Last night I almost went to a club. To be precise, I went to an almost-club. Or, to a club wanna-be.
Yesterday after our looong lecture ended about 9pm we went to find a place to let down our hair. Not the little campus tower, lol although we were making jokes about Rapunzel. I voted for outside, and doing something fun or mischievous but not dangerous or technically illegal (like...entering discreetly into aforementioned tower..maybe even finding policemen's helmets to borrow P.G. Wodehouse style don't you know) but was overruled (it was cold!) Let me clarify that while not remotely a 'party animal' I do love being out with friends day or night, laughing and having fun...especially if this comes without: cigarettes and other needless-but-tempting-smelly-addictive stuff around, heat lamps, bad music or interesting old windmills that are hidden by ugly modern TV antennas. And with interesting corners I can disappear into if/when I get too shy/culture shocked. These are what spoiled my enjoyment of sitting on tables outside (aka interesting corner) at Pub #7 (aka 2 again) with my classmates. Besides the fact that I had more lectures all the next day and was supposed to be asleep... (which is again why I should have gone to bed an hour ago and am not at Pub #10 tonight...or McDonalds again) Fortunately non-dg, talented voice actresses 1 & 2, and me ended up trying to find another non-smoky non-allergenic place where we could actually enjoy a conversation. Which was not the club wanna-be, our second stop.
This cwb had a disco ball in one corner, a TV playing music videos featuring cats, shifty guys eyeing us, very loud music, various other things which made it 'a bar not a club' and a front and a back door, which we walked into and then out of. So much for fulfilling the GGMe prophecy.
The third try, Pub #8 (or was it 9? drat! I was going to count them...) was not serving food any more since it was too late. This brought on jokes about the invisible devil messing things up, from the play we just read in the lecture (I had to read the part of "Mercy" and deliver all the moralistic lectures and unpronounceable Latin, lol! At least I got to skip all the rude bits, which the seniors had to read aloud...I just know our prof did that on purpose. She has pink hair.)
After walking along the river, which was seriously beautiful at night with the lights reflecting on it, and me asking whether it was illegal to secretly swim in it in warmer weather, and crossing roads back and forth trying not to get run over while Theatre talent #2 gripped my arm tightly and used me as a human shield (I'm only braver because I'm not used to looking the correct way yet ;) we now had a choice between fish and chip shops, and McDonald's. Although non d-g and I are vegetarians, we both voted for the 'chippy' (which I just found out is NOT the cinema like I always thought, and wanted a closer look at). However, this had roadblocks set up around it for plumbing or something...then we went to the McDonalds, and found the door locked...begone, o pernicious Tittivandus!
This McDo's, as my French friend used to abbreviate it to our great annoyance lol, was surprisingly 'posh' (I've been told it's not posh to say 'posh'..tough) compared to US drive-throughs, with lime green decor we could see through the back door. The front door was actually still open. Just as we settled down with the only vegetarian french fries in town, and non d-g started regaling us with how his partner rigged upside down Skype microphones to be able to chat with him from the US, and Theatre talent 1 started imitating 'chav' voices to our great delight, there was a huge uproar and a girl ran weeping into the ladies' room, accompanied by another girl, then by a boy that stood outside the door and guarded it, followed by a teenage fury who tore in, started screaming abuse, flailing her arms, actually socking several people and doing her best to get past them and through the door and tear girl #1 apart. She was followed by 5 more boys, and then the manager of McDo's showed up in a violet tie, accompanied by a bespectacled dwarf. Seriously.
After more drama, during which people ran back and forth and out of both doors, up and downstairs, and during which it looked like the 5 boys were actually betting on the outcome, assistant managers appeared, and the police were rumored to be in the offing, girl #1 finally made her escape while our mouths were still open, realizing this was much more dramatic than the play we had just spent our lecture reading. It was at this point that we figured that this love triangle would be the perfect adaptation of R & J for our amateur theater group. (disclaimer: I am not putting down teenage pain here...it was deeply shocking, so storytelling was our recovery)
Scene: McDonald's
Juliet: the girl who walked in right afterwards, wearing tennis shoes
Romeo: the boy who walked in right afterwards in socks, holding the girl's pair of high heels (chivalry is not dead! As theatre talent #1 said...ok you have just seen British culture at its worst, followed by it at its best :)
Tybalt: violent girl
Mercutio: persecuted girl
Benvolio: boy caught in the middle
The Prince: manager
balcony: staircase
The Priest: non d-g (in a hoodie that read 'hoods do not monks make')
We even worked out the McFlurry's having the sleeping potion, ketchup serving as blood, and suicide happening by coronary attack brought on by eating too many burgers.
Awful, I know...are you paying attention, RSC?
PS Friends, family, and assorted strangers keep asking me why I want to go live in Britain, do I know the culture, and most add, isn't it a cold, stiff society. I don't know where to start explaining this except to say I figured out a long time ago it's about as cold as Iceland -- underneath the surface of the staid, formal society flows a subterranean current of explosive passion, warmth and irreverence. How else could the same magical nation produce Queen Elizabeth and Monty Python? Or...Sober national express trains with public cancer message ads featuring a row of ladies' underwear? Squeaky clean McDonald's hosting knock-down, dragout, teenage tempests? Shakespearean professors with pink hair introducing medieval history plays through scatological humor? O quirky, funny, passionate heart wrapp'd in a shy, serious, conservative hide...come on, people, make the connection :)
PPS Tonight I went to the last performance of the music festival, opera selections. Unfortunately the first (and last) opera singer I heard, this summer, was Carreras (he came to San Antonio!) who actually made me love opera that night, not just its melodies. So I think I am a little spoiled for anyone who follows him :) but it was still beautiful...piercingly.
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