Week 2 Highlights

The second week began with a gathering of the NCSA and ILACA groups at the London Centre on Monday afternoon, an opportunity for students from both Northwest programs to get to know each other. The two groups also joined Wednesday evening at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre for an exciting, modern-dress production of Julius Caesar. The staging explores ominous parallels between a thuggish Caesar’s bid for power in Rome and the threats to democracies in the world today, particularly in former Soviet bloc nations. Practicing their skills as theater critics, students in the 21st Century Shakespeare class wrote reviews of the performance, and we had a spirited discussion of the play in class; they were all particularly impressed with the rendering of Caesar’s funeral as a media-managed event.

At the close of the week, the Maritime London class gathered at the Pirate Castle near Camden Locks for a cruise on the Regents Canal. Once a thriving artery of commerce, now the canal offers glimpses of a less frantic way of life: village-scenes in the heart of London. Our aptly named narrowboat was 70 feet at the keel by 7 feet wide. It had a cozy cabin with facing benches and a galley, but everyone gathered at the open prow as we made our way down and up again through two locks, past the London Zoo, and on to “Little Venice,” an area of prosperous canal-front homes and fleets of festively painted, live-in narrowboats, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park. As rain set in, most of us took shelter in the cabin for the trip back to Pirate Castle. It was a good way to mark the beginning of Autumn.