I've been around the Globe, and the songs that I wish came with me

Last night I had a ticket to a performance of Shakespeare's Tempest at the Glober theater here in London. The theater is reputed to be a fairly accurate recreation of the original Globe where many of his plays were produced in, and I have to admit, it is a pretty amazing venue to see a play in. I decided to purchase a standing ticket in the yard area so I could get the full peasant experience.

Oh, yeah, and also because I'm poor.

Anyway, I can now claim to have been around the "Globe", as I stuck around after the performance and wandered around to soak up the atmosphere for a few minutes. After leaving the theater, I decided to walk around London for a bit, and about 11 at night I found myself sitting on the steps of Trafalgar Square staring out aross the city, just sort of experiencing being alone. You see, I asked for a single room out here at the residence, but alas, I got put into a double room with another guy.

Now, he is a great person, a really nice guy from Russia. But I really value my privacy and my alone time, so having a roomie can sort of be difficult, especially when you are just sharing one room together. And because I don't have any real alone time or privacy in my "home life", I find that I really have to carve it out of other areas in my life. My main recourse is to get out and about the city by myself, and it is actually common for me to head out by myself and spend three or four hours just walking around London, getting in touch with the city. But I also find that I sequester myself from the rest of the students in my dorms. I'm friendly with many of them, but I don't actually hang out with them very often. I think a perfect example of my isolationist lifestyle was last night, as the official "welcoming" party at the University was held the same night as my ticket to the play. I actually bought my ticket with along with someone else, and when I talked to some other people I found they too had standing tickets for the same performance. But of course, since I'm enjoying being by myself so much, I decide to just go by myself down to the show. I think the best part was my brief appearance at the welcome party, which I attended for about 15 minutes before leaving for the play. In honor of Shakespeare, I'll present it here in script format:

ENTER Andy. He walks down the stairs into the lounge, and immediately
searches out the free drinks table.

ANDY: Hey, have you seen where the wine is?

STUDENT: I don't think there really is a line, you just grab stuff.

ANDY: No, the wine. I heard there was free wine tonight.

STUDENT: Oh, yeah, it's over there.

ANDY walks to free wine table, and grabs several glasses.

ANDY (internally): Hello, free wine! (Gulp, gulp, gulp...) Goodbye, free wine!

EXIT Andy, stage left

Essentially, my experience at the welcoming party was confined to welcoming free wine into my gullet. I'm so awesome.

Actually, spending so much time alone actually sort of becomes a balancing act. Most of the time, I love it. It is a great feeling to get out and about on my own, and even travel around the countryside or even to other countries. It is very liberating and empowering. At the same time, though, it can periodically be lonely. Being in such an enormous city doesn't help matter. Knowing that you are in a city of 8 million people, plus all the thousands of tourists who come and go every single day, and being keenly aware that you really don't know anyone there...well, sometimes it doesn't feel that great.

With that in mind as I sat in Trafalgar square, I started to think about some of the songs that I would want to hear as I walked alone through a city, late at night. Just off the top of my head, I came up with a short list:

1) Streets of Philadelphia-Bruce Springsteen
2) Most of the Time-Bob Dylan
3) Where you get Love (live in SLC acoustic
version)-Matthew Sweet
4) Kettles- The Arcade Fire
5) The Long Road- Pearl Jam
6) Old Man-Neil Young
7) Distortions- Clinic
8) Crying Game-Boy George
9) How Soon is Now-The Smiths
10) Either Way- Guster
11) You are the Everything- REM
12) Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald-Gordon Lightfoot
13) Your Blue Room- U2

I like to think I have pretty good taste in music, but I'd also like to thank some of my friends for giving me the heads up on some great music in general, and some of these artists in particular. Hernandez, for being my eternal link to the best of indie rock and U2; Gregg for getting me into Motown, Elvis and soul; Curtis for getting me into Morrissey and the Smiths, as well as Latin music; Nalley for getting me to finally respect some rap after making fun of it for years; my parents for getting me into classic country, early rock and blues; Levi for getting me into Clinic and other artists...I'm sure I'm missing out on some people, if I forgot you, sorry!!