Friday night we went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in the West End, which was hilarious. It basically tells the story of Hamlet from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's perspective, who are two very minor characters that we don't care much about in the actual play. The actors were wonderful. It's really fast-paced, really witty--I can't imagine how long that script is. So we had a good time. The only bummer was that I was feeling a little sick (I kept thinking NOT AGAIN) so I couldn't quite enjoy it as much as I wanted to.
Friday night I went to bed terrified of waking up really sick, especially because Saturday we had plans to go to Oxford! The good news was I was fine and able to make the trek up to Paddington station to catch the train.
Oxford was in some ways exactly what I was expecting, and in some ways not. The part I was expecting was the reallllly old architecture and beautiful lawns and small-town feel to the whole thing. I kept wanting to see it covered in snow and on a postcard. The not-expecting part was how really touristy it was. I was surprised at how many chain stores there were and enormous masses of people. It was a Saturday, but still. We also found out that it was "Alice's Day," which I guess happens once a year to commemorate Lewis Carroll (who went to Oxford) and Alice in Wonderland. So there were a lot of people dressed as Alice characters, which confused us for a while until we figured it out.
Cool moment: Having lunch and a half-pint (I wasn't feeling well, okay) at The Eagle and Child, the favorite pub of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and their literary group called The Inklings. That was pretty much my number one reason for wanting to go to Oxford, and it didn't disappoint. There were a lot of signs declaring their former presence and we got to sit in these very old booths that looked liked they could have been around when they were. I tried to soak in all the literary magic I could. Loved it.
Not cool moment: Trying to get into Christ Church College, AKA the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies (at least the first one). They had two weddings scheduled for the day and it was closed to the public. The man standing by the gate was amazingly nice about it, though. He was this cute little man who apologized probably five times and said if we came back at just that time tomorrow we could see the Great Hall and all of it. So we didn't feel too put out. We also visited the Oxford University Press and Oxford Castle before heading home. It was a good trip.
Today we really felt the need to start checking some major things off the list, so we started off the morning by going out to Abbey Road and taking our obligatory crossing-the-street-like-the-Beatles picture. Unlike the Beatles, we had to worry about getting hit by the endless parade of cars that wanted to get by. Those poor drivers. There was a mass of probably about thirty people all perched on the edge of the sidewalk just waiting to jump in and get a picture. It was all very amusing.
Afterwards we headed down to King's Cross Station to try to get a picture at Platform 9 3/4. After wandering aimlessly for several minutes, at one point stalking a Portuguese tour group wearing HP7 Part 2 necklaces who seemed like they knew what they were doing, we finally asked and were told that the platform itself was under construction but we could take a picture with the replica out front. It wasn't quite the same, but they had the half of a luggage cart sticking out through the wall so it looked like we were going through. Some jerk had scratched off part of the 4 so it looked like Platform 3/1. But it sufficed.
Then we went to check off a MAJOR to-do, the National Gallery. I was so proud. We had two hours and saw it ALL. There were some seriously famous works of art there. Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and Da Vinci's "Madonna of the Rocks" were kind of the superstars. There were a lot that I knew from Art History but probably wouldn't have otherwise. Still very famous, though. Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne" (this was one of the first ones I saw and I got a picture of it before I realized we weren't allowed to take them), Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus," Jan van Eyck's "Arnolfini Wedding Portrait," Constable's "Hay-Wain," Turner's "Fighting Termeraire" and "Rain, Steam, and Speed," Seurat's "Bathers as Asnieres," Holbein's "The Ambassadors"... for those of you who are interested at all in art (I'm looking at you, Maddie), or anyone who took AP Art History with me, it was all really cool.
I cannot believe there is only one week left. I feel like it's gone by so quickly, and yet I've done SO MUCH that it also feels way longer. That's kind of what I anticipated I guess. We have a lot to do school-wise this week, with a project on Hamlet due Tuesday, recitation of memorized lines on Wednesday, and final on Thursday, but come on, I love all that stuff.
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