Chapter 9: Birthdays

As I am in a new city, I haven’t had many opportunities to socialize. Also I had a difficult week when a friend who was coming to live here was deported without even entering the country. I had a difficult conversation with my roommates readjusting the living situation in which and continued to stress about the Erasmus and the absence of work. It was not a great week preceding my birthday. But Tuesday came on I had class all day, in the afternoon one of the directors with whom I worked in November-December invited me to her house where she had organized a mini party with two actors from the same show. So a night I thought was going to  be sad and boring ended up being fun, we played guitar, we drank wine, ate popcorn and cake, we laughed and talked nonsense. I ended up going home around two in the morning happy to know that I did have friends =)

The rest of the week I finished the papers that were still pending for this week about my practice and, what I wanted to do in Strasbourg and for my second year. I had to finish before Friday because two friends came over to spend the weekend. We spent all day going up and down and now I have seen the city twice but luckily this time we had a sunny day. We also re-celebrated my birthday because you can never celebrate enough.

This week we have to finish the papers and some classes but I’m starting to get ready because we leave for Italy the following weekend. One of the interviews went well enough and I got offered a position that might start February 11th.

Apa I leave you with some pictures of London not very typical.

Chapter 8: Coming and going

After a Christmas rather warm with family, I'm back in London. The city received me cold and rainy which was much less pleasant than the last time. It was nice to be back in Barcelona for so long. For long I wanted to spend as much time as possible so at some point I could say "I've had enough." This time was a bit like that, so I felt I had chosen the exact time between not getting tired but having had enough.

Chapter 7: English Theatre

Only a few weeks to finish the first quarter, eager to start the holidays and go home. It seems that the routine has been set although I am still doing different things. Nothing remarkable except maybe the theater. Two weeks ago I closed the classic Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus by Arrows&Traps to start working then on a modern classic as Tennessee Williams StepBySteps Productions. A show of three works from the same period represented in a building set in the United States in the years 30’s or 40’s.

Chapter 6: Remember Remember ...

... The 5th of november, eventhough I missed it. As the 4th of July in the United States, this national day celebrated with fireworks, I spent in the theater. Not that I regreted it, I was working so...

Yes you heard---ehem... read it right! I found a job. After nearly a month of sending dozens of CVs everywhere, spend thousands of breakfast looking at ads online, and many nights stressing because days passed and I still did not hear any answers... Finally one day I got an answer: they had found someone better, but they were keeping my CV for later.

Chapter 5: Halloween

Looking at this week, I can only recall the desperate search for work for the next two months ... But in fact there have been many other things. As the first presentation of our projects. Needless to say Halloween the Castanyada.

Chapter 4: routine

We started this week on Monday thinking we had class but then it turned out that we didn't. So we didn't do much.

Tuesday we had a session of what I consider it’s our only class in which we talk about art. In this session we talked about religion, theater and rituals, based on a book written by an anthropologist. It was probably one of the most interesting meetings I've had so far. We also discuss the different ways to understand things to start thinking that the audience does not always understand what we want.

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!

Chapter 2: First week of class

First week of class. Well it was not exactly classes. It was a week of orientation “inductions”, explaining how the system works, the spaces, and what is expected of us and in between all we made presentations about our projects and backgrounds to get to know each other better.

Chapter 1: New beggining

  

New city, new people, new country, new places to get lost. To me, moving feels almost like a routine. Done some many times I already know what to expect, what are the priorities upon landing. Every country is different, is true, but immigrating is always the same. You are left with the same feelings. Now the biggest difference is the closeness to home, to be able to say “I will come get this later”, to be able to say, “call me when you can cause” we are on the same time zone, to be able to watch the news as they air… One of the things I like best is to wake up in the morning and drink my tea while I watch the sun come through the windows and on my backyard.

London is not a city that I have never seen before but I have never visit it in depth. It fascinates its architecture, the trains that run over and underground. The parks so green and quiet. There is so many people everywhere but fortunately no one desires to be touched and so you can walk easily between crowds. 

On the first day I decided to go to the university too see what world was expecting me. I took the train at my quiet station Bounds Green and I got down at King’s Cross. I have to explain that this station communicates all the trains coming from London airports, Europe and England besides almost all the underground lines. That means there is a huge crowd over and underground and everyone walks with purpose because what matters is to get to the destination fast. I simply cruised through the crowd because I didn’t had any idea where I was going. It turns out I was just going up a ramp, is not even a street. The university is a big square building with some windows. Modern architecture, full of modern struggling artists… was I going to fit? Turns out you can actually talk to this people as I discovered when I was trying to get through enrolment, so maybe is not going to be as bad…

This artsy world is new to me and so is difficult to get in when you don’t know many people. And so, I have spent the first week trying to open a bank account, get my Student ID, a phone, an oyster card (transportation) and figuring out my CV to get a job. Someone suggested I might have luck if I go to the theatres and let them know that I have experience and I am willing to work and so I am trying that too.

In general is been a good normal first week but now I am left hungry for more.