Oh the places you'll go...

Oh the places I've been...
1. Kensington Gardens
2. Hereford Arms Pub
3. Victoria and Albert Museum
4. British Museum
5. Hampstead Theatre, London- "Hysteria"
6. Winston Churchill War Rooms
7. Greenwich- The Painted Hall in the Old Royal Navy College, Cutty Sark, The Queen's House, National Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory
8. London Aquarium
9. Shaftesbury Theatre, London- "From Here to Eternity"
10. Canterbury- Norman Castle ruins, St. Augustine's Abby, Canterbury Cathedral
11. Dover- Dover Castle, Cliffs of Dover
12. Duchess Theatre, London- "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui"
13. Stourhead Gardens and Mansion
14. Bath- Roman Baths, Jane Austen Centre, The Royal Cresent (building), Pulteney Bridge
15. Stonehenge
16. Westminster Abby
17. The Criterion Theatre, London- "The 39 Steps"
18. Royal Festival Hall (4 times throughout the 10 weeks)
19. St. Mary at Hill Church
20. St. Johns Smith Square (I performed here)
21. Arcola Theatre, London- "Macbeth Fire and Ice"
22. Oxford- Bodleian Library (I saw the outside), Blackwell's Books!!!!!, Oxford University
23. Foyles' Bookstore, London
24. The Tower of London and the Tower Bridge
25. Dublin- No. 29 Georgian House, Trinity College, Bru-na-boyne, The Hill of Tara, Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Belfast
26. Royal Albert Hall, London
27. London Eye
28. Royal College of Music Instrument Museum
29. Gate Picture House, London- "Richard II"
30. Imperial War Museum- Holocaust exhibit, Spies exhibit
31. Cardiff- National Museum Cardiff, Doctor Who Experience (!!!!!!), Cardiff Bay
32. Finborough Theatre, London- "Unscorched"
33. Scotland- Edinburgh Castle, Walter Scott Monument, Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh Castle, The Elephant House, Edinburgh Christmas Festival, Loch Lomund, Loch Lochy, Loch Ness, Glen Co, Inverlochy Castle, Fort Augustus (town on Loch Ness)
34. National Theatre (The Olivier), London- "Emil and the Detectives"
35. Kew Gardens
36. St. Paul's Cathedral, London
37. Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street
38. Abby Road
39. Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio
40. British Library
41. Hackney Empire Theatre, London- "Puss in Boots" Traditional English Pantomime
42. National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery

Oh the things I've seen...
I've seen bright red double-deckers, Big Ben in all its glory, mountains, burial mounds, views of London, London from a boat on the Thames, so many pubs (with really hilarious names), 11 plays (don't make me list them), 5 or 6 concerts, The Book of Mormon, the Rosetta Stone, works by Monet and Van Gogh, ancient musical manuscripts from the medieval times, The Book of Kells, Scotland's coast from Northern Ireland, the White Cliffs of Dover, the Long Room (library at Trinity College), the biggest room ever built for books, the cafe where Harry Potter was born, Platform 9 3/4, the real TARDIS set currently in use by the show, so many monuments and museums dedicated to World War II, Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary, some of the oldest churches and schools in the world, the actual telegram that declared VE-Day, the actual props and sets for all 8 Harry Potter movies, the beautiful English countryside, France from across the English Channel...And I'll add more things later as I remember them.

What have I learned: the sappy and the practical
1. Look RIGHT then left
2. I'm allowed to drink here
3. Things are old here.  Really old.
4. Quite a lot of London is rebuilt from the huge fire in 1666 by Christopher Wren, who was a beast
5. England is still recovering from the World Wars
6. Trains are nice and I like them
7. Starbucks is still good!!!
8. Everything closes super early!
9. Seriously, it doesn't rain THAT much
10. It's not even that cold
11. Don't go into clothing stores in Kensington.  Don't even breathe the air from those stores.  RESIST!
12. Taking a punting trip in Canterbury is really fun, especially when you get to sit with a hot water bottle and a cute little girl with her family
13. Netflix is different here- stuff that is on at home disappears from the list...it's very mysterious
14. British people are really very lovely, but you have to make the first move.  It's very rare that they will approach you.
15. It's ok for a woman to be walking alone before midnight on the streets...in fact, expect there to be a lot of people out and about
16. I like traveling by myself, getting to stroll around at my own pace and poke my nose into places without being questioned or holding up people.
17. With regard to my previous statement, you can't have a social life without people.
18. Salad rots very quickly, and so does bread.  Argh.
19. It is really REALLY hard to practice without a good place to do it in.  Really freaking hard.
20. I am physically capable of climbing over 800 feet of formidably muddy mountain
21. I have no idea what I'm doing
22. I let anxiety rule my life a lot.
23. I really love dogs and cats and coffee and music
24. You need to leave at least 40 minutes for getting anywhere in London or you're going to be late
25. $2000 is not enough, and I was skimping a bit (didn't skimp a ton, but I didn't fully go crazy with spending)
26. The music world is really small here, everyone knows everyone else
27. Londoners LOVE music, theatre, festivals!  They support their arts!

