Theatre, Pageantry, and Oxford

Monday, 18 June 2012

Despite the long, tiring weekend, Monday was a busy day. I started my day by walking down to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to buy tickets for Wicked. They happened to have student tickets, so we were able to get a good seat for a decent price.

Changing of the Guard

After picking up our tickets, we headed over to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. We got there a bit early, so we had to wait, but it was worth it because we were able to get spots right up against the gates. Unfortunately, where we were, there was a police box blocking the small detachment of soldiers that was already in the courtyard in front of the palace. But it didn’t matter much because we could see through the windows of the police box, and we figured that once the actual ceremony began, there would be more soldiers down by where we were. After waiting for over half an hour, a band, clad in red coats and bearskin hats, began to march down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. They marched all the way to the Palace and the Changing of the Guard began. It was really cool to see all of the guards moving together in such regimented unity. There is a lot of pageantry that surrounds the actual changing, so even though the same movements were being repeated several times, it was still fascinating to watch. After that, we headed over to Piccadilly Circus to the Rail Europe office in order to purchase train tickets for our trip to Italy, which is much cheaper and much faster (overall) than flying.

View from my seat at Wicked

After classes and dinner, we caught the Tube to Victoria Station to go to the Victoria Apollo Theatre to see Wicked. We had awesome seats! We were up high enough to see everything, but still close enough to see the actors’ faces. Wicked is my favorite show, so I was ecstatic that we had such a great view. It was really interesting to hear the musical done in British accents because I’m so used to the American version of it; the way they say certain words changed how things in the songs rhymed, but everything still rhymed. When we got out of the show, it was after 10:30, but the actors had done such a great job that we decided to stand out by the stage door and get autographs. Finally, around 11:00, we headed back to the college to get some sleep after a long day.

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Bodleian Library

Tuesday, after my class ended at 1:00, a friend and I headed to the train station where we bought tickets and got on the train to Oxford, which was about an hour away. We didn’t really know what there was to do in Oxford or what to expect, so we just showed up and figured we’d walk around and find things. First thing we realized off the train was that Oxford was not what we were expecting it to be. Both of us thought it was just a tiny town that is basically just Oxford University. But we were wrong. While the town itself is tiny (we were able to walk everywhere, which was good), there is much more to it than the university, though being a university town, a lot of the town is devoted to Oxford University. But our realization didn’t deter us. We grabbed some brochures from the information desk and set off into the town of Oxford to see what we could see.

Divinity Hall

The first thing we stumbled upon was the Bodleian Library. We thought it looked cool, so we decided to pay the £4 for a tour, and boy was it worth the money. The library itself was built on top of the Divinity Hall, which was the first dedicated testing room for Oxford University. And coincidentally enough, it is the same place where they filmed the infirmary scenes in Harry Potter films. Our tour took us up into the library, which, like most libraries of the time, was on the second floor. The library, which was built in the ____s, houses a lot of old books, many of them several hundred years old. Not only is the library a fantastic piece of history, but it was also the location of the restricted section of the library in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

The Eagle and Child

After our tour at the library, we continued wandering around town, getting lost, and not really knowing what we were looking at, but we didn’t really mind because the town itself is gorgeous and the day was beautiful. According to the maps we had, and subsequent research, the main thing we saw that we didn’t know was important was the Radcliffe Camera, which is another building of the vast library of Oxford University. After wandering around, we headed to the Eagle and Child, a pub frequented by many Oxford students, such as JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. Not only is the pub a piece of literary history, but it also has great food. With full bellies, we boarded the train back to London and got back to the college around 9:00, exhausted, but happy.