Global Warming Makes My Hair Flat
Travel Location: Cardiff,United-Kingdom
Ho there blogites!
It’s been hard to find time to write as my internet time is scattered and we’ve been working 12 hour days. Well…sometimes those last couple hours are spent at the pub, but the day is stressful sometimes and hey…we deserve those 2 hours of pub work. So last time I wrote I had just arrived in Cardiff, startin the theatre work. I’m interning at the Royal Welsh College of Drama and Music. It’s a small conservatory (they only take 20 new admits each year to each program) with a small “campus” to match (really only one building) but it is surrounded by a great Park. The park is beautiful as I saw on the only run I’ve taken on this trip (walking a city is plenty of exertion!). THough i was battling the rain, it felt great. It really is a nice way to see a place…just go out for a jog. See others along the way…it was amazing how many people were out and about on such a “wintery mix” day. I suppose they are so used to the rain it doesn’t even occur to them that the next thunder & lighting storm of the century looms directly above. My running speed on the way back did pick up considerably (just don’t die…just don’t die…)The student apartments we are staying in are swaaaanky! …and that was completely unexpected. similar to hamilton, as it’s in suite style (know here as a flat) but there is twice as much space, we each have our own bathroom and everything is brand new. Although, there is the fact i feel like i’m living in a security vault. Get this, i need a key to get into the entire apartment area (actually they are so high-tech…it is a scan key), the same key to get into the building, another key to get into the flat itself, and then one more key to get into my actual room. i was shocked that both the kitchen and personal bathroom were not outfitted with a key lock..i mean…i think that’s a little risky. Ohhh i forgot to mention the laundry room contains all brand new equipment, a flat screen tv and leather couches. We’re thinking of having a party in there. We spent our two free days walking around Cardiff and checkin out the sites. there is shopping galore and we found a cool little market where we bought some fruit, and i got way too excited when i saw “waiit…those look like…yes..i am in wales…welsh cakes!!” which i bought for all of us…yummm. We also found some cool little alley ways with some cool independent punky stores and a record shop i warned i may have to spend an hour or so in. i talked to some kids there and found some sweet welsh punk music…rock! and apparently this record store claims to be the oldest…ever….established in 1894. who knows if it’s true or just the welsh gettin all excited about having invented the song and all that…yep….invented the song. hey…someone had to…
As for the rest of our time not spent lounging about in the apartment, we’re completely shielded from the weather inside a black box called the theater. For the first few days we recreated the space we will have in Edinburgh, which we also build from the ground up. It has been calculated that in any one day during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 3000 performances will take place. Any available space is used for theatre. We will be in a tiny church. It was educational and rewarding to build the theatre from nothing. saw the entire construction and wiring of a lighting rig, the sound equipment and all the staging and seats (no wiring involved here obviously). but recently, although the days are long, unfortunately I can’t say that all this time has been spent working. It’s weird because I thought every day would be INTENSE working, but in fact it seems like we’re often desperate to find things to do and just stand around chatting about our next tea time to come (yes…we take tea breaks). But once we’re in Edinburgh i know this will pick up when we’re running 3-4 shows a day with about a half hour for turnaround time…yeeeah. And apparently pubbing is expected every night of the week. Oh boy. the two shows I’m mainly working on include a “science” show which is more like a mess of science tricks, video, and music all disjointedly interspersed. Some cool moments but it’s all so jumbled together that it’s tiring to watch, especially so because the actors are well…not exactly actors….quite painful at times i must say. Luckily they are awesome people so it’s no trouble to work with them…just slightly painful to watch it at times. The other show, in which I have the responsibility of 58 cues (and that’s just for visual powerpoint slides) is a musical about child abuse, performed by kids aged 13-20 years old…hmmmm. It’s pretty much like watching a high school musical…and we all know how that feels for an hour. Another show, about Dylan Thomas’s life is cool though. We’ll see how I feel about all of these after 3 weeks.
something completely different: don’t worry! we easily made time in our busy schedule to pick up the new Harry Potter book at midnight on the 15th…quite exciting! We stood in line for over an hour. I’ve only spent a couple of days reading and i’m already 250 pages in. Ahhh to revel in our nerdiness. because our days end so late we often just start our free time at around 8 or 9 or 10pm. Romina’s birthday was yesterday and after the shows we all went out for “Curry” (Indian food) and ate our second dinners at 11pm. then some cake of course. the food was amazing…but the feeling in my stomach that night and the next morning was more like bed-spring bending, which it actually was making a loud pop as i rolled my gluttonous self over. it was comical.
So you ask…what is the title of this piece? making some political statement? ha…of course not…me? well anyway,…we all know that it rains incessantly in Wales, but the rain they’ve had this July has been unheard of and quite odd…even the locals (two specific theatre pals) are confused by the crazy weather. There is serious flooding in parts of the country, and thousands of people have been evacuated…oy. i’m hoping the island doesn’t sink while i’m here. that would just be no fun. Evidently the reports so far have said that havne’t had this amount of rain (within these past 3 months) for 230 years. record breaking. As Daz said “i’ve seen rain…i mean…of course, i live in wales…but never anything like this”. Maybe the weather gods wanted me to feel like i was back at hamilton! either way…rainy or sunshiney, it really is nice here and i can’t wait to see other parts of the country on our drive to Edinburgh. unfortunately seeing family has proved difficult as both the phone numbers grammy gave me didn’t work…sad!! perhaps i’ll just have to return to make the visits and manage to join the ice hockey team here (yes they have a rink in town…new and everything) Well, see you in Edinburgh!
