On Day Seven, we arrived at Monterosso al Mare in Cinque Terre, Italy: watch this video to experience this beautiful seaside town with lots of seashells, umbrellas, colors, great seafood, and places to explore.
Music: Happy Mandolin by Media Production Rights
Take a tour through the Palazzo Leopoldo Hotel, with beautiful views off the patio, lovely furniture, welcoming pool area, and a mouthwatering breakfast. Then, take a step outside into the town of Radda in Chianti, Italy, where charming restaurants, gelato, parks, sidewalks, and sunsets await. We loved our stay here!
Music: I Like it Here (Instrumental) byRobin Allender is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. Accessed from the Free Music Archive here.
A sunny day in Florence, including sights of the city from above, shopping for leather goods, seeing beautiful statues and the famous Duomo, eating spectacular steak Florentine at Il Latina for lunch, and walking along the river Arno! This was one of our favorite shopping excursions, since we were able to peruse the leather goods at a store recommended to us by our friends the Dews. A delightful salesman named Sam helped us pick out our favorite wallets and purses. The store is called “Pelletteria,” if anyone is going to Florence anytime soon!
Music: Morning Stroll by Josh Kirsch accessed from YouTube Audio Library
No sightseeing here: just our lovely time in the Fiat “Death Cube” Van. Watch for Jake annoying Carson, Carson ranting about various things, and the time we lost our hubcap.
Here are the highlights from our tour of the Barone Ricasoli Castle in Chianti as well as dinner featuring their wines. Apparently, Barone Ricasoli invented Chianti wine, so cheers to him! Look out for beautiful views of Tuscany from the castle wall, a cannon-ball dented side of the castle, and a family crypt.
Music: Gold Coast by James Beaudreauis licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Accessed on Free Music Archive here
Our windy and cloudy day exploring the Ring of Kerry in Ireland with our wonderful driver Barry O’Rourke! (If you are going to Ireland, I highly recommend seeing the Ring of Kerry and booking Barry as a driver! His website is here and his reviews on TripAdvisor are here.) Watch for beautiful views of Ireland – the coast, the towns, the forests. Also, catch our favorite Star Wars moment of the trip in this video.
Music: Jig of Slurs from Cup of Tea by Sláinte is licensed under a Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Accessed on Free Music Archive here
Here’s a look at the Cahernane Hotel in Killarney, Ireland, one of our favorite places we stayed during our European travels! Wait ’til the end for a funny moment with Carson and the sheep…
Music: Going to by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. Accessed on Free Music Archive here
On Day Four, we explored the little Italian towns surrounding Radda in the region of Chianti. It was picturesque, charming, and oh-so-scenic: churches, local produce, restaurants, shops, fountains, and a cute little puppy. There’s also some footage of our scoot-scoots at the end!
Music: Candy by Jahzzar is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike License. Accessed from the Free Music Archive here
An American’s Take on London Street Fashion
Simply riding the Tube or walking the London streets displays the chic, diverse style of Londoners, turning the pavement into a runway for casually observing the city’s fashion. As an American college student from Clemson University and a native of Orlando, Florida, I’ve taken note of the fashion habits of Londoners while watching the wave of streetwalkers each day, mentally comparing the students and young professionals’ fashion choices to the fashions I am used to in the States. First of all, young Londoners treat fashion as a fact of life, a daily ritual to take part in, while the average American sees fashion trends as optional or reserved for certain occasions—such as going downtown at night or to a party. Thus, outside of stylish fashion hubs like New York, the average American person on the street is not trendy or fashion forward. From watching the generation of London youth on the streets of Shoreditch and Regent Street, I’ve noticed Londoners dress in a variety of styles but always have one thing in common: they are chic. Even compared to New York, London fashion has its own unique history that creates the style flavour that permeates the city. For example, the vestiges of British punk culture left its mark on London fashion, manifested in leather jackets, piercings, and combat boots worn tastefully on a daily basis. Additionally, reworked versions of British classics can still be seen on the streets, including trendy jumpers, tights worn under shorts, funky structured coats, and brightly patterned pants. In general, classic black pieces are a mainstay for any Londoner’s style and neutrals dominate the colour palette of the street, whereas Americans tend toward bright colours. This neutral palette is a sign of high fashion, since fashion designers themselves tend to wear dark, flattering colours, showing that London is truly a fashion capital.
