Theatre Fevre (Theater Fever)

Prior to August of 2011, I had never seen a single professional production of a play or musical in my entire life. [Yes, to answer your question, I did live in New York for a year!] In my youth, (that makes me sound so old...), I did a little bit of drama, with the productions of Macbeth (Macbeth), The Taming of the Shrew (Gremio), and Jack and the Beanstalk (Jack). Unfortunately, due to a little mishap, I swore off acting at the age of 14.

One August night, Kristie took me to see a quaint little production of Aida, which (I secretly admit) was absolutely enthralling! Since that experience, I've been extremely interested in broadening my horizons, and seeing as many shows as I can. Last semester, not too many of my friends were actually interested in seeing shows, but since I've been hanging out with my new friend Carlos Estevez, the past few months have resulted in an exponential increase in shows! Since coming to London, I've had the chance to see...

• The Lion King                                         8/30/11
• Blood Brothers                                        9/21/11
• Wicked                                                  12/19/11
•  Les Miserables                                       2/10/12
• Absent Friends                                        2/16/12
• In Basildon                                              2/29/12
• A Midsummer Night's Dream                   3/6/12

I've absolutely loved it! In addition to the actual experience of getting to see the shows, part of me feels like I become a little more cultured with every production ;)

NYU in London offers a lot of the tickets at discount prices, so what would normally cost upwards of $250, has only ran me about $60 :) So, for the past four weeks, I've managed to go out and see a different show each week! It may be attributed to the fact that I don't know much about theater (or as the English call it, 'theatre'), but I tend to not discriminate between which shows that I attend, so we've seen shows that include comedies, tragedies, dark humor, musical theater, and tonight--something different altogether.

Originally, we were set to see one of the great Shakespearean plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I was extremely excited to see a professional production of a Shakespearean play, but was sorely disappointed. Right from the start, the show was unorthodox, with an individual sharing jokes about the production, literally referencing the poor quality of the production itself. Shortly thereafter, he announced that because of the absence of Ian McKellen (you'll know him as Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings), the show was to be cancelled, and that refunds would be given. Apparently, this was supposed to be part of the show, and was to provide humor...I wasn't particularly amused.

As the play went on, the single-stage set was that of a band on half of the stage, and a cracked bathroom shower on the other half. The actors were dressed in modern, everyday clothes, and they recalled the few lines of Shakespeare that were actually incorporated in the show with such disdain that the great playwright himself would likely have fainted from disbelief.

The actual storyline of A Midsummer Night's Dream only consisted of about 30-35% of the performance, with the rest of it filled with people jumping through paper walls, performing lewd sexual acts on each other, spraying each other with blue dye, and nonsensical dialogue between what appeared to be the actors and the stagecrew. At one point, all of the actors on stage proceed to throw bread and flour at each other, stopping at times to throw these same objects at the audience.

While slightly entertaining, I was nonetheless disappointed by the lack of the professional production I had been hoping for. Nonetheless, I like to consider myself a rather tolerant individual, and applauded just as loudly and with as much conviction as the most enthusiastic of patrons.

Hopefully, future shows will be more rewarding and of a higher caliber than this particular production.
The shows that I hope to see include (feel free to recommend any others!)

• The Phantom of the Opera
• Aida 
• West Side Story
• Grease
• Romeo & Juliet
• Dirty Dancing
• Matilda

I know this was a long post---the show tonight was just....extremely peculiar in nature!

Exploring Prague!

Prague!

So, as you might recall, I'm studying abroad in London at the moment. As a part of the Stern Business School's Business and Political Economy program, one of the perks is a fully funded trip, each semester. Last semester, we went to Brussels, Belgium, where we visited the European Parliament for the European Union, as well as the European Commission! This semester, we were given the opportunity to travel to Prague, in the Czech Republic.

To say that Prague was beautiful would be a gross understatement: the city itself perfectly embodied what the ideal European city would look like. With intricate architecture, clear blue skies, and cobblestone roads, Prague was absolutely breathtaking.

We got in late on Thursday night, and after some late dinner, headed straight to bed. The next day, we set out early in the morning to visit Skoda Auto, one of the largest automobile manufacturers in Eastern Europe. Yadda yadda yadda, the company was bought by Volkswagon, and was supposed to demonstrate how privatization of companies can improve the economic prosperity of a country. NERD ALERT: I was fascinated! Educationally, it was really interesting--we learned about transition economies, particularly applicable to the Czech Republic because of its transition from a communist country with a planned economy into a capitalist and democratic country. We visited the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education  (CERGE), and listened to a variety of lectures through the weekend. Okay, boring stuff is over! Here's a photo exploration into Prague!

