Friends - part 2

... & new friends

These first few months of 2015 brought me a bunch of new friends, met in different places and for a number of reasons. I couldn’t be happier (pun fully intended) to have met several people from the Wicked fandom, whom I originally only knew on twitter, and become friend with a few of them. Some other friends came thanks to uni, either because of Open Days or because of the Ecology fieldtrip over Easter. 

Cecilia – She was the second person from the Wicked fandom that I met, back on the 16^th of January before the Wicked show when I saw Emma Hatton for the first time. We bonded nearly instantly over our shared love for Emma and the amazing performance we witnessed together did the rest. The next time I saw her was the weekend of Jennifer DiNoia’s last shows, and since then we’ve met up lots of times, either for shows, or simply for dinner, or a sleepover. Aside from Wicked shows, we’ve been to a cabaret night together, we have organised and put together a beautiful birthday present for Emma, we’ve been to the theatre cafè and to a number of places in Victoria Station to eat (right, about that... about 80% of the time it was McDonalds, but we’ve started varying a bit lately) :D In such a short time that we’ve known each other we’ve already shared so much, including two amazing double-show days at Wicked and the most beautiful moments with our idol Emma. I’ve grown to love her so much and so quickly! She is sort of another me, a bit older and German, as we have so much in common that I couldn’t believe it at first: for example, apart from the obvious Wicked-related things, we both love writing, we have spent months in Australia (and always miss it) and neither of us eats most of sweets and chocolate. Oh, and we are so good at fangirling together! I always have so much fun when I’m with her and love spending time in her company, as is pretty obvious every time that we have to separate when we have to take different lines of tube and we spend a long time at the station where we have to change just chatting and dragging time before we go :)

With Sophie, the first time we met

Over the moon with our tickets for Emma's first show as lead

Beginning a double-show day

Happiness after our first double-show day

Sophie – I met her on the same day as Cecilia and she was actually the very first Wicked friend I met, with whom I spent a couple of hours alone chatting in front of stage door before that show on the 16^th of January. She lives in Birmingham for university and therefore I don’t see her very often, and to be fair I haven’t talked to her much lately, not even through messages. We’ve been together to a few Wicked shows, to stage door, to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (another musical) and she has slept over at my place a couple of night. Our time together is always loads of fun, but it hasn’t happened in a while! For my own records: her favourite Elphaba is Jennifer DiNoia (no need to specify the Glinda, as it’s Savannah Stevenson for all of us unless otherwise specified).

Twin Elphaba necklaces

First show together

With Sophie and Jen at the camping for Jennifer's last

Before a Natalie McQueen show announced last minute

Amy – I met Amy for the first time at the camping for Jennifer DiNoia’s last shows in London, she was one of the “crazy” (as we were called) people who decided to camp out to get front row tickets. To be fair, I didn’t talk to her much that time and I suspect I wouldn’t have gotten much of an impression of her if she hadn’t saved me from freezing at 5am by offering me her hot water bottle to warm up under my blanket. Thanks goodness! She is such a kind person and so lovely :) I am not saying this only on the basis of that one meeting, but also from what I could see the next Monday and other times I’ve been with her. Until last week I had never seen her on my own and hadn’t spoken to her too much, even though we have daysat at Wicked together a few times, but last Wednesday we spent over an hour hanging around Victoria Station, chatting. She is lovely, I repeat myself :) 

Jen – Our Scottish hilarious friend. I met her at the camping for Jennifer’s shows and it took us very little to become friends. I suppose these crazy experiences are a good way to bond, isn’t it?! Especially when you are the only two who need frequent trips to the pub’s toilets and when you find yourselves squished together to sleep in the warm at night. Literally, we were cuddled together to keep each other warm, so I’m glad she is such a nice person! After that, I’ve seen her during my second double-show day with Cecilia for dinner and the evening show and then... there was a surreal moment a couple of weeks ago when she suddenly flew down from Edinburgh as soon as Natalie McQueen (understudy Elphaba and her favourite) was announced on for two shows on that very same day. Cecilia and I were at my place after a sleepover and we went to meet her at the station to give her some essentials (like toothbrush, etc) and keep her company while she was freaking out :)

Camping for Jennifer

Camping for Jennifer, with Jen and Cecilia

Show with Cecilia and Jen

Martin – He was the first Wicked person I ever interacted with, as he runs the original twitter fan page for Emma Hatton (I run the second one, he was there months before me!), so we started talking on twitter and facebook and eventually met on the 16^th of January. Yep, I met quite a few people that night! I have seen him several more times since then, at a number of Wicked shows and at Alice New Musical. We have become friends, but sometimes things are not as easy as I wish because there have been a few problems in our friendship. Oh well, we’ll see how things evolve, if everything gets sorted out or not. Obviously, his favourite Elphaba is Emma.