Unlike what is often found in America, individuality is equal in importance to chicness. In American youth, conformity often rules the style senses of the young, who wear ensembles exactly as seen in the stores or magazines. While fashion trends are common in London, the trends are always accompanied by the wearer’s sense of self and mixed and matched to fit their own tastes, whether their personality is punk, prep, athletic, feminine, or edgy. For example, I’ve daily seen different women wearing a new trend of pants called “culottes,” which are trousers that reach past the knee and create a skirt-like silhouette. Female Londoners wear these pants dressed up and dressed down, and depending on their fashion taste wear the culottes with sneakers, ballet flats, or heels, as well as long sleeve fitted sweaters, casual ribbed shirts, or funky asymmetrical neckline blouses. I have yet to see anyone on the streets of Orlando wearing culottes, and I am gathering that women in London are more sensitive and equipped to adopt changing fashion trends.
As far as the fashion of twenty-somethings in America, style changes astronomically as students graduate from college and start working around 22 years old. At my university, students can be seen going to class wearing outfits they could have worn as pyjamas or exercise clothes: large t-shirts, leggings, athletic shorts, and usually tennis shoes or some type of sandals. Then, when American students graduate, they give away most of their accumulated t-shirts and build a new wardrobe of dresses, work-appropriate shoes, blazers, and pencil skirts. This is certainly not the case for London students, who likely do not own mass quantities of t-shirts as American students do, and instead “dress up” for class. Whether they wear high-waist jeans and a fitted top, a calf length dress, or a patterned blouse, Londoners are already dressing more professionally at university than the American college student.
Moreover, the British have learned to mix utility with fashion, something that America lacks. Often, trendy American women’s fashions—maxi skirts, sky-high heels, tight-fitted skirts—are not practical and wouldn’t be worn on public transportation such as the Tube or a bike. In America, cars are the dominant transportation, meaning that walking is not common with working class Americans. Thus, weather is not a factor, and many women buy uncomfortable heels or dresses since they will be sitting at their desk all day instead of walking. This is something that needs change in women’s fashion, especially for the health of American feet. Also, with a place as unexpectedly rainy as London, clothing must be sustainable under the elements as well—another reason black and dark colours make sense, in addition to their inherent and universal chic factor. The average Londoner is not flashy, shying away from over-the-top fashions and preferring simpler styles and assimilated trends accentuated with a nice sense of form and balance that works for everyday life. However, the truly fashion-forward Londoner will always add their own flair: a pair of torn jeans, a pair of 60’s style round-rimmed sunglasses, or perhaps a pair of worn Converse. With a fashion buffet like this so readily available to observe in London, this American will be a little sad to return to a land of plain t-shirts—no matter how comfortable a t-shirt may be.
Imaginable Horror:
“The Woman in Black,” Fortune Theatre, July 19
In a horror movie, surprises usually involve serial killers and an axe. Since it shares the genre of horror, theatregoers may expect “The Woman in Black”—a play based on Susan Hill’s eerie novel by the same name—to provide a similar experience. While there are plenty of suspenseful and terrifying moments of the production, Stephen Mallatrat’s adaptation of the novel shown at the Fortune Theatre in London’s West End thrills audiences with a different set of surprises: moments of unexpected humour, a versatile two-actor cast, the use of a simple yet dynamic set, and a gripping storyline featuring an unexpected ending. Under the direction of Robin Herford, this production gives a captivating new form to an often gory, cliché genre, leaving the audience impressed with a lesson in imaginative theatre work.
The production is set up as a play-within-a-play, where a lawyer named Arthur Kipps, haunted by a ghost story from his past, hires an Actor to help turn the experience into a piece of theatre and thus, by sharing it with an audience, rid himself of the cursed tale rattling in his brain. With the lawyer’s written manuscript in hand, the Actor takes over the role of Mr Kipps himself, while the real Mr Kipps plays the other characters from his own story. The story from Kipps’ past revolves around a deceased widow named Mrs Drablow, whose estate he is sent to sort out; at the estate, he experiences ghostly sightings of a mysterious Woman in Black in both the mansion and surrounding marshes, and realizes the townspeople have seen her before. The two men act out the manuscript, creating a dynamic plot where Mr Kipps and the Actor switch between different characters, returning back to their original selves as they work out the retelling of the haunting story. This breaks down the wall between the actors and those seated in the theatre, inviting the audience to experience Mr Kipps’ journey as the Actor does. The small stage in the Fortune Theatre works in favour of this invitation, making the audience feel included in the unfolding series of events.
