A Modernist Walking Tour

I would say today started like the rest of the other days, but that would have been a lie. We all got to sleep in an extra couple of hours, which, in my opinion, was very well needed. The focus for today was the author Virginia Woolf and her modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway. After a short lecture from Peter, and an exercise practicing Woolf’s experimental writing style, we started our little tour.

Our trip began up the road from where we are staying in Tavistock Square, a park containing a bust of Woolf and a statue of Gandhi. (We will be seeing a play featuring Gandhi, “The Father and the Assassin,” at the National Theatre near the end of the course.)

From there we walked a little further to Woolf’s old place of residence in Fitzrovia. We didn’t stay there long before we moved on to Regent’s Park, one of the largest parks in London and one of the settings in Mrs. Dalloway.

Here we broke up into smaller groups and read over the opening lines of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, which we will see performed at the Globe later this week. We performed our own mini, very shortened version of Shakespeare in the park. It wasn’t the best showing, but I would give a 7/10.

After that the class scattered to find lunch. While some went to Pret A Manger, my friends and I visited an east Asian restaurant called Bento-ya. The food was delicious and if it wasn’t so far away I would probably go again.

When people were finished with their lunches, they moved on to new activities. Some people visited the zoo, while others went to various museums in the area. Another group took a more boring route and went back to the hotel to catch up on some homework. The evening activities have yet to be chosen, but I’m sure it will be just as interesting as the first nights have been.

Blog post provided by Trey Santiago, a senior environmental and marine sciences major.