JMU Dance Takes London: THE camden pub crawl and birthday celebrations

Friday, June 29:

We started out the day dancing of course! We took our Friday class with Sonia, my favorite teacher of the trip. She has taught me all about monkey space, mars bars, chocolate twists, and telescopes. AND yes all of these relate to dance somehow. Katelyn and I just couldn't get enough dancing so we made our way over to Pineapple Dance Studios and took a contemporary jazz class with a teacher from the states! Afterwards we were dripping in sweat and starved so we made a very slow trek to Alara, a Health and Foods store. I had the biggest piece of vegetable lasagna I have ever seen and of course I ate every last bite of it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing school work (yuck) and getting ready for the big night ahead of us, Camden Pub Crawl here we come! The crawl started out at The Wheelbarrow, where we got our wristbands and vouchers for free shots at the bar! My friend Morgan who is also studying in London met us at the bar with a group of her hilarious flat mates. After soaking up some live music at The Wheelbarrow we frolicked our way literally across the street with tour guide Greg in the lead to Belushi's. Upon arrival we were given more free shot vouchers and were informed of several discounted drink offers (the reason why the pub crawl was totally worth it). Then it was onto the next one, PROUD! Easily the coolest place we went to. It is a bar/club set in old horse stables, how cool! Our next stop was the Blues Kitchen, host to some fabulous live music. Lots of soulful dancing took place AND Marissa turned 21 at the stroke of midnight at the Blues Kitchen. Don't worry we celebrated well. LAST STOP KOKO! Koko is an old beautiful theatre thats been transformed into a club. Couldn't get enough of KOKO. The club scene hasn't been our favorite but Koko took the cake. I went to sleep that night with feet the size of balloons, a sure sign of a good night.

Saturday, June 30:

We all took the luxury sleeping in after the big night out and lazily made our way to Harrods the most luxurious incredibly large department store ever. I could have spent hours in that store. Unfortunately a sock cost close to 200lbs so the only thing I could afford was inside the Harrods gift shop :) We walked around Kensington, a really nice area of London and then plopped down in Kensington Gardens for Marissa's birthday picnic. The typical picnic food was in attendance. Digestives, fruit, boursin cheese (our fav), cheddar, bread, chocolate, etc etc. We had planned to go to Abbey Road, but ran out of time and got birthday ice cream!

That night we saw Ganesh vs. the Third Reich. Tobby Jones, the actor who plays the voice of Dobby and was in Ever After was in attendance! The show was performed by a company of actors with disabilities. The show reminded me of The Producers, going back and forth between rehearsal and the "actual show," which told the story of Ganesh's journey through Nazi Germany to reclaim the Swastika. We were all a little exhausted after seeing the show, emotionally and physically so we went back to the dorm, ordered pizza, and celebrated Marissa's 21st!