And there's lots more that I've forgotten about!  I can't believe that I'm leaving London behind.  I wish I could live in 2 places at once, part of me at home with friends and family and the rest of me in England with rolling hills, culture, and tea-drinking Brits.  The journey's not over quite- I've still got Sweden to go before going back to good ol' Indiana- but I feel like giving London a huge hug and then never letting go (if it were possible to hug a city, its culture and people, its mood, its music and adventure).  Now I have to go home, back to what I know, back to school and work and everything.  How do you measure how much you've changed?  I don't know if I'm a different person necessarily- I still have all of the battles that I'm fighting every day- but, at the same time, who knows?  I certainly hope that I'm different, more able to face the challenges ahead with more confidence and focus, but only time can really tell.  Changes of the soul happen slowly, so I would disagree that the study abroad experience has made me a different person- it's too short a time, and I think there are some aspects of "self" that we never can leave behind.  As for the smaller changes, we'll see how things go next term at Lawrence, whether I've found new focus and purpose or not.

But I'm really
Really
Really
Really
Glad I got to go.  What will I do when I have to leave on Sunday?

Scotland: I meet a monster (almost), climb a mountain, approve heartily of graffiti, and discover a fellow responsible person named Meg

This past weekend I went to Scotland as my last big trip before end of term.  I left after at noon on Friday, arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced "Edinburrah" with four syllables) at 4:30, and left Monday morning at 7:30am.

When I arrived after a long train ride, it was already dark.  Yep, it gets dark that early!  I checked into my hostel, Caledonian Backpackers and went out for dinner.  My hostel was hilariously wild- the walls were brilliantly painted with all sorts of trippy stuff, funny sayings, animals in costumes, and strange-looking people. It was clearly a place for young adults, made by young adults; it had a bar in the hostel as well as a bean-bag room with a TV.  It was pretty sweet- I was in a dorm with 7 other women of various nationalities.  It took some getting used to, because the second night it was mostly Spanish girls who were incapable of being quiet but the third night I was alone in the room.

My favorite painting in the hostel.

It was a little lonely the first night- it wasn't like I could go out on the town by myself (not that I knew where to go).  It didn't help that it was already dark when I arrived and I was pretty tired from the long train ride.  I went to bed at like 8:30 mostly because I didn't know what else to do with myself!  I was missing traveling with Mom because the last time I went "out of the country" I was with her, but this time I was a little wary as I was on my own.  This was weird because I've done most of my traveling on my own over here- interesting that only when I got to Scotland I was feeling unsafe.

But anywho, the next morning I woke up bright and early (ugh) to go on my bus tour of Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands!  Beforehand, I had a lovely cup of tea at the only shop open at this hour, where the Turkish waiter and I chatted a bit.  Onto the bus I went and we set off through Edinburgh.  I've discovered how much I like bus tours; they're a really good way to get as much sightseeing done as possible without taking the meaning from what you're seeing.  In fact, I think having a guide to tell you stories about where you're going makes it even more meaningful.

As we drove along and the sun started to rise over the scenery, I couldn't quite believe it when mountains started popping into sight in front of us.  We drove past Glencoe, where the entire MacDonald clan was massacred by another clan because of English rule, the highest mountain in the British Isles (Ben Navis, "ben" meaning "mountain" in gaelic), and the beautiful Trossachs (Rob Roy country [he's a hero of the Scots, look him up]).  We stopped several times to get photos of the unbelievable landscape we were seeing.  I can't even explain how stunning it was, standing there in the early morning light gazing at these enormous mountains.  There was snow on the top, and the clouds in the sky were twining around the peaks, roots, and sides of the mountains like affectionate cats.  I just wanted to sit there with my mouth open forever.  I have never in my life seen such wild beauty, and I've seen a lot of beautiful things.

