Thursday 5/13/10

Rehearsal with The Sixteen (which actually is comprised of 18 singers tee hee)

The Prime Mer.  (I'm going to call it that because it sounds cool.)

Yea, that is the OLDEST THING ON EARTH...it's a piece of an asteroid.  awesome. 4.5 billion freaking years old.

Hey look ma, I'm on two sides of the world at once!

Scott and I are on opposite sides of the world.  I can feel his love on the other side of the world!!! (aka, I could still hug him across the prime mer! haha!)

Today began with another round of rehearsals.  We met all together to chat about our plans as a group for the day then divided to conquer our music for Oxford.  Dr. Staheli asked which groups thought their music was easy enough to just go with the roll out keyboards for the day.  For some reason, we all needed to rehearse at the same time today and couldn't do the come early stay late thing.  Nobody was volunteering so I raised my hand.  Based on our rehearsal the previous day, I thought we had a pretty decent grip on the music.  I hadn't realized that our rehearsal leader didn't feel the same nor did the other members of our group.  Oops.  Well we rehearsed with that and I think it made us stronger in the end.  It forced us to find and fix our problem spots. Right after rehearsal we dashed to the South Kensington tube station and then to the boat station where we boarded a little day cruiser and headed for Greenwich.  I have no idea why we didn't just go to the tube station right across the way from the boat loading area.  Whatever!  Scott and I napped on the boat ride naturally.  I remember being the flag girl on my family's boat when we went out to water ski and falling asleep on the boat all the time.  mmm sweet memories. As soon as we arrived Scott and I found an information center where they were answering questions and selling maps.  I asked the lady behind the counter if they had free maps.  She smiled this sassy smile, as if she was saying good job.  Way to figure out that you don't need to pay us 5 pounds for information and maps.  Our first stop was, of course, the Prime Meridian.  Is that the kind of thing you capitalize?  Is it a proper noun?  Anyway, we walked through this museum about space and astronomy.  I got really excited about Newton's "Principia Mathmatica", his book about physics and astronomy.  It was said to be bound with leather from his desk chair.  Being that I studied physics this last semester, I Got pretty excited about this book!  

gtttttttt555555555jjjjjjjj <---this is Scotts Contribution to my blog entry...he typed this with his nose trying to get in my way and obstruct my view.  Silly boy.  

Anywho, we walked through this lovely garden at the base of the prime meridian observatory and finally reached the prime meridian!!!  I think we accidentally entered the back way because the prime meridian we took pictures of vs. the prime meridian our friends took pictures of were very different!  Well, we took some pictures standing on opposite sides of the world...yada yada bla bla bla.  They are pretty cool I guess.  I think I was more excited about finding this back entrance!  It had the most beautiful view of Greenwich and the Royal Naval College.  I enjoyed learning about the connections between astronomy, time, and sailing.  There were also a surprising number of connections between what I learned there and what I have learned in the recent past.  When I was with Scott's mom, Bonnie, during General Conference, we went to replace Scott's watch battery.  There was a certificate on the wall saying something about horology which is the study of time.  As you can imagine, there is a school of horology there in Greenwich and there was a display of some of the oldest maritime clocks in the world.  In fact, this maritime clock collection is considered to be the finest and most expansive.  Oh boy!  Another interesting bit is that apparently if someone was trying to calculate longitude they were jokingly said to be insane.  Words to refer to the mentally ill actually became something like this "look at him, he's over there trying to find longitudes again".  In a really well known painting depicting Bedlam by Hogarth, there is a man in the background who is drawing latitudes and longitudes on the wall.  This ties not only to what I learned in abnormal psychology class but also into the text of a song that the BYU Singers performed last semester called "I Love My Love".  The opening line talks about a lover in Bedlam which was, historically,  an institution for the insane.  Thank you education. I feel so intelligent when I make connections like this!

