Well, here we are. This will be the second to last post on this blog, and it won't even be about Oxford. For the past two and a half weeks my friends, Rebecca and Abby, and I have been galavanting around Europe before returning home. It has been a crazy couple of weeks full of many twists and turns, but I have finally realized that I am ready to go home...tomorrow.
Maybe we should talk about Oxford a little bit:
The end of term was immensely stressful. I wrote three papers that were over 2,500 words about politics and literature. These covered Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Orwell. It was definitely a stretch for my brain, but it was fun to finally read
Hamlet and
Nineteen Eighty-Four. I also wrote a 6,300 word thesis, which probably should have been over 8,000 words. This is definitely my favorite paper that I have ever written. I researched how the music from stage musicals is changed when they are adapted for film with a focus on
Sweeney Todd and
Les Miserables. As part of my research I went to see
Les Mis and
Phantom (which was originally supposed to be included in the paper, but word limits decided otherwise) in London. It was really fun to see
Les Mis staged with a turntable and to finally see
Phantom live. Also this term I saw
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as a reward for finishing my paper about Shakespeare and Politics. This term has really helped me to realize that I want to pursue music and particularly musical theatre, hopefully through orchestration and maybe someday composition. I have also realized that musical theatre can be a research subject, which will hopefully lead to many hours of pleasure during eventual masters and possibly doctoral study :)
Now for a well-earned vacation!
London
Before heading out of the country we spent a couple days in London so I could see my favorite actor, David Tennant, in
Don Juan in Soho. This was definitely one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever seen. The acting was incredible. Tennant's D.J. was horrible, and yet demanded every shred of your attention. Adrian Scarborough was his lovable, and conscience ignoring, chauffeur/friend (if you can call him that). The play was excellently staged and D.J.'s demise came with a powerful message about the dangers of our overly sexual culture. After the show, Rebecca and I waited by the stage door and I got my program signed by the lead actors :)
The next day we walked around Kensington Gardens and enjoyed our last day in London. That night we all re-packed our giant suitcases and mentally prepared ourselves for the next couple weeks of travel. Rebecca and I also headed out to the Old Vic theatre to wait by the stage door for Daniel Radcliffe and the cast of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to appear. Radcliffe was inside the theatre and they ushered us in after waiting in line for over an hour. He showed me his dinosaur socks because I commented on his zombie socks in a rehearsal photo. It was a good day :)
Paris
We spent three days in Paris in a cute little apartment near Bastille. On our first day we walked around Le Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre. The view of the city was beautiful and it was really fun to return after coming when I was in high school. I was surprised at how much of the Easter Mass I was able to understand :) The next day we walked along the Seine, visited the Eiffel Tower the Statue of Liberty, and continued the idea from the day before of finding the bathroom and wifi in Starbucks (this trend would continue through Madrid). The next day we visited Notre Dame, which heightened my appreciation for Hunchback, and the Catacombs. It was so cool to see all of the bones piled so neatly, and also slightly terrifying to realize how easy it would be to get lost in them :P On our last day in the city we visited Versailles, which definitely puts the English palaces to shame, and the Louvre. We went on one of the nights that the museum was open late and therefore had no crowds to push through!
Vienna
I feel like I have completed an epic music pilgrimage. It was amazing to visit the city where so many important musical moments took place. We visited the graves of composers like Beethoven, Strauss, and Schoenberg as well as the Vienna State Opera. We saw Shostakovich's
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for only 4 euro in the standing section!!! It was so intense and on of the last instrumental interludes was basically the first movement of String Quartet No. 8 (the best piece of music ever written). While in Vienna we also visited Schoenbrunn Palace and the oldest zoo in the world. One of my favorite parts of our time in the city was just wandering the streets and enjoying time with friends.
Barcelona
We only spent a couple of days here and it was punctuated by many stressful moments. However, it was quite nice to see the ocean and to collect some sea glass. We also ate some amazing gelato and paella and visited La Sagrada Familia.
Madrid
Madrid reminded me of London in many ways. It was much more relaxed than Paris or Barcelona and we mostly spent our days wandering. Abby left us on our first day in the city and Rebecca and I spent most of our time just wandering and picking up souvenirs for our friends and family. I really enjoyed walking through the parks and seeing the Egyptian temple. On our last night in the city we visited La Reina Sofia and saw some interesting modern art that neither of us really understood and a Picasso exhibit featuring
Guernica.
Milan
The end of our time together has come in Milan because I could get a really cheap flight home from here. Rebecca and I spent yesterday morning wandering around the city center and the shopping district before retiring to the riverside to read. We have eaten lots of pizza, pastries, and pasta. Today we visited Lake Como in the pouring rain, but still enjoyed wandering the streets of the town of Como without the large crowds of tourists that are drawn to larger cities.
As you can probably tell, our trip has had a very nice winding down period over the past week that has prepared me for the transition back home. I am excited to hug my rabbit (who has held on all year despite being 13) and my cats and dog. This year has been crazy and enlightening and practically perfect in every way. While I have loved just about every minute of it (the hour before a paper was due when there was probably three hours of work left to do on it was not my favorite), I am excited to go home and reconnect with my friends and family. Thank you everyone who has supported me on this journey. Your letters, texts, and prayers have made this year much easier.
~ Brynn