I still can't believe what I saw.  All I know is that I didn't want to ever leave- if I worshipped anything, it would be natural beauty.

Next was the famous Loch Ness!  We stopped in the town on the edge of the Loch (gaelic for "lake" by the way) for about 2 hours, during which I took a boat tour of the Loch.  In case you've been living in a cave, there is a legend about a monster living in Loch Ness; the first recorded sighting was actually in about 584 AD by a Christian missionary.  The best part is that we honestly don't have any physical proof that "Nessie" doesn't exist!  Loch Ness is HUGE and incredibly deep.  They told us in the tour to look at the mountains on either side of the Loch and said the lake is deeper than the hills are tall; also, you could fit the world's population into Loch Ness several times over.  On the boat, we had a presentation of the sonar equipment they used to sweep the lake.  It's so impossibly deep that we can't properly explore it- so who's to say there isn't a prehistoric plesiosaur hanging out down there?

The entrance to the Loch

It was really cold, but I'm grinning really huge here.

We drove back to Edinburgh and I once again went to sleep early because it's hard to have a social life when you travel alone.

The next day I got to sleep in, but then I set out with plans to take a bit of a hike before meeting Meg, a Lawrence friend who I met briefly last year before she promptly moved to Scotland, at 12:45.  

This is where shit got fun...and by fun I mean exhausting, enlightening, and muddy.  I had decided weeks before that I wanted to check out Arthur's Seat while I was in Edinburgh- it's a mountain (a hill to the Scottish) that is right in the middle of the city.  This is what Wikipedia says about it:

"Arthur's Seat is often mentioned as one of the possible locations for Camelot, the legendary castle and court of the Romano-British warrior-chief, King Arthur.

Tradition has it that it was at the foot of Arthur's Seat, covered by the forest of Drumselch, that Scotland's 12th-century king David I of Scotland encountered a stag while out hunting. Having fallen from his horse and about to be gored, he had a vision of a cross appearing between the animal's antlers, before it inexplicably turned away, leaving him unharmed. David, believing his life had been spared through divine intervention, founded Holyrood Abbey on the spot. The burgh arms of the Canongate display the head of the stag with the cross framed by its antlers."

Basically, it's a big-ass beautiful mountain, and I was keen on seeing the view from the top.  Wikipedia also says "it's relatively easy to climb," and since you are not physically here watching me write this, you can't tell that I'm laughing when I read that phrase.  So I set off for a lovely walk in the hills on a rather wet Sunday morning, and as I approached it didn't seem too bad- just a gently sloping path going up and disappearing.  It was only when I got about a quarter of the way up that I realized that this was going to be harder than I had anticipated.  I was at the point where I had to stop literally every few steps to catch my breath, and it was then that I had several realizations:

1. I'm from Indiana, so it didn't automatically occur to me that climbing a mountain means thinner air.  Naturally, I was a bit confused when I couldn't breathe.

2. I was only a quarter of the way up, not even close to the distant peak and I was already dripping sweat, panting, and exhausted.

3. My shoes are NOT good walking shoes.  They were, at this point, covered in mud, and the lack of tread on the bottom meant even more sliding than was strictly necessary.

4. Scotland in winter is muddy- I knew that I was going to be covered in reddish mud by the time this was over.

5. Mountain paths are not paved with anything but mud and occasionally rocks.

6. Climbing Arthur's Seat was clearly a typical weekend pass time for the locals and tourists like myself; as I was straining my way up the hill, there were little kids running around like little Scottish mountain goats and people walking their dogs up this ridiculous mountain, and I even saw more than a few runners doing their weekend run!  That was rather discouraging.

These realizations led me to start thinking that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.  I was already rather high up, so I already had the view of the city that I was chasing.  I was exhausted, and I wasn't even half way to the top.  Ahead I could see stairs (my nemesis) made of roughly cut rocks covered in even more mud.  Things weren't looking too great for me!  But then something really weird happened...

I didn't go back down the mountain.