The initial interaction between the two solitary cast members of the play takes the audience off-guard: the Actor runs through the audience to the stage and playfully berates Mr Kipps’ non-existent oratory skills as he struggles through the first few sentences of his manuscript. The humour offers a relaxed beginning to the thriller, loosening up the audience and creating a contrast to the dark ending. As the play continues from this point, the Actor takes over the role of the younger Mr Kipps, becoming more entrenched in the character and his experiences with the Woman in Black. The Actor, played by Malcolm Connor, experiences the ghost story first-hand, pulling the audience with him in his fear and experience of terror. Connor plays young Kipps with confidence, sureness, and an air of deep thoughtfulness in monologue. His moments of terror are tempered with moments of perfect comedic timing and delivery, as the Actor humanizes the stoic Mr Kipps and illustrates the emotionally scarring journey that created the haunted old man who came to him with the manuscript.
As the other half of the two-man cast, Malcolm Jones is perfectly suited to play aged Mr Kipps; aside from his fittingly grey hair and lanky appearance, which create the well-worn look of old Mr Kipps, Jones captures the essence of the haunted lawyer with a quiet, nervous, and tortured energy. However, Jones true talent is revealed through character study; due to the nature of the play, Jones’ challenge is to portray a character acting as other characters. This requires convincing the audience of his multiple personalities, and Jones carries it out expertly, switching body language, accents, and facial expressions with each new character’s outfit donned onstage. The transformation is seamless as Jones switches between tortured old Mr Kipps to the antsy Mr Jerome to the reclusive coach driver Keckwick to the snarky landowner Sam Daily, creating the illusion of a large cast in the audience’s mind.
This illusion is part of the magic of the play, a magic created by capturing and controlling the audience’s imagination. The actors convince the audience to imagine the scenery and larger world of the play; the set itself is glaringly simple, orchestrated by set designer Michael Holt without a wasted object or space. The stage holds a wooden box, chairs, door, clothes rack, and gauze curtain concealing the second half of the stage. The wooden box is almost a character in itself, becoming a table, chest of papers, bed, and carriage; as it is used by the two men in various capacities, the audience believes the transformation just as the actors do. In addition, because of the talented acting and staging, the audience sees in their mind’s eye the non-existent elements of the play: the surrounding marshes, the dog Spider given to Kipps, the sinking quicksand, and the grey mansion.
As the play becomes darker in tone, darkness itself—the absence of light—is used to create a spooky dimensionality, and the choice moments and areas of illumination created by light designer Kevin Sleep control the audience’s gaze within the small space. This especially heightens moments where the key components of the Woman’s haunting story are revealed, such as the illumination of the locked door in Mrs Drablow’s mansion, a spotlight detailing the terrified face of the Actor or Mr Kipps in monologue, or a soft glow revealing the dark form of the Woman herself. The set and lighting design work together in the use of the gauze curtain, which conceals the back of the stage, and when illuminated reveals the changing scene behind: the cemetery on the Drablow estate, a boy’s bedroom, or the halls of the haunted mansion.
In addition to the set and lighting, the sound orchestrated by Gareth Owen adds to the world forming in the audience’s mind. Sound effects like a bustling street or the clop-clop of a horse-drawn carriage help convince the audience that the events are taking place, though no horse or pavement appears. Timed perfectly, the moments of highest terror are preceded by a mysterious thumping sound, and the “jump out of your seat” moments are punctuated by a child’s piercing scream, causing members of the audience to cover their ears. The use of silence also terrifies the audience, as whenever sounds and words cease, their expectation of the Woman increases.
Along with a haunting ending and a great attachment to both Mr Kipps and the Actor, many images stay with the audience as they leave the play. A hand protruding from the fog, the gaunt face of the illuminated Woman, a ghostly rocking chair, a slowly moving black figure; while no gruesome axes are involved, “The Woman in Black” leaves the audience with a beautifully-formed, haunted world, making this production a stand-out piece in London’s West End that no theatregoer is likely to forget.
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