On the verge of adventures

It is nearly time! On Monday morning at 4am I will climb on a bus that takes me to Stansted airport, from whence I will travel to Rome, where I will meet my darling sister at the Main Termini. And from there the European tour commences, from which I will not return until August 27th. Preparations are nearly completed: a rucksack has been purchased, nearly 200 pounds in coins are sitting in my room waiting to be converted into Euro, and all I need to do is print out my boarding pass!
The last few weeks have been nice and hectic. We did our final presentations, which turned out very well, I thought. I was very proud of us fish, and hopefully someone will post a recording of our little piece later on in the summer: I'll post a link to it here when it goes up. And then school finished with a beautiful ceremony that we first-years put together for the second years. It was a sort of pagan Greek/Roman luxury spa trust fall/walk inspirational experience with lots of massages, grapes, togas, and blindfolds. We first years, toga-clad, greeted the second-years with music and dancing, married them all together (one of my classmates got "ordained" for the purpose from the Church of Universal Light or whatever) and led them through different stations that were intended to help them relax after a long hard year and to help them prepare for the future. These included a massage parlor, an inspirational quote and trust fall section, and a blindfolded "journey to mount Olympus". After we cycled them all through these stations, we had them take off their blindfolds to see us all "punting" them into the future by the canal, and they each got a flower to throw in the canal with a wish. By this time it was raining as well, so the atmosphere was amazingly emotional and joyful. Some of them even threw themselves into the canal along with their flowers and went swimming, to the surprise and amusement of all. And after all this, we went back inside, dried off, ate lots of good food and said good-bye! Several of my classmates have decided not to come back next year, which is very sad, but they're going on to do amazing theatrical things, so it's nice to know they'll be happy and busy.
For the week and a half after the end of school I had the pleasure of being visited by my dad (for a few days) and Roger, so I got treated to all sorts of nice food, a real tour of London on one of the open-top buses, and of course the amazing company. It was so nice to have people from home here. I sometimes lose track of the fact that I'm living in a foreign country, and it was so nice to have that reminder of where I come from. And after the venerable guests left I dove right into working at the cinema and street performing, trying to save up as much as possible for Europe.
And that's where's I'm at! I'll try to keep you all posted during the European adventures, but I don't know how often I'll be able to post, so have a good month everyone, and I'll see you on the other side of Europe! :)

A fishy Fourth

Last night was one of the most surreal nights of my life. I worked in the Billingsgate Fish Market from 2am until 10am this morning, for research for our observation piece. How in the world did this happen, you ask? Well, my group has been to the market several times to observe, and on one of our visits we ended up talking to the "king of the market," a talkative fellow whose name is Roger, coincidentally. Just to give you an idea of this fellow: he wears a straw boater hat, a bluetooth earpiece, and a dagger in a sheath to cut open fish boxes. He soliloquized to us about fish, cooking, entertaining young ladies, the "good old days," the war, etc. etc. etc., and then offered for us to come work for him if we wanted. Of course we, being enterprising young bohemians, decided to take him up on it, so at 2:00 last night my classmate John Michael and I found ourselves at the market, being given white coats and assigned to one of Roger's employees to be shown how to do things. Just to give you an idea of the setting, Billingsgate is located in Canary Wharf, the classy business district of London, and its 70's era yellow warehouse structure is in stark comparison to the shiny glass skyscrapers that tower over it. As you approach the car park you hear seagulls wheeling overhead, the squeak of styrofoam, and the shouts of the burly porters who drag massive pallets of fish to the many stalls that are arranged in rows inside the building. Inside the building, the smell of thousands of live and dead sea creatures hits you, as you walk on the slippery green floor dodging men in white coats and wellies. Observing was one thing, but actually doing the job is another thing entirely. One of the first things I learned was how to pick up a sea bass: always by the head and the tail, otherwise you risk getting cut by the sharp dorsal fins. The cold, slippery fish were surprisingly pleasant to handle, I found, and their scent is still on my hands after half a dozen hand washings and a shower. While the market was setting up, I learned how to arrange fish on display, and how to weigh fish for bulk orders, put them in a styrofoam box, cover them with ice, and write the name of the buyer on the side with a bulky crayon. When the customers began to arrive, I was put in charge of selling the live crayfish, which kept making excursions out of their boxes and had to be frequently corraled; the snails, which were live, covered with mud and which sold for 2 pounds a kilo; the razor clams, which look like white tongues hanging out of their distinctive shells, and which will "lick" if you run your fingers over them; and the wild sea bass, selling for 7-10 pounds per kilo, depending on the size. In between all this, I was treated to the near-constant joking of the fishmongers, and even got to indulge in a bit of yelling and jokery myself. The workers were very forgiving, supplying us with information, coffee, and friendly advice such as "I've been working here for 30 years: it's a life sentence. Get out while you can!" As the market closed, we packed up the fish on ice, tried to sell the last dead lobsters for a bargain price, and were both paid 30 pounds in cash and sent home with about 300 pounds (money) worth of fish (which probably would have gone bad before the market re-opened on Tuesday). This included 250 pounds worth of the biggest shrimp I've ever seen, some a full foot long, a whole 2-kilo sea bass (ungutted), a gigantic swordfish steak, and several huge cod pieces. Thankfully, we're having a 4th of July celebration tonight, so after lugging all this fish back to John Michael's house, we spent about an hour cutting the hunks of fish up into managable portions and shelling the majority of the shrimp, which we're going to grill tonight. My hands are covered in tiny cuts from this activity: there's a lot more pointy bits on shrimp than you might imagine.
And that was my night! Believe it or not, I'm planning on going back to work there again at least once, since Roger told me that I'm welcome to come back if I want. There's something about the visceral, old-fashioned work (there's no till at Roger's stand, just a drawer full of money) that really speaks to me, and it feels nice to be doing something so practical and hands-on, especially after so much abstract theatrical work. So there it is, another job to put on the resume, and another really cool experience in London. And now, sleep. I'm hoping for fishy firework dreams. :)