It's Christmas Time in the City

Hello everyone! Andrew and I are getting increasingly jealous as Thanksgiving approaches. Obviously, they don’t celebrate said holiday in the UK. However, we will be celebrating our own version of it with the rest of the students from my course. The two British women are very excited to discover what this mysterious holiday means to Americans. We told them that it pretty much consists of gluttony and football (our version). We will all be indulging in a Thanksgiving feast next Saturday, most likely at our flat.

Classes are going well. There isn’t much to say about that. I’m still working hard from 9-7. It’s amazing how quickly this trimester is flying by. There is only four more weeks until Andrew and I come home for the holidays! A class regarding my dissertation has begun, so I’ve been actively thinking about what I might do for that. We are given the choice of either doing a typical written dissertation or doing a performance/project-based one. Obviously, I’ll be choosing the performance one. Who wouldn’t? However, this does mean we might be in the UK a couple months longer in the summer. If anyone wants to visit, this would be a great time. I don’t have to be anywhere in particular to work on the dissertation, so long as I get it accomplished by the end of August. Also, I have a month long break between the end of April into March, which would also be a good time for friends and family to come visit.

Andrew and I are getting much more comfortable in Birmingham. Last week we attended the city’s Christmas parade where the city turned on its Christmas lights for the season. The parade was a little strange, but the atmosphere was very festive. We are also making a habit of visiting the “world famous” markets which sell fresh fruit and vegetables as well as many other wares. At the food market, you can get an entire basket of practically any fruit or veg for only a pound. It’s amazing. Also, cheese is really cheap there in comparison to the grocery stores.

This past Wednesday, I attended my first Monologueslam with some of the girls from my course where I performed some improvisation and my monologue from “Keely & Du”. I had no intention of doing the improv, but a guy needed a partner, so I thought I’d give it a try. As it turns out, he and I actually won the contest! My monologue went really well. I guess the lesson I learned from the experience is that I need to be getting out there. It felt great to be performing for a group of strangers who enjoyed receiving the performance. I think I’m going to make it a habit to attend and perform at things like this, including some open mic nights. I’d like to get singing in public too.

Last night we went to HP7 (part 1) with some friends, and afterwards we walked around the German Christmas Market, which is absolutely huge. It is the biggest German market outside of Germany. The vendors are selling things like Christmas ornaments, crafts, toys, clothing, and lots of food. The food is our favorite part. Andrew had a shish and tikka kebab, and I had a doughnut. I would’ve eaten more if I felt better.

Which reminds me…I have the flu or a cold or something. It’s really distracting. Hopefully it will be gone soon, because rehearsing for eight hours on Friday was torture.

Andrew’s job has been a good experience, but it’s clear that it’s not meant to be. It was a great opportunity to speak with hundreds of Brums (affectionate title for citizens of Birmingham) and do something completely unique, but it’s clearly not Andrew’s style to go door to door to ask people to donate to charity and be really persistent about it. Instead, he is trying to get things organized to become a substitute teacher. I have a friend who used to do this, and she is helping us work with an organization to make that happen. Andrew will have to figure out his qualifications in the UK since they are different from the US. Our fingers are crossed that this will work out.

Well, that’s all we really have for now. We will be sure to take photos of the market and the German market so you can all see how beautiful it is.

We hope all is well with you!

A month and half down...

We would like to issue an apology for those who have been eagerly awaiting a new post. We are ashamed at our recent neglect.

This is my fourth full week at BSA, and I finally feel as though I’m starting to get the hang of everything. Whenever I come home, I’m very tired- both physically and mentally. In class, we engage in a lot of movement that is surprisingly difficult on the body. We do a ton of Qui Gong stretches and exercises and have begun doing some elementary ballet. In the next few weeks we will begin learning some traditional Elizabethan dances. Another physical class I have is stage combat where we have been learning to work with rapiers. This week we will also get to use daggers for the first time in addition to our rapiers. I am finding stage combat to come very natural to me. I think it’s because I’ve watched “The Princess Bride” a few too many times.

I am also in three different speech classes that focus on finding “the inner home of the voice”. Basically we’ve just been doing a lot of spinal stretches and experimenting with sounds. One of the three classes is more focused on phonetics, and we will be learning accents with the emphasis in this term being RP or “Received Pronunciation” which is the standard for British actors. My acting classes are extremely long, but very useful. On Mondays, we have a four hour acting class in which we workshop scenes from different Shakespearean plays. I’m currently playing Juliet from “Romeo & Juliet” which I find very enjoyable. However, we also have two other four hour acting classes on Wednesday and Thursday and an eight hour rehearsal on Fridays. During these classes/rehearsals we are working on Twelfth Night. I have been cast as Olivia. We are also working through a lot of sonnets, which is very helpful in fully understanding iambic pentameter, context, and finding emotion through the text. I am learning so many things about reading and acting Shakespearean text than I could have imagined. I can definitely see my acting improving through a more disciplined approach to text.