Wicked with Sophie, Martin and Bailee

Bailee – the American of the Wicked group. She is from the USA and I only met her at the end of January and for a week or so, when she was here in London for Jennifer’s last shows. She is such a lovely person, quieter than most of the others and we talked less, but lovely nonetheless. And I have messaged with her quite a bit since she’s gone back to America. I hope she comes back soon for a visit! Her favourite Elphaba is Jennifer. 

At the Wicked stage door with Bailee and Sophie

Camping with Jen, Sophie and Bailee

Lauren is the one I’ve seen the least out of my Wicked friends. I have met her three or four times at Wicked and Alice, with our first meeting being on the 16^th of January (again – I promise she is the last one I met that day). I don’t know her that well, to be fair, even though I do find her very nice and friendly. Every time I saw her she was with Martin, with whom she is best friend. Her favourite Elphaba is Emma.

Lina – getting out of the section regarding Wicked friends: Lina is in my tutorial group, but throughout the year we barely spoke to each other and always only for practical reasons... however, we ended up in the same group on the Ecology fieltrip and spent four days together for most of the time. I never thought she was such a fun and friendly person! I am so glad we had that fieldtrip, because now I’ve become friends with her and next year’s tutorial will be even more fun.

Measuring shells

Zanna – I had never ever seen her at a single lecture, despite the fact that we have exactly the same classes, but she was in my same group on the fieldtrip. We bumped into each other randomly and then she joined me and Lina for the rest of the trip, since the two of them are the only Scandinavians in our course :P She is so funny, and sparkly and fun to be with!

Me, Zanna and Lina

 

Zanna and Lina on the beach where we measure molluscs

Anita – I’m not sure I can exactly call her a friend, since we’ve spent very little time together, but she is definitely the Biology Ambassador I have talked to the most during Open Days. Also, she was on the fieldtrip with me and we had a few chats over there as well – with her saving my life by lending me a towel, seen as I had forgotten mine at home!

With Anita, Zanna and Laurana on our Ecology fieldtrip

Bio – until a couple of days ago I wouldn’t have included him in this list, because he is just one of the many people I have met on the fieldtrip, but he has been messaging me these days and he is really lovely. So I thought it would be nice to have him appear on here. He is such a cool and funny guy to have around and he keeps the fun up in any group meeting, as I saw on the fieldtrip! He is American and is going back to the USA in May after the end of his exchange.

Friends - part 1

Hello,

It has been over a month since my last post here and during this semester I have been an awful blogger. I haven’t written down anything of what has been happening apart from a few things relating to theatre, because I have a separate blog for that. But the rest of my life in London has remained unrecorded during these months and I don’t want to lose it all because I have been lazy. So here I am, trying to pick up my series of summative posts again. I’m going to update my previous post about university soon, to add what has happened in the second half of term, but today I want to talk about my friends in England. There are people that were already there last term, others that are new, others with whom my relationship changed over time. I'm going to split the topic in two posts to keep them a bit shorter, since I'm putting a lot of pictures in.

Old...

Isabela – Obviously, she is always here in the list, because she remains my best friend in England and the person with whom I spent most of my time, since we are flat mates. This term we have had a few moments of disagreement and there’s been some tensions (as Melanie called them), but we always solved all the problems rather quickly. Together we took a singing course and had so much fun there for 8 weeks, then we obviously spend laid-back time at home, or visit Maria Stella at her flat or hang out all the three of us. there has been a lot less one-to-one time for us this semester, but it’s mainly my fault admittedly, because I was very busy with theatre, which didn’t happen last term. 