I looked at the steps and walked up by setting my eyes on goals along the way then changing sights when the place was reached.  I wanted to see what it was like to see Edinburgh from that high up.  I wanted to go home saying, I climbed that bitch of a mountain.  The phrase "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" popped into my head, and I remembered that I came to the UK to do things for the first time.  I honestly can't really remember the rest of that particular stretch of the climb (I remember at some point noticing that my skin was actually steaming), but I got to a smaller hill just below the biggest one with Arthur's Seat and sat on the top.  

I looked back down and was satisfied...I rested my exhausted body on top of that hill and chatted to a lovely woman from Alabama in the meantime.  

{Here I am at the top of the smaller hill.  Edinburgh is behind me, and if you can't tell, it looks like I have just taken a shower because my hair is soaked with sweat.}

We both were all like, we can't climb the rest of the way, so she was waiting for her daughter to get back down from the top while she rested.  I was perfectly content to go back down after I had my break.

Once I felt ready, I stood up and glanced up the muddy incline to the top, which was right behind me.  The woman's daughter had returned saying, "It's much more treacherous than it looks!"  Then another weird thing happened:

I said to myself: Oh, what the hell.  And I set off to climb to the peak of Arthur's Seat, laughing a little at my own insanity.

And the rest...

...is history.

I, Elise Anne Massicotte, the badly out-of-shape musician from Indianapolis, climbed 251 meters, or 823 feet to the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland.  And I didn't die (at least until the way back down).  I'm still wondering how the hell I did it, and I'm still wondering if I didn't just imagine it or something.  I have climbed a mountain.  And I screamed "WOOHOO" at the top, not even caring that I was being weird.

After that enlightening experience, I stumbled my way down on shaky legs and got covered in the mud mentioned earlier.  I was a "wee" bit late for meeting Meg, but she was comfortably drinking cider in Edinburgh's awesome Christmas Market when I arrived, so I didn't feel too bad.  We chatted for a while about the interesting differences it culture that we've discovered between the English, Americans, and Scottish (we're deep like that), before heading off to our agreed lunch place: the Elephant House.  There was a cool moment when we discovered that we had three maps of Edinburgh between us, and we both had researched where to find the Elephant House, as well as planning out various other adventures.  It's so NICE to meet someone who is used to being the "responsible one" in trips :)

 Meg and I outside the Elephant House being super excited

The Elephant House is where J.K. Rowling, at the time a single destitute mother, wrote the first ideas that would later become the world-changing series of Harry Potter on paper napkins.  IT. WAS. EPIC. To sit there, thinking about how deeply those books have changed my life and talk with Meg, who loves HP as well.  Then seeing the evidence in front of my eyes that HP has changed so many lives!  The bathrooms were covered in writing from people who had come here to pay homage to the books that changed their world.  Harry Potter has literally saved my life more than once, and I'm not alone in this.  So next time you say, "They're just books" or insult fangirls, think of how much fantasy means to them.

It was incredibly powerful, to say the least.  After the Elephant House, Meg and I went to see the main tourist attraction of Edinburgh: Edinburgh Castle.  It's kind of hard to miss- it's crowning the top of a huge hill in the centre of town.  It was adorable to see Meg getting so excited about seeing this castle- she mentioned it was her first (I think) castle she's explored since coming to Scotland.  I was, sadly, less excited- I have reached the point where old castles aren't as impressive anymore!  It's terribly depressing.  I was all like, it's from the 12th century, whatevs, but luckily I was able to catch on to some of Meg's excitement.  We explored as the sun went down (it was barely 3:30pm), and even stopped to try some whisky.  We checked out a really cool little chapel built for Saint Margaret of Scotland, who became Queen of Scotland in 1070; she is adored by the Scottish for her pious nature, her sponsorship of education and charity reforms, and as a mother of 3 excellent Scottish kings.  It's so wonderful to find a strong, kind woman in history.  Look her up- she has a fascinating history (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland).

The Queen in stain glass

After exploring the castle complex, we headed back into town so Meg could catch her bus.  We had to fight the entire population of Edinburgh to get there because there was a football match going on in the opposite direction.  Meg and I parted after one last wonderful conversation involving religious beliefs and upbringing.  To Meg, all I have to say is that you are WONDERFUL, and I am so, so happy that we got to hang out.  Here's to many skype sessions, ok?

