BOND, JAMES BOND 007 ..INGWER, LAURA INGWER 021...

(photos: daniel craig photo stolen from drew without permission..hopefully he's ok with that...he was very close, we were about 50 feet away; laura and i in covent garden. i looks a bit crazy.)

Sunday was things. Something may have happened. I don't recall. Same story with Monday.

Tuesday, however, was exciting! Before i came to England in the autumn, i knew that the new james bond movie would premiere whilst i was there. Obviously i decided it was imperitive i attend said premiere. So i did. After class, my friends Kristen and Helen quickly ate dinner with me before we jumped on the tube headed for Leicester Square. We got off and noticed spotlights swirling around from the direction of the theatre. This we took as a cue to speed things up a bit. Unfortunately, despite our superfastwalking, we were not there early enough.
Seems as though you need to get there about 3 or more hours early to get into the area with the barriers next to the red carpet. Had we been there 15 minutes earlier we could have gotten in that area, but its ok. can't worry about things like this now that it's done. We wound up getting spots right next to the fence that closed off the park where the carpet was. This also meant we were next to the entrance where all the ticketholders for the actual premiere came through. So the entire night we got to hear security people shout " PURPLE TO THE LEFT , BLUE IN THE CENTER, RED ON MY RIGHT!" It was fun. They must have been bored. It seemed a dull job. Though we also got to see people trying to weasel their way in and get shot down for being dumb. That was enjoyable.

We could hear lots of people yelling every now and then, and though i did not see everyone on the red carpet, i caught glimpses of the important ones. Daniel Craig looked dapper and appeared to be a nice fellow. He went out of his way to walk down the carpet a bit towards us ( that was not the path) in order to take a photo with some fan. He did the self-photo college thing where he held it out and pointed it in their general direction, checked it on her camera, then took another. I was impressed. My friend then pointed out that he was being videotaped the whole time so maybe that's why he's being nice. That burst my bubble a bit. I maintain he's a nice guy. Dame Judi Dench is a tiny, tiny woman. Eva Green, is that her name? the bond girl? she looked quite nice and classy. Also there, why i dont know, looking very unclassy, was Paris Hilton, everyone's favourite waste of money. Pierce did not come, which made me happy, since i would have been too far away to see him. I assume many other people must have gone (including Elton John, apparently) and we missed them, but we did see the Queen on her way into the theatre.

It was the Royal Premiere, you see. The Royal Family picks one movie each year that at least one member will attend, and though it is usually not the Queen, she opted to come to this one. So that's kind of special. She was also tiny, and wearing white gloves and shaking people's hands. The security guards kept saying things over their headsets like "We'll start the film once HRH is seated." I like that they call her HRH. I commented on that fact that that sounded like a rapper's alias when spoken, then i proceeded to rap in a highpitched english queen voice for my friends. It was better than constantly listening to the color themed directional shouting. We tried to hang around at the end of the red carpet event in order to get one of the big posters that were hanging on the barriers, but we did not succeed.

I do have some terrible , but memorable, photos of the event, but they are on my friend's computer since i borrowed her awesome stalker camera. I shall put them up once i recieve them. Afterwards we came home and all i wanted to do was watch a James Bond movie, but the silly Reid Hall desk does not have any bond movies in their possession. Yet they have Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. What is the world coming to?

Not sure what happened the rest of that evening..but then there's Wednesday, which was quite busy for it was LAURA INGWER'S 21st BIRTHDAY!

After a lot of class, including art history held at the Victoria and Albert museum instead of the usual National Gallery, i ran home from the tube station. I got changed quickly then tried to rush to meet up with laura and some of her friends at the Porterhouse in Covent Garden. I probably should not have gone, but i decided to and i wound up being late and didn't even eat there. It was good to be there though, even though I had to leave shortly after arrival to get to the play for my theatre class. I grabbed a Cornish pasty from this stand near the tube station (laura's recommendation) and tried to eat most of it before i got on the tube so the smell wouldn't affect others negatively. I got to Kilburn , this fairly out of the way area in the outskirts of London, and followed the sign that stated "theatre" to the right. In fact, the theatre is not to the right, despite the lying sign, and i just walked further and further into the residential area. I decided at this point it would be a good idea to look at the address on the ticket since it was getting kind of creepy. It took me way to long to figure this out. I am a fool.

I was running late by this time so i started jogging despite the ankle issue, and went back down the high street that is directly opposite the tube exit. Interesting that the road was in fact, Kilburn High Street. I got to the theatre just in time, sat down, out of breath and a few minutes later the show started. And what a terrible show it was. It was a modern adaptation of Euripides "Orestes," which was poorly, poorly done. Quite comical actually with such poetic lines as "You are not a woman, you are a man, too." What?! i'm sorry , what? how is that romantic or meaningful at all? Then there was Meneleus , who sat in the corner wearing his combat boots and a silly, crazy, angry arched eyebrow expression for the duration of the play.

When it was over ( later than scheduled, of course), i rejoined laura and her friends in covent garden at this american bar called belushis. Actually, the same bar that my hostel was adjoined to in edinburgh. After some time there and some talking to bartenders done by Laura, we moved on. I have decided from now on that if i have a good friend who wants to talk to people, i will come for moral support and look especailly awkward standing in close relation to them. So i just made strange faces and it worked. Try it.

We then went to the roadhouse.. another american-esque place i think. Though they had a cover band there so that was fun. I still don't understand why people choose to go to American places, as most of my fellow students do, but oh well. It was a birthday, so i have to comply with the plans. Let's just say that place was ..interesting...with some creepy Europeans... but overall a pretty good time.

Once we decided to be done there, i walked Laura home, hung out in her dorm room for a bit. I then had to walk home alone at 4 am. No worries though, for i had a big, long black trenchcoat, and i walked in very ' just try to come fight me' way. Hence, no trouble. I arrived at reid hall to see two of my friends still awake, so i talked to them for a bit then finally went up to the room. Then showered and went to sleep, very quietly since my roommate and her mom were sleeping. Went to sleep at about 5:30, woke up at 10, class at 11. Super duper.