Enough about that.

Andrew has been actively seeking jobs and finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel. A few days ago, he received a call from a potential employer and interviewed with them today. He got the job! He will be working for an employer downtown Birmingham (as long as they still take him even though we’re coming home for Christmas). In essence, he will be fundraising for British and international charities. He begins training tomorrow, and our hopes are high that everything will work out for the best. More information about his new job to come…

We are falling more in love with our flat every week. Yes, it might be in the alley, and yes, it might be a long commute to and from school, but it’s become rather cozy. I finally bought a scented candle to make it feel like the holidays around here.

We celebrated Halloween by going over to the house of some of my classmates. It was very laid back. Because children don’t really trick-or-treat here, we had to eat all the candy and drink all the cider ourselves. It hasn’t been very cold here yet- we think it got below freezing maybe once. Luckily, we haven’t had to break out our winter coats yet. We still are avidly watching several episodes of “Friends” every day and are very happy with our decision to purchase a television set. Sometimes, we even get to watch good movies like “The Swiss Family Robinson” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, which was made more enjoyable by the fact that we have one of the world’s largest chocolate factory a half a mile away- Cadbury World.

We really miss everyone and hope that you are all having great adventures!

Since last we talked

Hey there!

A lot has happened since last we talked. Firstly, we made a trip up to Scotland to visit Kirk & Cynthia Zimbelman and their dog, Dexter. For those of you who went on the England trip with Kate two years ago, you can easily understand the enjoyment we felt at the Zimbelman home. They were incredible hosts as we explored Edinburgh for two days. I think our favorite part of the trip was on the first night we arrived when Kirk took us on a pub crawl to a few establishments in Armadale. It was nice to be away from the big city and to hang out with some seedy locals. We spent the next two days going to Edinburgh Castle, taking a bus tour of the city, sight-seeing, and going on a long stroll on a path along the Firth of Forth. The path was situated outside of Queensferry, a small sea-side town a couple of miles from Edinburgh. All in all, the trip was a success. We hope to make it up to Scotland to visit the Zimbelmans again.

Next, we traveled to Amsterdam for a weekend. Amsterdam was gorgeous, especially in the evenings. We spent the weekend visiting the Van Gogh museum where we saw the famous Sunflowers and Potato Eaters paintings, taking a canal cruise, exploring the Red Light District, and visiting the Anne Frankhuis where we were able to explore the secret annex as well as seeing Anne Frank's actual diary. This was especially interesting as we both participated in directing The Diary of Anne Frank last summer. On a less sobering note, the Red Light District was very interesting. We were worried that it might be a little shady (and don't get us wrong- parts of it were), but for the most part it was very touristy. When we saw old women, boyfriends and girlfriends, and families hanging around, we knew we were safe.

Upon return several wonderful things have happened. We finally got the Internet. It's both amazing and sickening that we are so dependent on having access to the Internet. We also purchased some much needed items as we were dangerously close to starting a fire in our flat with our over-used electricity converter. Now that we are hooked up to the web, Andrew has been applying for jobs so hopefully something will turn up in his favor soon. Kate began classes today with an introduction to the course. In short, the course runs until the beginning of July after which Kate will begin her dissertation either being written or performance-based. (Obviously she'll choose the later.) Her classes for this trimester consist of things such as stage combat, a 4-hour acting workshop every day, period movement, technical singing classes, and organic movement- to name a few. Her program will be performing Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" during this trimester. Her dissertation can be accomplished anywhere so hopefully over next summer friends will be able to come and visit, and we can do some more traveling.

Before I forget- We were watching a tv show a couple of nights ago called "Rude Tube". It's basically a British version of Tosh.O and Sioux City, IA was mentioned on it for their rendition of "We Built This City" (or We Built Sioux City) by Jefferson Starship. It gave us fuzzy, warm feelings about our home state.

It was also really embarrassing.

Well...we miss everyone and will hopefully be doing a better job of keeping everyone updated. Hope you are all well!

The First Week

It has been over one week, and we have managed to get a lot of important things accomplished such as getting a flat, cell phones, a landline, Internet, television, a bank account, library cards, oh....and finding out that Kate's classes don't actually begin when the information from BCU said they would. So that's nice. We've also started cooking our own meals again as we have located a Sainsbury's and a Aldi a half a mile from our flat.