I got home (to London I mean) on Monday and went to class as usual.  Our program is having a Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow afternoon at Christine's tiny flat (Christine is in charge of Lawrentians while we're over here), and I was in an iconic image of Abby Road along with several of my classmates.  I saw Saint Paul's last week, and spent like 3 hours reveling in the beauty of the cathedral which I think rivals St. Peter's Basilica in Venice; I also climbed over 500 steps to see the view from the enormous dome of the church.  A lovely trip to Kew Gardens on outskirts of London was well worth the trip- the Princess of Whales Conservatory had every climate sectioned off into zones, and the outside fall foliage was stunning.

Only a week and a half left in London, and where did the time go again?

Yours Truly,

The Management

English Oddities and Adventitious Ireland

Hello again, fair readers!  I'm sitting happily on my bed thinking over my wonderful week with my mother.  I have 2 weeks to catch you all up on, so bear with me...

I performed with Orchestra Vitae on Tuesday (2 weeks ago today).  It's an amateur orchestra of mostly grad students and professionals just getting started.  I had a fantastic time working with them and learning all the strange lingo that they use here: eighth notes are called "quavers," sixteenths, are "semi-quavers," then demiquavers, demi-semi-quavers, and I can't remember any others.  Stands are called desks, and we got a tea break :)  Yay English people!  We performed in St. James Smith's Square, a beautiful venue, here's a picture of it.

Halloween in London was tons of fun- it was so adorable watching the children come out of the woodwork to get candy.  There were gangs of witches, ghosts, skeletons, princesses, and zombies on the buses, on the streets, everywhere.  It was too cute!  Immediately after Halloween, up went the dreaded Christmas decorations.  Seriously?  Bit early...just like in the US, but even earlier!  London's starting to feel a lot more like a second home to me; when I went to Ireland with Mom I found myself missing London after the first 2 days (even though I loved Ireland)!  I feel very comfortable here, but I still have to remind myself that as used as I am to Kensington and Chelsea, I am still very new to the rest of the city.  I only have 4 more weeks in London.  I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!  I NEED TO GET EXPLORING RIGHT NOW!  I have this ginormous checklist of things that I need to see that I have to get through before I leave...

I decided to take a day trip into Oxford because a) Kind of have to see Oxford when in England, b) It has Harry Potter stuff in it, c) I didn't want to just sit in London (jiggling my leg with impatience) and wait for Mom to get here, and d) I wanted to visit Sam, who goes to Oxford as a grad student.  We had a great time wandering about; for the first hour or so we got completely soaked because it was raining so hard, but then the weather cleared up nicely.  I saw several of the different colleges at Oxford and saw the entrance hall of Hogwarts :)  I also visited Blackwell's book store, super famous, which has supposedly the biggest room devoted to books in the world!  I was pretty much in heaven.  

This is only half of the room, it continues behind this for, well, quite a ways.  Also, ELEPHANT WEATHER VANE!  Schola musicae, Richard's Camera, a random school's room with gorgeous ivy, and an old door with more gorgeous ivy.

On the spur of the moment, after Sam had left to continue his day, I took a ghost tour of Oxford which was a lot of fun.  Apparently, for centuries the townspeople HATED the students at Oxford; hated them enough to kill them in droves, so there were lots of ugly deaths (including a mob where 63 students were torn apart!).  I went to a really old pub for dinner (it was down a creepy alleyway and the ghost tour guide's wife apparently tastes blood whenever she goes there because it was the centre for animal sports like bear-baiting), spilled my cidar, got rained on, then left Oxford with a biting wind blowing in my face.  The weather was so bipolar, but I still had a wonderful time.  Especially at the bookstore.

Mom came a day late because airlines are dumb, so we only had 2 days in London before going to Dublin.  We covered the Tower of London, which was cool, and the Tower Bridge before I was really tired.  Then, to Ireland!

IRELAND.  I got to go to IRELAND!  I was so lucky to get to return to the place where part of my family came from.  I was equally lucky that I got to share that trip with my wonderful mother.  There were a couple of ups and downs (like the tube deciding not to work when we were trying to get to Heathrow, and not having a phone to call the person who was supposed to let us in to our apartment in Dublin) but we got to Dublin in the end.  With the help of a friendly Irish judge and a cheap internet cafe.  But whatever.

Always good to know which country you're in.