Oh my lucky stars, today I got to hear The Sixteen rehearse and then perform.  It was such a unique opportunity to have their director, Harry Christophers, rehearsing them and then taking the time to chat with us about the group's history and the repertoir for that evenings concerts.  Blessed day.  I think it finally hit me today that these singers are 1: incredibly well trained and 2: incredible sight readers.  It's always interesting to me to see how a conductor puts his program together and Mr. Christophers took the time to explain that to us.  In 2000, the group began a sort of musical pilgrimage back to English roots.  Perfect for what we are studying!!!  We were delighted to hear the works of Byrd, Tallis, and Shepherd.  We've mostly looked at Byrd and Tallis and I felt well prepared to hear lot's of polyphony.  I loved hearing polyphonic music move the way it did.  There was such a beautiful shape to every line.  The typical shape for a musical line, if you were to draw it out, would be an arch.  I felt like each of their arches had so much variety!  Thank you Sixteen!  Their pitch was not as spot on as the Tallis scholars but they sure blended in an incredible way! Scott was feeling like the bass/ bari sound was a bit overwhelming at times but, my argument was that was what allowed the sopranos to sing so freely.  I could have cut the concert a smidge shorter because it is very difficult to remain focused after so much polyphony. :)

At the end of the concert we headed back for London with Emily, Steve, Jeff, Nathan, Sister Hall, and a member of The Sixteen who is also a member of the church.  Awesome!  This train from Greenwich was super cool.  There was a part where we were crossing over a water way leading to the Thames which reminded me of Oakland for some strange reason.  Then I remembered...silly Michelle, you're in London.

5/12/10 Wednesday

Wednesday morning we had a rehearsal for our weekend at Oxford.  We met in the chapel and decided who would be using the roll out keyboards and who would be using the real pianos.  Like I've said before, the building coordinators are very particular about who gets to use what pianos and what rooms and when.  Luckily we were able to split our entire class in half so that three groups would come early and rehearse on the pianos and three groups would stay late to rehearse.  My group met early and what an exciting rehearsal that it was!  Our parts are a bit unbalanced.  I am the only alto and Chris Buttars is the only tenor which doesn't bother me one bit but it sure makes for a challenge when we are singing a piece with two choirs.  We had fun reading over our music and I especially had fun really testing my sight reading skills.  I must say I was rather proud of myself for holding my own through that rehearsal.  

Our next stop was the Science Museum which is just right down the street from the chapel.  We spent about three hours there and had a total blast!!! The first exhibit was experienced was about early household appliances such as the record player and it's evolution to the cd player, the vacuum, the toilet, power tools, the coffee maker, the clothes iron, central heating, and home security.  My favorite part was the home security interactive stuff.  We were challenged to get through some light sensors without setting off the alarm.  I tried and totally failed.  Scott tried and failed.  I tried a second time and I just got down on the floor and scooted along army style.  muahaha.  Scott managed to make it happen his second try also.  The next exhibit we saw was this sort of exploratorium.  There were just a bunch of random things to touch and set up and experiment with.  There was an ice block that you could pour water over and use a special magnifying glass to see the ice crystals formed.  There was an infared camera that showed us our body heat and I discovered that my nose is rather cold.  Scott and I decided it might be fun to attend a special presentation on bubbles and it was a blast.  There were small children bouncing all over the place just giddy with excitement about these bubbles.  Interestingly, they call liquid soap "washing up liquid" and this is across the board!  In the grocery stores, in conversation, and in bubble presentations.  I also really enjoyed this sound box head resonation demonstration.  They had some speakers in a sound box with a metal rod attached.  There were straws that you could put over the rod and bite onto.  You could not hear the music (which was R&B by the way) from the speakers until you bit down and this demonstrates how your head can resonate sound as clearly as if you had ear buds in. So, picture this: me, crouched over this box that was clearly made for the height of an average 9 year old, dancing around to the music in my head.  Fan-tastic.

