Rock of Aged Courts

                Today started off by a visit to the Magistrate’s Court. To get there, we got to experience the Tube for the first time, which is cool. It is pretty simple so far so I haven’t gotten lost yet. The Magistrate’s Court is the lowest level of court in England and every trial starts here, whether it is begging or murder. Any case can be moved up to higher courts, but the most serious cases are the main ones that are moved up. We were actually able to sit in on some proceedings which were very interesting. There are two types of “judges” in this level of the court; lay magistrates and district judges or DJs. If lay magistrates are overseeing a case, there are three people who are volunteers. District Judges must have served as a lawyer for seven years. The cases I saw involved lay magistrates and the defendants were not actually present but at the police station and took part in the case through a video call. I thought this was very interesting and a good way to have defendants’ present if the jail and courthouses are not in the same building. Another interesting thing from these proceedings was how informal and relaxed things seemed to be compared to American Courts. It felt as though the lay magistrates were rude to the defendant’s and scolded them for their actions. The begging case I saw included the lay magistrate telling the defendant that his actions are inexcusable and he clearly does not follow the rules he is given, as if he were talking to a child. I don’t think I have ever heard of a judge talking down this way in America so I was intrigued.

                After the court, we had the rest of the day free. I went to lunch at a place called Nandos, with my roommates, Morgan and Alesha, where we sat for a while before continuing our day. We decided to try and find the place that sells discounted tickets to plays and musicals and ended up getting tickets to Rock of Ages for 35 Pounds each which equates to about $50 so that really wasn’t too bad. We had plenty of time to kill before the show so we wandered around West End for a bit. We ended up finding a couple of souvenir shops.  The first one was kind of sketchy. There were some guys trying to sell us cannabis suckers and cookies and stuff like that, but it also had some cool mugs and purses and other souvenir stuff. Don’t worry mom or Dr. Nobiling, we didn’t buy the cannabis stuff! The next shop was a little less sketchy and I found a grey and purple London hoodie!! Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love purple so that was pretty exciting.

                We then found M&M World which was pretty cool as well. It has a ton of different shades of colors, as well as different types. There was a place to test what color you were at that particular moment. The funny thing about that was that my “color” was like mega-mix or something like that, so not even really a color. It said I don’t believe there can be too much of a good thing, so I thought that was actually kind of fitting for my feelings towards London and this trip. I really liked M&M World, but at the same time, I felt like I was too old to be there. There were children EVERYWHERE!! That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was kind of a hassle.  We then headed to a pub called Waxy’s Little Sister, which was one of my favorite places so far. Not because I can drink in the pubs here, I actually didn’t even have anything to drink. However, the bartender was Irish!!! I could have died then and there. The pub itself was also a neat little place. It had an upstairs part to it where we ended up sitting. Upstairs, there was an open area directly above the bar. There was a little mini-elevator type thing with the rules written on the wall. You send down your order and money and the bartender will send up your drink. I thought it was really cool. After that we got some sandwiches from Pret and headed to the show.

                Rock of Ages was fantastic! We got there and the guy who took our tickets, moved us up closer to the stage so we ended up in the middle of the theatre, right below where the first balcony started. These seats were great! I don’t think I would have enjoyed any other seat more, except for maybe one with someone less obnoxious next to me. The show was great and it was really interesting to see because it is American-based so the actors were supposed to be talking with American accents. It made me realize how terrible we must sound when trying to do a fake accent. The accents were not bad, but there were some spots where the clearly sounded British, and others where they clearly sounded American so it was kind of funny to watch. Either way, the show was brilliant. I am going to have 80s music stuck in my head for days now.

                After the show, we got back on the tube and headed home. Throughout the day we had been discussing the need to find somewhere that sells converters, because I am the only one who had one, and I blew the fuse on it. So we ended up going on an adventure, at 11 o’clock at night. Someone had suggested Holborn Station so we decided to walk there since it was only one tube stop away from us. We found the station but nowhere to buy a converter so we rode the tube back to Russell Square and wandered for a bit looking to see if anywhere was open. Nothing was but we saw a few places to check out tomorrow. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to ask the hotel concierge, who told us we don’t need converters for laptops, just adapters  which we all have. Turns out, this is true so we spent a lot of time looking for something we didn’t actually need. On the plus side, now we now and we didn’t spend any money on it either. Overall, today was pretty fun. Tomorrow we go to the Supreme Court, which has only existed for a few years, so that should be interesting to see.