If You Give a Miner a Paintbrush...

Today has been an overall emotional, stressful, and long day, but I end the day satisfied and content. It started off with my one project here in London, my group walking tour. Our group decided to do a walking tour of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, the largest of all the Royal Parks in London. 34% of London is green space, which is great and I really love that part of the city. Our tour, thank goodness, went really well and our professor quite enjoyed it. We were also the first group to go because we showed the most efficiency, so we got some bonus points for that. On our tour we brought up many points to prove that parks are more than just ascetically pleasing. They serve other purposes such as rallying points (Speakers Corner), places of national pride (Albert Memorial) and a place to "immortalize" people and places (Diana Memorial Fountain). There is so much more I could talk about, but I will leave you with those few links above to learn what you can.

After our two hour walking tour, some of us (myself included) had signed up to see another play at the Globe Theatre. Me, being a thrifty person, opted for the 5 pound standing tickets instead of the 15 pound sitting ones. At the time, I was kicking myself for not getting a seat ticket and having to stand for 3 hours, but the play proved itself worthy. The play was called As You Like It and it was one of the few Shakespeare plays I still had not seen or read. It was hysterical and the cast was so good at involving the audience and actually moving in and around us. The standing seats were, for this play, the best seats in the house.

All of us at the play then ran back to the hotel for a short while before we had to head back out to the same area for another place tonight. For dinner though, my friend Sarah and I decided that we wanted a big juicy burger and went to a place, namely called, Ultimate Burger. I had one burger here in London previously and it was awful in comparison to ours, so I had been a bit skeptical about getting another one. They were excellent, thank goodness, and was like a part of home was with me. Sarah and I noticed while in the restaurant some people eating them with forks and knives...

The play that we saw tonight was called, The Pitmen Painters. Based on a true story about miners in England that decided to talk an art appreciation class. Their teacher one day, because they were all so skeptical about art, made them all paint a picture about life. What they all painted were exceptional and eventually got them famous for their depictions on politics, life and being a miner. I must say, at first I was not all that excited to see the play, because I was tired today and just in general. Out of all the plays that we had seen, this one was my absolute favorite and touched me the most. It hit home for me I guess because it reminded me of my family, of my great grandfathers who worked in the coal mines, and my father who has such a love and admiration for them. I definitely teared up a few times during the play because I just sat there feeling proud of who I was, where I came from, and all of those middle class workers who were just amazing people. It was a play about the working class, people who lead honest, hard working lives, who depicted life honestly in their paintings. It was just an incredible play. I wish my father was here to see it with me, for I know he would have loved it even more than I.

One of the actual paintings done by one of the miners who had no classical or formal training, just his own thoughts and feelings.


I am finally going to bed, after a very long day. Tomorrow is one of the first days that I hopefully will get to sleep in. Now I have to start research for a paper that I don't really know the topic of yet. I know it will be about women and gender and England. That's about it!