The museum closed and we headed back to our flats to grab a quick bite to eat and deposit some groceries we just purchased.  We headed out to get rush tickets for Les Mis but didn't make it in time.  I was totally bummed out.  We had just barely missed the start of the show and tickets would have been discounted in a big way.  I sort of moped for a minute while Scott suggested all the different things we could do to entertain ourselves.  He had some good ideas.  My favorite was "let's jump over stuff" or "let's go pan handle and try to make some money".  We looked for some instruments to play but couldn't find anything so, we decided to go with the jump over stuff option.  More like, I watched Scott jump over stuff.  I was nervous I would hurt myself.  Eventually I gave it a go and found that I'm a pretty good jumper. :)  We happened upon an amazing looking cafe and popped in for some dessert.  We saw some decent prices and decided to have a bite.  We went in and took a seat only to find that the prices were twice as expensive to dine in! Ridiculous. So, we ordered and took it out to the fountain around the corner and ate it right there.  I laughed at all the tourists walking by taking pictures of this random fountain as if it was important to them.  Pssssh.  Scott and I plopped right on there and chowed down.  Eventually we got on a bus in search of adventure.  Scott said, we'll just get off when we see something fun to do.  Before we had even reached the next stop we found the new Robin Hood movie was playing. It was fun to watch this movie in England, where the legend took place!  I actually found a few connections to what I've experienced in my travels.  There are parts of the movie that take place in places we have visited and there are people we've studied about in culture class.  It was neat.  BYU Singers performed a song called "When Allen-a-Dale Went a Hunting" which is all about Robin Hood and his buddies.  Look at my learning experience coming full circle!

Tuesday 5/11/10

T is for Tuesday and Tallis!  Today’s class was all about Palestrina and Byrd.  We looked at and listened to Byrd’s “Mass for 5 Voices” and Palestrina’s “Pope Marcellus Mass”.  We made comparison, in particular, of each composers Kyrie.  A student made the assessment that she feels like she’s swimming when she listens to Palestrina.  This is understandable because he uses points of imitation with lot’s of melisma.  At first this was interpreted to mean that she gets lost in the music and can’t follow it or that it gets real old real fast such that she drowns.  She didn’t actually really explain her feelings but, based on the comments of the students who followed her, I gathered that they interpreted her comment to mean that she finds Byrd more enjoyable because his Kyrie was more melodic, short, and simple.  Eventually people began sticking up for Palestrina.  He was, after all, the one who made it into the history books.  Most of us have probably at least heard of the Pope Marceullus Mass, if not listened to it.  

In the afternoon we went with Logan and Jessica to the British Military Museum.  Logan picked up a children’s interactive activity backpack.  He was pretty enthused about using his spy gear to go through the museum.  The first display felt more like a huge advertisement for this children’s book called “Billy The Kid” about the authors experience growing up as a little boy during WWII.  I found it interesting to see the war from a British child’s perspective.  Next, went through England’s war history from ancient times until today.  There were suits of armor, old flags, so many wars.maps, and the classic red coats!  There was so much to see and England has been through many many wars.  It was surprising to stop and think about how many countries England attempted and many times successfully controlled or at the very least, influenced.  After we were done there we headed off on an adventure to find some dinner before the Tallis Scholars concert in Cadogan Hall.  We boarded a bus and decided that we’d get off wherever looked yummy.  We found a little cafe and sat down to a nice fresh meal.  Scott ordered for me which is always an adventure.  He likes to do that and I’m happy to indulge him.  He typically orders things for me that I wouldn’t think to order for myself. He got me this strange curry chicken dish.  It was served cold.  WTC?  A savory crepe cold was just strange.  Well, it was ok :)  My favorite part of the meal was dessert! We got a crepe with chocolate, bananas, toffee, and clotted cream and swiss chocolate ice cream.  All four of us split this scrumptious dessert and the cost.  We attacked that thing like ravenous bunny rabbits. (you were expecting me to say wolves weren’t you.  muahaha)  Before we knew it we had 5 minutes to be at the concert hall and in our seats so we made a run for the bus and then a run for the concert hall after we finally got off the bus two stops in the wrong direction.  I was sweating by the time we got in our seats and we were there just in time! Boom baby!

This concert featured the works of Palistrina and an incredibly talented group of musicians.  I was most impressed by their intonation and bright free sound.  This music was obviously well rehearsed and yet the singers did not look disinterested in their work.  I was a little distracted by what I felt might have been an attempt to connect with the audience.  Each of the performers made eye contact with different sections of the audience throughout the performance.  To me it was as if they were distracted and looking away from the conductor but, because all of them did it I’m assuming it was intentional.  The music was beautiful and precise like nothing I’ve ever heard before but I felt that it lacked expression. A truly emotionally penetrating performance will captivate my attention and by the end of the set I will be compelled to stand and clap.  I did not have this experience at the end of this concert.  I will say that perhaps it is because the nature of the music that was being featured wasn’t necessarily meant to make a statement but more to create an environment for worship. 