Beyond this, some very exciting things have happened. The other day, we received a phone call from our good friend Kirk Zimbelman. It was sincerely refreshing to hear from him as Kate was beginning to feel kind of lonely as she looked at her cell phone with only two numbers in it, one of which was her own. Kate is the kind of girl that likes to have a full address book in her cell phone as well as several text messages, and not just text messages from the phone company asking her to rate their service on a scale of 1-5. In fact, Kate struggled the first few nights in the flat as she realized where her life had taken her. No more big fish in a little pond. Also, she missed everyone. However, the ever-steady Andrew kept it together and comforted her whenever she needed it...which was a lot.

Things got better after the first two nights as Kate and Andrew began to really enjoy their surroundings. This enjoyment was undoubtedly brought on by the fact that they live .5 miles away from Cadbury World. Another glimmering moment was when Andrew bought a £5 phone card that contained 5,000 minutes on it. We thought it was a fluke, but were overjoyed that we had endless time to call home. And as we got off the phone with our mothers, we realized that it sucked up all of our cell phone minutes. Not so magical after all. However, it won't suck up any minutes when we use it with a landline, of which we will get on Oct. 6th along with Internet.

As always, the quest for Internet is ever-present. Right now we are both sitting in a shopping mall on shady computers. Oh! I almost forgot one of the most exciting things- we received our first mail! Kirk & Cynthia were so kind to send us a gift of a Scotland travel guide. Now we have to go there. For sure. 

First Impressions

We arrived safely in Birmingham around 3:30 p.m. yesterday and had no trouble getting a taxi to take us to our little hotel. And when we say "little"...we mean absolutely tiny. The rooms are about as big as a king-sized bed, but are surprisingly comfortable and swank. After arriving at the hotel last night, we decided to explore the city centre and find a eatery. We were both extremely hungry, but managed jet lag very well. We were going on 30 hours without sleep and feeling just fine.

The next day, we woke up to find that it was 12:30 p.m. We got ready and went back out into the city. Our explorations included the beautiful city canals, a million shopping centers, and Millenium Pointe, which is where the Birmingham School of Acting is located. That building is insane. Inside there is the acting school, the Thinktank, which is a sort of science/technology activies museum for children, and an IMAX theatre. It is a strange place to be attending school. We also got to briefly explore the art museum, which contained many paintings, our favorite being the Pre-Raphaelite ones. Luckily for us,  it is currently Artfest in Birmingham so we witnessed several art booths and live musicians.

Our first impressions are many. We wanted to live in a city, and here we are. Birmingham really is how it is described....urban and industrial. It's no London. If you are looking for a quaint, romanticized, English town, this is not your place. That town is 30 miles south in Stratford-upon-Avon. However, as far as innovation, progress, and modernity, there is a lot to be found here. Some of the buildings are absolutely amazing, especially the Thinktank and the Bullring. While we are admittedly disappointed by the lack of "typical" English ambiance, we are confident that there are many hidden gems in the city that are left to be discovered.

Tomorrow we will hopefully move into our apartment, which will be a whole new exploration all it's own. We miss our friends and family. This whole adventure still seems like a vacation.

I'm on my way/ I don't know where I'm going

Welcome to our blog. We were very excited to discover that this blog came with a photo of parliament and Big Ben. How appropriate.

In short, this is going to be a blog about our experiences and adventures in the United Kingdom. As many of you know, Kate will be attending the Birmingham School of Acting for her masters and Andrew will be going on many cultural adventures and looking for his dream job. We depart for the airport on Friday afternoon where we will board a flight from Cedar Rapids to O'Hare to Dublin and into Birmingham. We have a seven hour layover in Dublin and the Barnolds have been in discussion about whether or not it would be feasible to leave the airport and explore Kate's motherland before the plane boards for Birmingham.

We will arrive in Birmingham and be staying at the Nitenite Hotel, which is a tiny-roomed hotel inspired by luxury yacht cabins, downtown for a couple of nights as we are not able to move into our apartment on Monday. Speaking of our apartment, we chose a crazy, tiny little nook located above a thrift store and across from a dress shop and eatery called "Emma's Pantry". From the looks of Googlemaps and Bing, it seems like quite an interesting little shanty.

Today we also discovered that Birmingham comes equipped with a bus, train, and metro which will be very useful to us as we travel about the city.

We will be spending the next few days getting ready and wrapping up any last details. Everything seems like a mystery still. We wish we were already there to get things prepared for all the festive events to come!

Kind Regards!