Our first day in Dublin, we checked out Trinity College (the tour guide was insanely attractive) and the Book of Kells.  For those of you who do not know what the Book of Kells is, it's one of the oldest known manuscript currently existing.  It's from the 9th century, no big deal.  I was so moved that I was seeing something from so long ago, I actually cried a little.  I also got to see some very old musical manuscripts, which blew my mind (cried then too) because I was seeing what I had studied in music history in person.  It was incredible.  All of my favorite things in one place: music, books, old stuff, and religion.

Trinity College, est. 1200s

 The Long Book Room

After that emotional experience, we visited the No. 29 Georgian House Museum, which was basically a beautifully preserved Georgian house from when Dublin was a hugely prosperous centre for high society from England.  The next day, we went on a bus tour to Bru-na-boinne, an ancient burial site.  We stopped first at the Hill of Tara, which is what's left of the centre of Irish Celtic culture.  All that was left were mounds, a phallic statue, and some trees, but it was still pretty cool.  The thing that touched me was these two trees on the edge of the field: people had covered them in offerings, ribbons, cloth, plastic, keychains, and other things.  It was really moving to see all these people showing their respect for all the history that went on in Tara.

Mom on the way to Bru-na-boinne, and us crossing the River Boyne

Next on our bus tour was Bru-na-boinne (means "Bend in the Boyne," the Boyne being the neighboring river).  Let me emphasize just how OLD this place is.  It was built several hundred years before the pyramids at Giza.  Let that sink in for a bit.  It's still standing, and the roof of the tomb under the mound is STILL WATERPROOF.  This place is astounding, and on the morning of December 21st it lets in a single beam of light to grace the inner tomb; this is the only light to come into the tomb all year.  We got to go in, and I was rather surprised at how small it was- I was expecting something much bigger, but it was only maybe 8 ft square?  There were carvings from the 1800s (before it was protected) right next to abstract spirals from 32nd century BCE.  I just couldn't wrap my head around it!

The next day, I had convinced Mom to pay for a bus trip to Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland with several stops along the way.  Our hilarious and knowledgable tour guide/bus driver was named Gavin and he called us "m'troops" and had the most fantastic Irish accent EVER!  We went up the coast of Ireland to a place called Carrick-a-Rede, where fishermen built a rope bridge to catch salmon.  It was stunning; Mom had to keep nagging me to keep walking because I was taking pictures like there was no tomorra :)

I was speechless.  I was so awed that I wasn't even really scared of the shaky rope bridge that I crossed.  I was just all like "oh, i'm 300 feet above the ocean but IT'S SO PRETTY!"

Next stop: Giant's Causeway.  It's a natural rock formation on the Northern Ireland shore, made by lava millions of years ago.  OR, if you're Irish, it's the bridge that the legendary giant Finn McCool created to reach Scotland so he could fight another giant who had been mocking him across the ocean.  Finn's wife Una tricked the Scottish giant when he came over to kick Finn's ass (he was much bigger than her Finn).  She had Finn dress like a baby, and once the other giant saw how huge Finn's "child" was (it was actually Finn in a baby bonnet), he turned tail and ran back to Scotland, breaking up the bridge Finn had made along the way.

I actually found it quite hilarious how many people were just chilling out on their phones.  Never mind we're at one of the most beautiful places in the world, never mind we can see Scotland in the distance, we've got good service here!  Guys...really?

Got some truly spectacular wave pictures :)

Finn McCool's pipe organ can be seen in the hillside behind the Causeway- love to my favorite organist Marika Straw.

If you want to know how these awesome rock columns were formed by lava, don't ask me or Mom because we could not for the life of us figure out what the guides were trying to tell us on that subject.  That concluded our bus trip as we trundled our way back across the border and into Dublin.  Mom and I packed up and took a taxi to the air port because Dublin doesn't have an awesome tube system that almost always works.

Whew.  Finally, you are all reasonably caught up!  This has taken me 4 days to write, no joke.  Partially because I'm lazy, but whatever.  I visited Kew Gardens yesterday, which were beautiful, and I'm heading to Cardiff this Saturday to be a Doctor Who geek.  I also got to see DAVID TENNANT IN RICHARD II!!!!!!!!!!!!  Poor Christopher (one of my classmates) had to put up with me fangirling a little as he was sitting next to me.

So...until next time!

Yours truly,

The Management

The Tale of the Youthful Vagabonds and the Sweetest Lady on the Planet

Gather around while I tell you the epic tale of my weekend...