After the concert we came back to the flats and just relaxed, blogged, and hung out with our posse.  Nothing too exciting for a tuesday night.

cheers everyone!

Monday: first day of class! 4/10/10

Today we began our classes!!! Our classroom is about a 10 minute walk away from our flat.  We meet in the Hyde Park Chapel.  It felt strange to walk in there with my jeans and my backpack but, it was nice to feel so at home in our church building in the sense that these surroundings felt familiar and comfortable.  We began class with a prayer of course and then kicked right off with reviews of the music we had already heard performed in St. Martin in the Fields and in Wesminster Abbey.  My favorite part of class was discussing Handel’s coronation anthems.  It was so fun to hear that piece performed in the country for whose monarchs it was composed.  (that sentence felt very poorly structured. :) mom, help me out.  haha.)  We did some form and analysis on Mozart’s “Requiem” which I found exciting because I know so very little about modes, form, and chord progressions.  I am learning little by little how to tell one mode from the other but it’s thrilling to listen to Dr. Staheli and many of the students discuss and pick apart each piece of music.  The parts of the discussion I enjoyed most were of course the ones that I could contribute to.  When we talked about how exciting it was to listen to these pieces performed live students were saying things like, “because it’s pretty” or “because it’s in tune” but Dr. Staheli seemed to be looking for something more specific.  He wanted to know the compositional reasons why the music satisfies the listener.  I thought I’d throw in the physiological reasons why.  There are theories in music therapy that if a tone frequency matches the frequency of an individuals muscle oscillation or the frequency of the blood pumping through the body, that these frequencies can actually cause a healing effect.  I threw that out there and that comment was received well.  

In class we were also divided into groups for rehearsing our evensong pieces to sing with our respective colleges at Oxford University on Sunday.  Just the thought is a thrill.  Scott and I were both assigned to be group leaders for our groups and we were assigned to arrange who will clean the bathrooms of the chapel each time we meet for class.  The building coordinators of this chapel are intense so we are doing our best to meet their demands and do our part to keep that building looking immaculate and hoping to earn their trust in return...that way we can use the pianos!

Scott and I headed back to make ourselves a quick bite to eat and then head out to experience more of London!!!  My roommate told me that the Victorian Hospital Museum (where they have a surgical theatre) was a really worth while place to visit.  We took about 10 students with us to see if we could get a group discount but, nay.  We decided it would be worth it anyway.  Only 4 quid and we were promised that it would be really interesting and worth while.  The first room was so interesting.  It was full of information about apothacaries and the advances in proscribed medication and plenty of old tools from a variety of medical professions.  I really liked the pill maker and the tools of a midwife.  Some of those acoutraments looked out of this world.  Literally.  They left me wondering what practical purpose they could serve in medicine.  I’ll post a few pictures of these tools for your entertainment.  Another interesting bit was a display on Florence Nightingale who revolutionized the role of nurses and women in medicine.  Many have called her the mother of modern nursing.  It just so happens that there is a display in the library at BYU all about her.  What a wholistic learning experience I’m getting here!  We also thought of Sister Hall as we saw a display about Lister who created the formula for what would become a mouth wash known as Listerine!  Sister Hall and her obsession with Listerine reminds me of the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he says “just put some windex on it”.  She always says within the first few days of each semester and especially here in England “I started feeling a tickle of something yesterday and I sprayed/ gargled my listerine and look at me today, I’m a picture of health”.  If that woman was getting a dollar for every time she advertised for listerine...wait...maybe she is!! The coolest part of the museum was the surgical theatre where medical students and nurses could watch procedures being performed.  Interestingly, the theatre was right above a church so, they had to build up the floor between the theatre and the ceiling of the church and fill it with sawdust to absorb the blood that would seep through the cracks in the floor below the operation table.  Sick....I hope that wasn’t too much detail for you.

