Hello all!
I survived my whirlwind spring break, and somehow managed to deal with course registration and housing for next year at the same time. It was an incredibly stressful 17 days, but for the most part it was really amazing. Since I still have homework to do, I'm not going to be able to write about everything all at once (much less upload my 2600 photos...) but I'll try to update frequently!
Our first stop on the group trip was York, a cute medieval town (complete with walls!) in the north of England. We saw York Minster, the most structurally unsound cathedral ever constructed. Our tour guide was a retired engineer who pointed out how the arches in the crossing bow out because, as they recently discovered, the builders used the foundation from a previous Norman church--a wood raft in unstable ground--for the main tower. Bad idea! To fix it, they went into the crypt and put thousands of crisscrossing steel rods in strategic places to reinforce the tower and act as an actual foundation. Kind of impressive that it survived 400-odd years on a 1000 year old wooden raft, though! Structural instability aside, the cathedral is gorgeous--very open and airy, with an aisle so wide they had to roof it in wood instead of stone (talk about a fire hazard! It seemed like every ten minutes the tour guide mentioned yet another time when the church had burned down. I think it was five total?). The stained glass is amazing too--the largest collection of medieval glass anywhere. The architecture is similar to Westminster, but FAR less tacky and not cluttered with 600 years' worth of monuments. Overall it was a great visit.
York itself is a lot like Sarlat, a medieval town Mom and I visited in France--it has narrow, winding streets with a flower market and lots of adorable shops, and even in early spring it seemed really busy and full of life. I loved it! On our last night in York, we went to see a really weird play that, since we're taking a class on heresy, we dubbed the Gnostic Sherlock Holmes. I still don't completely understand what it was, but it was this insane two man show that left everyone slightly dazed and confused. It was quite strange, but fun, I suppose.
We went to London from there, and since I was just there with Mom and Dad, I wasn't in a rush to see the big things again. We ended up going to Camden Market and Covent Garden on Sunday afternoon after getting settled in the hotel (if you've never had to deal with checking 17 people into a hotel--don't. It was a nightmare...). Both places were WAY too crowded for my taste, but fun nonetheless. Then we had a group dinner at a French restaurant, where Georgia amused herself by educating Brandon and I about French food (we both fell in love with mussels in garlic and butter, which became a slightly dangerous addiction while in the south of France later in the week)and teaching Brandon to use chopsticks by demonstrating with pencils. It was great food and good company, though I was really happy to go to bed by the time it was over.
On Monday, we had some free time in the morning, so I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum by myself (most of the group went to the Tower, but I'd just been there a week ago). I enjoyed the museum, since it had an excellent Rodin collection and, on a slightly less artistic note, the sparkliest room in the UK--the jewelry collection...so many tiaras!--and it also had a lovely tea room with scones and cream. That's really all it takes to make me happy. Then I met up with the Colgate group for a delicious lunch of steak and venison pie before setting off on a pub crawl, I mean, walking tour of London with none other than Colgate's own Alan Cooper. It ended up not really being a pub crawl at all, which is probably good considering how quickly Prof. Cooper walks and how crazy London traffic is--I feel like we might have lost a few students to traffic if it had been the pub crawl promised by Georgia! The downside of the tour was that it was supposed to be of medieval London. Sounds good, right? Except that medieval London no longer exists, so it was mostly wandering through the financial district with Cooper saying what used to be there, and nothing to see. At least it had mercifully stopped raining by that point, so walking wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was still happy when it finally ended though! The best part, I might add, was the number of times Georgia got left behind or lost. We ended up just keeping our phones on, waiting for her to call to ask where we were. Somehow, none of us were all that surprised whenever it happened...
That night, we had tickets to what proved to be possibly the worst show ever written: Dreamboats and Petticoats. It's similar to Mama Mia, except that the songs were written even further before my time and the plot was even more absurdly cliche. I was not amused, and gave up halfway through and went back to the hotel to go to bed early. That show was ridiculous...
The next morning, we headed out to Oxford, which I did really like. Our tour guides were great (though the guy was such a stereotype of the Oxford PhD candidate that he almost didn't seem like a real person--check out the pictures) and the colleges and the city were so beautiful. It's called the "city of dreaming spires," and the spires really do dominate it. We had lunch at the Turf Tavern (an excellent Oxford institution, and we even ran into the Baylor kids from St. A--the UK is a very small place, apparently!) and then Brandon and I toured the Bodleian Library with Georgia and Halley. The tour itself was dreadful (if you've seen the movie The Producers, you'll know what I mean when I say our tour guide was basically Ulla), but the library was incredible. Incidentally, it was used for scenes in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library--not why I find it amazing, but still kind of cool! It's a beautiful building, and there are so many old books just sitting there! Too bad they don't loan books at all. They said that Charles I was refused the loan of a book he wanted, so that particular snobbery goes back a long way! I think I would be way too intimidated to ever do research there, but it was a fun place to visit.
When we got back to London, it was off to see Wicked--finally! It was everything I had hoped for and more--the singing was fantastic, the sets and costumes were amazing (so colorful and quirky!) and Fiyero was quite attractive. :) All of Elphaba's big solos took my breath away, and Galinda was hilarious as anticipated. And she had the best shoe collection ever--I want it! I even found dance moves to copy... During intermission, Georgia made my night by first buying us ice cream and then saying: "This show is SO Gnostic!" We died laughing, but it's so true...seriously, we're all a little obsessed. Anyway, it was a great final night in London, and we ended it with a walk around Westminster before packing and bed so we could catch our flight to Lyon the next day!
Photos from England: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=202115&id=579896063&l=4f798f1645 (If you have trouble viewing the photos, post a comment or email me and I'll try to fix it...hopefully it works though!)
A bientot,
~L
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