Side note: I would never own a Skoda, they managed to produce zero desirable cars.

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Throughout the rest of the trip, I explored Prague a bit more, tried some interesting Czech foods, and took pictures of random things that I enjoyed.

Venison Goulash & Potato Dumplings: Tasty, but extremely overrated. Also, I suspect that the potato dumplings were just sponge cake...

Astrological clock! This thing rings every hour, on the hour, it is supposed to have some astrological significance, the point of which escapes me...

As I noted before, Prague has some of the most incredible architecture! 

Hey, a picture of me! This proves that I visited ;)

This is a cathedral inside of a castle. No big deal, they're all over Europe ;)

Franz Kafka lived in this home! You may have read any of his works, The Trial, The Castle, and The Metamorphosis. 

Overlooking the city, I treated myself to a cup made out of cinnamon bread! The hot chocolate was also phenomenal. 

Check out this view! The bridge, the river, and the city was amazing :)

On our last night, our school took us to a 'traditional' Czech restaurant. The menu? French fries, potatoes, vegetables fritters, bratwusts, steak, and chicken. Seemed pretty American to me! 

After our dinner, I went out and explored the city a little bit. One of the hotels was actually a boat, and I went on top of it and sat for a while on the river. :)

To be honest, this picture is particularly for Cecilly Francisco. I remember your affinity for mozzarella sticks...they have mozzarella patties in Prague!

The morning we left, I took some time to walk along the bank, stepping into little stores and bakeries that caught my fancy and/or intrigued me!

Things I like about Prague

• City design
• Architecture
• Lower costs
• Hours of operation (open late!)

Things I don't like about Prague

• With thin soles, cobblestones hurt
• Smoking indoors--I probably got lung cancer in the 4 days that I was there
• Lack of healthy dining options! Everything was either deep-fried, or made of potatoes.
• Rampant prostitution--no, random lady on the street, I am not interested in a 'blowjoob'.

At the end of the day, Prague was a lot of fun! It was really interesting to visit another country of course, and I'm always up for exploring a new culture! 

Who/What/When/Where/Why

Welcome to my blog! Alright, now that you are sufficiently bored by that trite opening, allow me the opportunity to tell you what this blog is all about! 5 second introduction: Andrew Cheng, NYU, Sophomore, 19 years old, studying in London. Get it? Got it? Good, let's move on.

Reasons why I started this blog:

1. Kristie Francisco (the love of my life) and I have been talking about starting blogs for a while--now that she has hers, I've got no excuse to lag behind!
2. I was recently telling a friend of mine "if you keep a blog or journal, you can look back on your trips and say 'wow, I did a lot!'" it's only fair that I take my own advice!
3. I'd like to have some sort of record of what's been going on in my life, I think it would be interesting to see how my life changes over time.
4. For you! Now you can read about all the enthralling and exciting endeavors that I pursue, and likely discover how I suspect that I suffer from ADD, that I have an extremely sarcastic nature, and perhaps find some interesting recipes, workouts, advice, insights, random tidbits, and other goodies of similar nature.
5. Food! I feel like less of an unhealthy fat person by posting recipes/pictures on a blog instead of on Facebook :P. Here, my audience is smaller, so less people can judge me! 
6. Something, something, something, improving my writing skills.
7. I of course enjoy making lists of things that often hold little to no significance, and are more often than not left to float about in cyberspace until the world ends*.

*End of the world possibilities in order from most likely to least likely: Pigs flying (too many promises will have to be done), nuclear war, normal war, 12-21-12 Mayan prediction, scarcity of resources, return of the Messiah/prophet/alien overlords (religious affiliation TBD), because some guy in California said it would.

Want to know a fun fact? I'm currently on a trip in Prague, and it's 4:30 in the morning. True story. As such, I'll wrap this up.

Topics that I want to talk about in the coming posts (provided that I don't get distracted by other topics!):

• Life (that's not tooo broad, is it?)
• Somewhere I should have a post about who I am.
• Food!
• Staying in touch with friends & communication
• Secret societies 
• The US Presidential election
• Animals (I'm not sure why this is here, though it would be cool to read about and learn some intricate knowledge on an animal every once in a while. Eventually, I can be a self-taught zoologist!)

It is also likely that I use this blog to follow my various workouts and diets, so if any of the following catches your attention, or if you simply stalk me for the enjoyment of it, buckle up!

Over and out!