After our interesting experience at the museum we headed to Southwark Cathedral.  It was only a short walk away.  Scott and I walked around the grounds.  It was amusing to me because we had been there a week before when we went to see Macbeth.  We walked by the cathedral and thought...wow!!! That is a pretty looking castle style building and what do you know...we attended evensong there!  Scott and I had some time to walk around the church.  I took a few pictures, Scott went into the room for quiet prayer.  It turns out that Shakespeare and Chaucer worshiped at this church and the founder of Harvard University was baptized there.  It was cool to think of these individuals listening to this same kind of music looking at pretty much the same building as I was looking at for the old part of the church had remained pretty much untouched.  The music was much the same as at other evensongs.  However, the treble parts were sung by young girls instead of boys.  I felt as if this difference really changed the sound.  I felt that there was less blend among the alto voices and there was one tenor that really just sang over everyone.  Their performance left me feeling no different than I felt when I walked through the door.  I thought, oh, this is nice but I certainly wasn’t blown away.  This choir sounded less polished than some of the other evensong choirs we have heard.  Their sound was still nice, don’t get me wrong.  They performed as part of a festival of contemporary church music which was interesting.  I didn’t really hear too much of a difference between the repertoir of their evensong and some of the others we’ve seen.  

Afterwards, a group of us headed out to see if we could check out the Shakespeare museum and some people wanted to buy tickets to see “Macbeth”.  There were plenty of distractions along the road though. It would take Scott and me about less than 10 minutes to get to the Globe from where we were but as always with groups, the mentality was “hurry up and wait”.  My father always says that.  I’m more like him every day.  I feel most comfortable making a plan and then leading the way.  There was a little bit of stop and go but, we eventually found the Globe only everything was closed.  Scott and I along with Jessica and Nick decided to ditch that gig and do our own thing.  We caught a bus on Fleet street.  I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a barber to send Scott to.  He wants to get his hair trimmed.  I’m thinking, what better place!  I want to find a place called “Sweeney Todd’s” or something.  Speaking of hair, I needed to get some shampoo and towels.  I didn’t realize that we needed to bring our own towels!  We stopped at Boots for shampoo and such.  It’s funny that everything feels twice as expensive in London but my shampoo!  I spent less on shampoo, deoderant, and smoothing serum than I spend on one bottle of shampoo in the US.  What is that all about?  Anyway, we just rode on the upper level of the bus looking out for whatever places looked promising for towels.  I just don’t even know where to go to find a towel here!  I was thinking it might be because I’m in a foreign country.  Then I realized that it’s just because I’m in London.  I would probably have the same difficulty trying to find a towel in San Francisco.  

No luck on the towel front.  But, I got clever.  When we got back to our flats, I remembered seeing these bags of clothes just waiting to be hauled off.  I started poking around and found towels, bags, shoes, shirts, and skirts...all stylish and best of all FREE for the taking.  I had someone check the website on the bags to make sure these clothes really were ok to just rummage and indeed they were going to be recycled anyway.  In elementary school in the US I learned all about the three R’s.  First is reduce, second is reuse, and third is recycle.  Well, obviously reusing is better than recycling!  So, I got myself a free towel and only paid 1 pound to wash and dry it.  Now that is thrifty!!!  

I finished off my night by taking some of my “new” clothes to the washing and bam, spending very little money.  I was proud.

Sunday 5/9

Where I ate breakfast, the couch in the living room looking out over Hyde Park

Scott set the table.  Doesn't he look proud?

Candid photo of the group socializing before we ate

Here we are...Logan came a little late so he missed the photo. :(

We went to church here today!!! 

Today I made myself a most glorious breakfast.  I made eggs and toast and ate wheatabix and had a banana and tea.  It was wonderful to just sit down to a lovely breakfast and look out of my flat over Hyde park.  Scott and I headed for the tube with two other girls from our program.  When we were on the tube, Christiana was carrying her scriptures and this gentleman struck a conversation with us about scriptures in general.  He pointed out that her scriptures were larger than most.  I said, quite openly, "well, we're Mormon so we have a few extra books".  I don't suppose that would be the most missionary like way to put it but, that is the way that felt right.  He started bringing up all the typical talking points, making reference to the book of revelations and asking how it is we had other books.  Good thing we had Scott there who has answered these questions before.  I felt confident in bearing testimony but this man sighted a scripture in Revelations that is actually in John.  It kinda threw me but Scott knew exactly what he was talking about.  As we left the tube, the conversation ended in a friendly way.  No heated debates had started.  No Bible bashing began.  We were simply sharing and that felt SO right.

