Chapter 3: 100 posts English blog

This week has been one of the most entertaining in while. We left on last Saturday so we'll start on Sunday. A general warning, this is a long entry which seems appropriate since this is the entry number 100 :) thank you to all of you who have been part of it so far!

So on Sunday I went to the university where there were a bunch of activities related to the Kings Cross train station and drawing. For example, in the main square, where there is usually some fountains choreographed with lights, that day were off so people could trace the outlines of the continents on the ground making a huge world map. They used a drone that flew occasionally to check that all continents were proportionately correct. Inside the university building there were various workshops. With a friend of mine we tried one where you had to draw each other while facing each other. The difficulty was that we had to draw with a long bamboo stick with a

piece of graphite on the end and you couldn't lift it up. Complicated. Another activity was to draw two models who were sitting in the middle of a circle of canvas, I decided to draw the artist painting them instead. There were more activities all around the building but we didn't participate much. Instead we went to have lunch at the train station and then I went home to rest.

Monday we had a river trip with the class. It's easy to sit together and chat when there is so few of us. We had a sarcastic and amusing guide who made the visit much more enjoyable and interesting. When we arrived to Greenwich it was cold so, to warm up a bit, we went to a local restaurant where they made pies. I got a meat pie with mashed potatoes. Pretty good. After lunch we went through a tunnel that goes under the river. On the other side there is a garden where you can see the Royal Naval College and the Pavilion Queen Ingo Jones. Catherine Cullen explains on her book "London" that they left the gap for the Queen's palace because the wife of Charles II was horrified that the college was going to cover the views. I recommend that book. I left my classmates to go back to the observatory where you can see the 0 meridian and the official English measurements of feet and inches. In the maritime museum there is ship simulator where I spent more time than in any of the other rooms, and there was an exhibition of lighthouse! I don't need to tell you that I spent all afternoon stuck there.

 

Tuesday I had to get up early to go to the bank to pay my rent. Unfortunately I didn't had the right number so I went to class and I arrived 30 minutes early. When we finally began the class the fire alarm went off. We all left to go to the fountain square. All meaning all thousands of students and staff who were at the building at that moment. It took half an hour to fix the problem and another hour to get back inside because everyone had to go through the barriers. We lost a third of the class time with everything and in the afternoon we went overtime. I stayed late because I wanted to try fencing. The university offers weekly activities for students for not a lot of money. I chose fencing because it is the only one in my building that works with my schedule and interests me more or less. Well after a day of training I am definitely interested.

Wednesday I had to get up early to go to the bank, but the night before I went to bed late and it was the second day in a row that I had to get up (not just wake up) before 9, so I was a bit zombie. I arrived at the bank only to find out on Wednesday they open at 10 and I had class at 10.30 so another fiasco. That afternoon I left the last class a little early time to go to the bank before it closed at 5pm and I finally got it done.

Thursday was different because we didn't had class but we had to volunteer in a theater in exchange to have a sort of Q&A with the Artistic Director. They basically build a set inside a building and they walk the audience from room to room where things happen. For example, in a room they are interrogated by immigration officers, in the other must make a speech because they just want the election, another they go crowd surfing, etc. Because I didn't want to perform I asked if I could be backstage. I was put in a trap where the person was lifted into a car surrounded by fans who shouted their name and then came back down into a room of Buddhist monks. I spent all night pulling the rope to operate the trap.

Between this and fencing I ended up so tired that I wanted a quiet weekend. I sent my CV following the eternal search of work and wrote some of my adventures that seem to be quite entertaining. We'll see how next week goes.