Burgers night before a singing lesson

 

Maria Stella – my other best friend in England, despite tensions that we’ve had and took some time to resolve. Most of it was due to the fact that I started having another group of friends outside uni and going out with them, and seeing Wicked very often. She felt like I was pushing her and Isabela away (Isabela felt that too, but we solved it sooner because it’s easier to talk with her), which I wasn’t doing but I understood why she might feel that way. Together we had our Monday nights watching Once Upon a Time, or we just spent hours in mine or her room just talking, mainly about love interests since she has been very interested in someone for months and he is constantly on her mind.

My birthday

"First step" girls :) Me, Maria Stella and Isabela

 

Fancy dress party

Tiger Tiger

My birthday

Photobooth at my birthday

Tommaso – we had already become friends and “brothers” last semester, but this term was completely different. We started having a lot more meals together,  spending a lot more time with each other and talking at another level. I am very happy and proud to say that before I left for Italy for the Easter holiday he had started feeling comfortable enough to openly talk about his relationship – which he had been avoiding for months despite all of us knowing. We also have a lot of laughs every time, just talking about uni and our friends, or discussing Italy.

In Isabela's room (I think this photo is from last term, though)

Melanie is a bit of a hot topic, because I haven’t figured out what sort of relationship we have. I can’t really call her my friend for real, because we don’t spend enough time together and we don’t have a bond of trust or anything like that. We have done a few things with each other, though: she came with me to Wicked one night, we celebrated her birthday and had a little flat party where she was very talkative. But things don’t always turn out the way we want them and, for every step forward that we took, there was always one backwards. She made me angry quite a few times, with her disappearing without saying anything or with cancelling on most of what we planned (e.g. our last flat dinner, which is the time that I got the maddest). 

Flat party

At Melanie's 20th birthday party (with also Jameelah and a friend of hers)

Josh – I saw him a lot more this term than I did in the past, but we haven’t become friends to be honest. Yes, we’ve had a few conversations, but he barely considers me and same goes for me in his direction.

Josh, Maria Stella and Isabela

Andrea – she remained the Biology friend with whom I spent most of my time, being together in all the classes and at tutorial. Aside from lessons, we often saw each other to do some work, which always turned into random chatting sessions with us laughing most of the time. But we were also very productive :) In addition to that, I went with her, Laurana and Isabela to watch Alice New Musical in late March and we also had a lovely walk along the Thames and lunch there because it was such a beautiful day!

After Alice New Musical with Laurana, Andrea & Isabela

Laurana – If last term she was the one I used to spend the least time with, this semester we made up for it :) She lives on campus, so it’s kind of easy to meet up outside of lessons and we organised for her to come over to my flat once or twice, especially since we decided that she will be moving out with me, Isabela and Maria Stella next year! I am really happy about that :) At the end of term the two of us went together on the Ecology fieldtrip (whereas Andrea and Coral went to the later one). Even though we were not in the same group for the daily work, we shared a room and were together on the coach, so we spent lots of time doing things we hadn’t done before and I loved it!

Elena – we’ve lost her, completely and utterly lost her. As in, she hasn’t come to see us even once since the Christmas holidays! I have seen her around a few times and a quick, casual conversations with her, but it was plain small talk so I can definitely say Elena is a lost friend now. It’s a shame, I really liked her, but what can I do about it?!

Coral – here we start getting into a complicated ground again... until half-term she was always with our group and then she slowly started drifting away, towards her tutorial group (minus Laurana, because she stayed with us). Lately I have seen her very rarely and heard from her even less... To be fair, everyone is free to do as they wish, and I wouldn’t have blamed her for finding new friends to spend time with if (yes, there’s an if) she hadn’t been the one criticising Elena the most for how she has left us. And now she is the one who ditched us without a second thought!

Back when Coral used to still stay with me, Laurana and Andrea

Emily (Isabela’s best friend) – I’m putting her in the “old friends” because I met her at the beginning of the uni year and we got on well from the very beginning. But this term I saw her more often, because she visited us at uni a couple of times, we went out with her to a Brazilian club twice and caught up with her before a singing lesson once. So there were a lot more interactions and I really like her! She is lots of fun to be with, very open and energetic :) Just last week she stayed over for a couple of days and we had a fun night playing with henna and giving one another henna tattoos!

Brazilian Club with Emily, Isabela and Maria Stella

Brazilian club

My henna tattoo: "COMET"