Our first stop was the sung Eucharist at Wesminster Abbey.  This was a musical treat.  It was fun to experience the Abbey all over again with the students who had never been there.  It was also a joy to be there on the Sabbath.  I felt more spiritually and intellectually prepared for the experience.  As we approached the gates, there were stewards/ guards saying that the Abbey was closed for tours and open only for worship.  We just pressed through the crowd and I said "we're here to worship".  Tahdah, they let us in of course.  

We had wonderful seats just to the left of the choir.   These seats made me feel as if I was really a part of the service more than a tourist popping in for a listen like we did last week.  The abbey seemed to literally take the student's breath away.  I could hear gasps behind me as we took our seats.  This was my first sung eucharist and I didn't know quite what to expect.  The all male choir sang a Ralph Vaughn Williams Mass and I was particularly delighted to hear the same arrangement of "I Sat Down Under His Shadow" that the BYU Singers and Concert Choir performed last year.  It was such a delight to understand and connect with this piece because I had already thought about it and developed a "testimony" of the message, if you will.  I was really impressed with the stamina of these young soprano boys.  They have such control over their sweet and clear voices; it's really incredible.  The men singing the tenor and bass lines were enough of a support to the boys but not too overpowering.  In my opinion there was a great balance and intonation in the choir.  The only thing I felt that their performance lacked was technical accuracy.  What I mean by that is there were times where accents, dynamics, and rhythms weren't together.  Good thing the ceilings are so glorious and thus the acoustics make up for whatever is lacking.  I really enjoyed the way in which they took the sacrament during this service.  The choir sang, I think it was a sanctus, as each row of the congregation went to receive the bread and wine.  It was such a powerful way to experience the sacrament.

Our next stop was the Hyde Park singles ward.  We stayed for the whole three hour block not realizing that the evensong we wanted to attend actually started at 3 PM not 5.  This is what happens when people mistake military time for 12 hour time.  15:00 hours is 3 PM.  I'll never forget that one.  The singles ward was great though.  I don't even really remember what the first speaker said except she made this analogy about the storms of life and the need to be prepared with a life jacket.  I thought that was pretty applicable.  In a storm in the open ocean, if everyone goes overboard you can't just give someone your life jacket without sacrificing your own life.  The same goes with testimony.  You can't rely on the testimony of others, you need to get your own.  Granted, there is always a way back to safety where you can build that testimony which is not necessarily the case in the open seas.  There was a man who gave a wonderful talk about forgiveness which really tied into the second talk about repentance.  We loved that meeting.

So our plans for evensong fell through but a former member of Concert Choir and dear friend, Jeff Lark, invited a group of us for dinner at his flat.  Steve, Emily, Heather, Emilie, Johnathan, Logan, and Scott and I got together and just laughed and laughed all night. We followed Jeff through the tube stations and on the walk to his place.  We arrived at what didn't look like much and Jeff told us to ignore the outside because it was pretty nice on the inside.  As we walked up the stairwell he proceeded to tell us about the homeless woman who lived there.  She was apparently even urinating in that stairwell.  Could this all be a bunch of folklore?  Possibly.  It did smell funny.  Anyway, we get up the stairs to Jeff's lovely, refurbished, contemporary, clean, bachelor pad.  I was surprised to see that he doesn't have a tv!  Why you might ask?  Because it costs somewhere around 150 pounds a year to own a tv.  You are required to pay this licensing fee.  What the silly?  Anyway, Jeff has done well for himself!  The food was delicious and conversation was flying all night.  We told stories, caught up with one another, and I just laughed until my abdomen hurt.  One of my favorite parts of the evening was when Steve and Jeff decided to read from a book by their favorite author whose name I cannot remember.  Steve is the perfect man to read a story aloud!  He is expressive and quick witted so, he was kind of a one man show for that portion of the night.  It felt a little old fashioned....everyone sitting around the living room listening to stories.  I've been wanting to attend this story telling festival in Utah for the last couple of years...story telling and story reading are really art forms.  

