoned to us, and managed to sneak us into the balcony where we watched the remainder of the show from the comfort of our actual seats.
The show itself was amazing, and it is a testament to the strength of the work that it managed to transport me, despite the fact that I arrived late, and despite the fact that I was tense from being late. Experimental Theatre is kind of a crazy class, and I will do a blog entry on it later because it really deserves a blog of its own (and I’ve had a request to write about it). I had been worried that the production would be totally over my head, and that I wouldn’t be able to write a pretentious enough review to please the professor. Once I had seen the show, my doubts were completely dispelled. The show was a one man play about a writer trying to adapt a Hans Christian Anderson story for an Opera libretto. He was a French Canadian who came to France to work for the Opera Garnier, and when he reflected on why he was there, he said something to the effect of, “that’s what people from the colonies do. We come to the old world to try and win your respect because that’s still all we care about.” And I thought, exactly! That’s why I’m here. Assuming that the way the British study Shakespeare is going to be superior to the way my American university studies it is, at the end of the day, merely the desire of a rube from the colonies hoping that the cultural aficionados from the main land will think that she’s erudite. Any way, the show was spectacular. The performer/writer/director type was amazing in his ability to find an interesting story and tell it simply. I’m still not sure if I’m going to be able to write an academic enough review of the work, but if the show tours and you get a chance to see it, please do.
My mood was considerably better when we left the theatre, until I checked my bag and realized that I had again managed to loose my phone. We went back to the theatre, and after following a trail that lead me to several different usher types at several different information desks I managed to find the lost and found and reclaim my thankfully undamaged phone.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t such Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad day, because even though multiple things went wrong everything was eventually corrected and it all worked out in the end. I think this just proves that I’ve been spoiled over the past couple months.
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