It’s here… that dreaded week that strikes fear into the hearts of college students everywhere. What week, you ask? MIDTERM WEEK. Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn. I’ve managed to grab a few extra minutes of time in between the craziness of papers, tests, AND preparing for fall break at the end of this week!! Here’s what I’ve been up to in the last week or so.
Last Friday we had a day excursion to Oxford, which was really nice. It is about an hour or so outside London, so it wasn’t too long of a trip to get there. It actually was quite nice to see some of the quaint English countryside, with all the sheep in the fields and the rolling hills!! I kept thinking of the Shire from LOTR. So sue me. Our day was pretty much jam-packed with walking around from point of interest to another point of interest. We toured Christ Church College, where the inspiration for the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies came from (they really are quite similar!). We wandered around a lot, and walked up way too many flights of stairs to this look-out dome where you can see the entire city of Oxford from. It was actually quite a pretty sight.
We went to no less than THREE museums during the day. We went to a natural history type museum, and an anthropology museum which actually was really cool. It had thousands and thousands of artifacts of hundreds of cultures from around the world. The weapons and shrunken heads were of special interest to many of us. We also went to the Ashmolean Museum, which is basically a mini-British Museum, so there was a lot of artifacts from ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, and so on. Also lots of paintings and classy things too. I was so happy to see that they had a whole room full of instruments dating back to Renaissance times! So there were many old-fashioned violins, cellos, horns, and things. One thing that was really cool for me was that they had an ORIGINAL Stradivarius violin on display that had been played at the original performance of the Messiah! In case you don’t know what a Stradivarius violin is, think of the importance of the Holy Grail to historians, and you will have some idea of what it means for a violinist haha. Stradivari was a master luthier who made his violins so perfectly that they have become some of the most prized instruments in the world that are literally priceless.
To be quite honest, I didn’t enjoy Oxford as much as I had hoped. I think I was a bit museum-ed out after a while, and didn’t really care about the 10,000th artifact I happened to be looking at near the end of the day. But afterwards, my friends and I went to dinner, and my friend Katie (who also has played violin since forever) and I went back to Christ Church College for Evensong, which is when the choir of young boys and men sing hymns and psalms and generally create awesome music for me to enjoy. The little boys were all so cute! I can’t believe they can already sing so well at such a young age. And it worked well that we went to Evensong there, because we were supposed to go into the church as part of our tour earlier that day, but they were having some sort of service in there so it was closed to tour groups. It was very beautiful on the inside!
Yesterday was quite an exciting day, because we got to go see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, which is a very funny play, if you haven’t read or seen it. Except, there was a very interesting twist to it. Instead of a classic Shakespeare interpretation and performance like we saw at the Globe a few weeks ago, the play was set in India, with all Indian actors! They still spoke the original Shakespeare script.
The play was really fun! The stage was beautifully set up with bright Indian scenery and colors, and the costumes were just gorgeous! I think saris are one of the prettiest pieces of clothing ever, and all the rich colors and textures of the clothes were just a feast for the eyes. It was also really interesting to hear the Shakespearean language spoken with Indian accents. The clipped, staccato accents combined with the lilting poetry, prose, and verse of Shakespeare combined into a really cool sound. In particular, I thought the actor who played Benedick did a great job. He was so funny and smart-alecky, but also played the romantic lead quite well. Beatrice was also very good too, but it took me a while to warm up to the actress who played her, but she got better near the end, in my opinion. Of course, what kind of Indian production would it be if there was no SINGING AND DANCING??? There are several songs in Much Ado, and it was really cool to hear them sung in an Indian style. Of course, the dancing scenes were pretty great, especially the masked ball, where all the men wore saris and women wore military uniforms. It really added to the hilarity and fun of the play. However….nothing can top the Globe. NOTHING. :)
On Thursday, Ellen and I will be departing directly after class for Paris, France!! We are taking the train there…should be a fun experience! After a few days in Paris, on Sunday we will be flying to Rome to meet up with some of our other friends there, and will spend most of the week in Rome, Florence, and Venice!! It’s going to be a whirlwind week, and there’s so much to do to prepare for it ahead of time, but it will be SO worth it! I am so excited to see Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Vatican, all the touristy spots in Rome, Florence, and Venice! I’ve been dying to go to France and Italy forever, so it will be a dream come true (I hope!). Expect a very long post about that in about two weeks’ time. ;)