Eventually we had to turn in for the night.  Jeff's girlfriend told me as I left that she felt like she knew me from somewhere else.  I have no idea where that could have been.  Perhaps I just have one of those faces.  Logan was moving out of Jeff's place because he stayed there before the study abroad actually began and he left some things there.  I helped him pack things up a bit and we were off!  As I was heading back down that dirty stairwell, Logan urged me to make haste because he was carrying heavy bags.  I tried to hurry but slipped and fell on my bottom.  haha.  That was the perfect way to end the day.  :)

Saturday 5/8/10

Saturday was glorious.  I actually kinda had a schedule which was nice.  We had a program meeting at 9:30 AM which forced me to get up and at em early!  The meeting was a bit unnecessarily long.  One of the RLSs (Resident Life Supervisors) came to talk to us this morning about rules and regulations.  She spent way too much time worrying about drugs and alcohol.  We were just all sitting there quietly listening to her tell us to not play drinking games or let our drinking get out of hand.  A glass of wine at dinner is ok but not drinking games.  I just wanted to stop her and say "listen, we have an honor code...we are all Mormon....there shouldn't be a problem".  Heck, I don't even know what drinking games are.  So we sat through a bit of "first day rules" kinds of stuff and advice from our tour/ history guide Brother Wimmer.  The meeting took until almost 11!!! 

Well, Scott and I were pretty anxious about getting out and about!  We wanted to check out portabello road on a Saturday.  When we were there last we must have been told about four or five times that Saturday is the day to be on Portabello road.  These people spoke truth! It was so much more exciting to be there on a saturday afternoon!  There were so many more things to see including fresh produce!  I got some yummy fresh things like carrots and avocados.  I even splurged to get myself 100g of freshly cut german style salami.  OMG, it was so worth the almost 3 pounds I spent on it..  Logan came along with Scott and me.  Any time you say shopping to Logan, he is all over it.  We bought ourselves fake glasses.  Oh so silly but so attractive.  I've never seen anything like this.  There were second hand clothes on sale at what I consider normal retail prices.  What the heck...used boots for 60 pounds?!  I don't think so.  I saw these really neat lace up shoes at one booth.  They looked sort of pioneerish and they cost like 85 pounds.  I picked them up and the man who owned the little cart/station thing gave me the price.  I said "I would never pay that much for shoes that were this worn" thinking I could start using some bargaining skills. Shot down. He said, "put them down then".  Good freaking luck making a sell with ridiculous prices!  Well eventually we got bored of all of this shopping and headed back to our flats for dinner.

I used the foods I purchased for dinner.  Delicious.  Scott and I dressed for our concert at St. Martin in the Fields.  Scott and I almost bought tickets for a concert there when we were on our own.  We were excited to hear that we would be attending a concert there as our first one for the study abroad program!  Fan jolly tastic! Scott and I had some time before the concert and we decided to walk from our apartments, down by the mall and Buckingham Palace, and on to Trafalgar Square.  It took us a while and my feet KILLED.  I got rid of my comfy black shoes because the soles split which left me with open toed and painful ones. I suppose that gives me a good excuse to purchase a new pair while I'm here.  If only clothing was decently priced around here!!!  Anyway, we really did have a lovely walk.  Alone time seems rare for us now so our walk gave us time to just chat and enjoy together time. The mall we walked through was the best mall I have seen in my life!  This is the name for the road and sidewalks leading to Buckingham Palace.  There are trees and grass and all the loveliness of the art of landscaping on either side of the road.  It was simply beautiful.  Scott and I contemplated the difficulty of scaling the wall and evading the royal security to enter palace grounds unnoticed.  We schemed and plotted which was rather entertaining.  I felt odd being outside the palace just standing at the gates staring at someone's home. It felt awkward knowing that someone actually lives inside.  We realized that we only had a few minutes before we needed to be at the concert so we took like two pictures and pressed on so as to not be late for to the concert.  We arrived just in time and took our seats just on the side of the orchestra.  