This weekend involved a wonderful trip with my fellow Lawrentians to Stourhead Gardens and Bath.  Stourhead was a newly wealthy family's wonderful attempt at showing off to the older nobility; they spared no expense in the gardens, which tell the story of Hercules as you go along.  Each view in the garden is carefully engineered to match Italian landscape paintings, and with the leaves just now starting to turn colors...it was stunning, to say the least.

Just a general idea of how RIDICULOUSLY GORGEOUS this place is.

After getting the pants wowed off me, we journeyed on to the equally gorgeous town of Bath (pronounced "Bahth" not "Baaath").  Here we explored the ancient Roman public bath house, which was beautiful, and then stopped for dinner at a delicious Thai place.

 Street in Bath

The Baths

The Avon River

Many of us were staying the night so we could explore Bath more on Sunday, myself included.  I had booked a double room for me and my roommate Jill at a nice lodge, and by the end of the day we were both looking forward to a nice bed and shower.  We took a cab to the lodge because neither of us knew how to get there (my mistake, I didn't look up how to get there), and I walked up to the front desk and said to the lady there that I had made a reservation.  Here's where shit got complicated.  She looked for my name and we soon discovered that I had accidentally booked Sunday night instead of Saturday night!  There was immediate panic when we realized that we now had nowhere to stay the night- it was 8:45pm and we were exhausted.  The lady called all the hotels in the area and none of them had any rooms left for under 120 pounds a night (which is ridiculous, roughly $200).  This is where she became the heroine of the night: she was obviously worried about us in a motherly sort of way because there was no where for us to sleep, so she offered us some floor space in a little room she had because she didn't have any rooms left either (I do NOT know what was going on in Bath that night, that every hotel within 20 km was full).  This woman could have just shrugged and said sorry and kicked us out, but she took us in, found us blankets and an air mattress (she made her husband blow it up for us); in the morning, she gave us breakfast.  I cannot thank this woman enough for her generosity- without her, I honestly don't know what we would have done because of my mistake.  Whenever I tried to thank her, she just said, "It happens to the best of us, and I wouldn't want to see two young women on the streets!"  Let this be a lesson to all of us, the lesson of the Kind Innkeeper.  This sweet old woman helped me when I most needed it, when I had made a mistake that had put me and my roommate in very real trouble.  It's people like her that make the world worth living in.

After that rather stressful episode and a restless night on a floor, we woke up and got ready to explore Bath.  We took a tour to Stonehenge, and I was blown away (literally, it was very windy) by just how OLD these stones are.  When the Romans conquered, Stonehenge was already in ruins!  I'm getting used to being around old stuff, living in London, but Stonehenge was another story entirely.  And we, with all of our knowledge and technology, STILL have no idea what the hell these gigantic stones are doing chilling in the middle of the English countryside.  I was a bit disappointed that they don't let the tourists closer than 15 feet or so to the standing stones; I'm a very tactile person and my favorite part of being around old stuff is being able to look closely and touch things, it makes me feel closer to the ancients who built it.

Ze proof!

After the Hanging Stones (what "Stonehenge" means in old English), I had the Jane Austen tea at the Jane Austen museum.  The tea was delicious, and the museum had various letters that Jane wrote when she lived in Bath.  We actually don't know exactly what she looked like, which I thought was interesting; this incredibly famous woman is still a mystery to us!  I also checked out the Bath Abbey, which is in the centre of town, and saw various architectural masterpieces (The Circus and The Royal Crescent).  To my UU readers, I found a Quaker Meeting House!  I had to do a double take- what's an American religion doing in the middle of a fancy little English town?  Mind.  Blown. 

 Quaker Meeting House?!  What?!

Mr. Darcy watching over me and my tea :) 

Now I'm broke and starting orchestra rehearsals as a new member of Orchestra Vitae, an orchestra with a close relationship with FIE, the program that Lawrence is teamed up with in London.  We'll see how this goes!  I've definitely missed playing with an orchestra- we're performing in a week, Gershwin's An American in Paris, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and McNuff's Secret Destinations.  I have no idea what I'm doing this weekend, but I'm definitely excited for Halloween in London and for Mom to come in 2 weeks!  I hope you are all doing well and that the world is treating you as kindly as it did me this past weekend.

Yours Truly,

The Management