Contemporary British History and Puppets

I feel bad because I have forgotten to mention my other stupendously witty and brilliant professor. Mike Fosdal teaches Contemporary British History and he is probably the last of his kind. I say this because the man walks around in tweed suits smoking a pipe and he also teaches at Oxford. It's just too good to be true. He has some pretty worthy quotations as well:

"Every time we meet the sun will shine and small puppies will smile and little children will laugh in the distance"

"I want to inspire a sense of fear into this tour"

"Damn you all for being young"

"harumph..mhmmmmhmmm...mumble..."

We had our first walking tour with Mike today. The theme was Sin, Sex, and Gangsters so of course we were exploring Soho. This is a very fun area of London, and as Mike explianed it used to be the center of the sex industry in the 19th century. There has always been organized crime in this district as well, notorious knife fights and turf wars. But what I found interesting is that although all this vice occurs, Soho isn't dangerous to the average citizen, the violence is not directed at innocent bystanders and it's a fabulous place to go out and have a crazy night.

During a smoke break

After our class, Laura, Karen and I went off and as we were about to enter Leicester Tube Station we saw the theater in which the musical Avenue Q was playing at. Thinking nothing of it we wandered in and asked if they had student tickets for the showing at 8 pm. They did and our jaws dropped when we saw the seats: three rows from the stage and for a steal of 20 pounds! We snapped those tickets up and grabbed some Indian food a few blocks away. Indian food in London is just amazing, I was quite content after that dinner.

We then returned to the theater and laughed our heads off. Avenue Q is irreverent, scandalous and just genius. It combines puppets and real live actors and for some reason it works. It's like a dirty Sesame Street. My favorite puppets were the Bad Decision Bears who encouraged the main characters to have more Absinthe Daquiris and play the drinking game "who can drink the fastest?" in these completely childlike, innocent voices. I think it has been the best theater I have seen in a while.

Puppet on poster is Lucy the Slut