Another beautiful clear sky, this time over the historic streets of Newcastle.
On the Millenium Bridge looking out over the Tyne River.Our first night in the city was a rather full one, as the entire USC crowd gathered into a pub nearby and experienced Newcastle culture in the best way possible - ale! Newcastle Brown Ale, to be exact. Although the actual Newcastle brewery has apparently moved to Scotland in recent years, we tried the drink named after the city where it was created, and to my own surprise I found an alcoholic beverage that I actually liked enough to order again! Finally!
Adriane and I continued the night in style by going out to a club called he O2 Academy. Friday nights this is the place to be, as the club was jumpin' jumpin' - literally, there was a bounce house in the main club room! And on the top floor it got even better - a program called "Where Angels Play" where small indie rock bands come and put on concerts in a small but comfortable venue. Adriane and I had such a great time here, listening to the live music or dancing to "Riverside" by Dutch DJ Sidney Samson - which is such a big deal in the UK, by the way. Some of my friends from London have these hilarious arm motions when they dance to this song in the clubs, and although the Americans have yet to learn it, that doesn't stop us from trying to follow along!
So this is love... Adriane and I with our Newcastle Brown Ale! After we took a walking tour of the city the next morning, Adriane and I met with more things to learn by way of the Newcastle United football team chants! The whole USC crowd got to go to a Newcastle game courtesy of USC, and it was such a riveting experience - being a few of the crowd yelling at the team and heartily singing their team chants, full of pride for their sport and country. The sea of black, white, and blue colored shirts combined with the slurred accents of Newcastle supporters wearing them made the game an event to remember. Of course we had no idea what the chants were - we can barely understand the Newcastle accent when one person was speaking slowly to us on the street - but that didn't seem to matter a whole lot. When we researched it later we found out it basically boiled down to lots of swearing, no shocker there.
Nadine and I at the N.U.F.C. stadium!We got out of the game at around 5 and headed directly to a nice dinner at the Strada, an Italian restaurant perfectly situated outside the football stadium. I had a steak (thanks, USC!), and I can't even tell you how happy I was to not have bread in a meal for once. Bread and I are definitely in a love-hate relationship right now, and I think we need some time away from each other in order to sort out our differences.
"You are uniformally charming!" - Mr. Collins proposing to Lizzie,at the Theatre Royal production of Pride and Prejudice
And then it happened. The last part of the schedule for our USC-at-Newcastle Saturday was to attend a play adaptation of Jane Austen's prized novel, Pride and Prejudice, while it was in its last night playing at Newcastle. Those of you that know me, know that this would be the epitome of the trip, regardless of the quality of the show. As Eric so eloquently stated on our way to dinner, "Jenna, I think with this show, you will either hate it, or love it... or maybe you will hate some parts and love others." Nadine and I gave him a hard time about that one for the rest of the night, but he ended up being right. The play was so tiring to watch because it literally felt like a marathon - tons of intricate storylines and character relationships compacted into a two hour story with scene changes and awkward humor thrown in - but the actress who played Elizabeth Bennet was good, and the way they handled the letters in the plot worked well. My main disappointment was that they only had Mary in the first scene, and never again - it was like she disappeared from the storyline, and therefore never got to display her talents at the Netherfield ball! Or pine after Mr. Collins! And Mr. Darcy was a little too giddy for my tastes... okay I'm going to stop short since half of you are probably asleep already.
We turned in to the hostel after the play and played Uno while eating cake from a nearby cafe and making toast at the hostel (hence my current aversion to bread). We woke up the next day and had a traditional English breakfast, after which the USC kids started to splinter off, as some had to head back to their respective universities at different times. Adriane and I stayed until after dinner, giving us ample amounts of time to shop at the Sunday markets and go to the Baltic contemporary art house - which was probably the highlight of the trip, as they had some funky displays there that we got to take pictures in front of. We got to the train station at around 6:30pm, when I found out that I had missed the last direct train to London by about fifteen minutes - so it was a mad dash to the train leaving in four minutes that included two changes, with one of the stops being Cambridge. It was too dark to see any of the area, but it was a nice little reminder of another place I need to visit before my time studying abroad in England is over. I got into my dorm at around one in the morning, so the whole return trip ended up being at least two and half hours longer than the trip to Newcastle - lesson learned, do not rely on the pamphlets for the available train times, always check with the station directly!
This week marks my return to the wonderful world of King's College and class - I have my first paper due on Friday in my Intro to Christianity class, and I think I'm going to write about the early Christian church and the different councils that made decisions of doctrinal import to the history of Christianity. I'm excited, but also obviously need to get my act together and write the thing - taking pass/fail classes is not conducive to being motivated for schoolwork. The next couple weeks will be me laying low in England, and I'm looking forward to the rest and relaxation. Hope you all are doing well and being able to enjoy some form of rest and relaxation yourselves!
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