It was a wonderful setting.  This beautiful church, candle light, and pretty wonderful performers.  We were delighted to hear works by well known composers, Handel, Mozart, and and Purcell, as a sort of "warm up" concert to prepare our ears and our spirits for future performances with perhaps lesser known but equally exquisite music.  I was delighted to hear one of the coronation anthems, "Zadok the Priest" by Handel.  I'd heard this piece before but never studied it in great length.  It left me wondering why we didn't sing this in our past year of performing British music at BYU!  What a quintessentially British piece!  It really feels royal and ceremonial to just listen to it.  Next we listened to a Gloria by Handel followed by the final scenes of Dido and Aeneas by Purcell.  During the second half of the concert we heard Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus" and finally Mozart's "Requiem".  All of the ensemble members are volunteer and each of the soloists were trained at the Royal College of Music.  This left me thinking that performing at St. Martin in the Fields is quite a big gig.  I was blown away by the soprano soloist.  She floated so effortlessly through the music though I preferred the performance quality in the mezzo-soprano.  I was delighted to hear the baritone perform quite solidly but disappointed by the visibly poor technique of the tenor.  His sound was nice to me but it was so difficult to watch his body tense up as he reached for the notes higher in his register.  I loved "With Drooping Wings" from Dido and Aeneas.  I had never realized how beautiful and moving this piece was until hearing it live!  Naturally, I really enjoyed "Requiem" because I've sang it myself.  I really respect the kind of stamina it takes to sing this piece.  It's quite intense which is fitting because Mozart wrote it in an intense way.  He was essentially on his death bed when writing it and you can just feel the intensity of the journey he was taking personally as he wrote the piece.  I absolutely love Dies Irae and the Sanctus portions.  This music really came alive for me tonight.  It was really fulfilling to hear it performed live and it is a rare treat for me to be sitting on the other side of the stage.  What a treasure.  

After the concert was over, everyone decided to take the bus back to HPG (slang for where we live, Hyde Park Gate) which was lame because my week pass had not expired yet and it doesn't include bus fares.  We got into the tube station and I realized I forgot my pass (called an Oyster card...who knows why?)  Well, we had a few options: walking, paying for individual fares, or...dun dun dun dun, sneaking onto the tube without my pass which was a very risky proposition.  I wound up sneaking on...more details on this later!  I was relieved when we finally got back to and out of our station! fhew that I didn't get caught...the fine is something like 60 pounds!  Twas a good day indeed.

Friday 5/7/10

Friday was the first day of our study abroad!  Everyone was gathering but first, Scott and I had to move out of Albert and Janice's and make the journey to South Kensington which, is no big deal really but, with my suitcase...ooooh it feels like a long treck.  We tried to get some extra rest because we got in so late after our adventures in Brighton.  Our last breakfast made by Janice was wonderful as usual.  She gave us a repeat meal which she had been avoiding all week.  She was trying to give us new and unique foods to England every day.  After we finished up with breakfast we got our laundry (which Janice kindly did for us the night before), packed our things up, gathered our linens, and headed for the local flower shop to get Janice and Albert something nice, at the request of our mothers.  It was fun to go to a little local flower shop and have something really special created for them.  I'm used to just hitting up the local chain grocery store.  We got quite a lot of bang for our buck...or should I say pound?! *buh dun chhhh*.  Anywho, I think we wound up with something really nice.  We walked back to deliver them and as we walked in Janice said "oh you naughty children!  Those are very expensive!!!"  And I told her not to worry because it was a gift from our mothers.  Scott and I did get them a pretty card and I wrote a nice note inside.  I like that Scott leaves these things to me.  He's a sentimental man so, it's not like he isn't capable of writing a lovely note but, for some reason he thinks I have better penmanship or something. Anyway, Janice seemed delightfully surprised and it felt good to do a little something in return for all the generosity we received from them.

Albert offered to drive us to the tube station which was amazing because our bags would have made the trip seem twice as long as it actually is.  We arrived at the station and by this point both Scott and I were ready to begin the next leg of this adventure.  I think it's safe to say that we were both pretty jazzed to see our friends and get settled into our flats; our home for the next 5 weeks!!!  It was exciting to reach 37 Hyde Park Gate and walk into the warm arms of Sister Hall and Dr. Staheli.  They asked us about our week of adventure, how could we possibly sum that up in a sentence?!  Then we got ourselves settled in and met up with the other Londoners.  I was so excited to see more familiar faces.  Not that I was getting bored of Scott by any means it was just nice to be able to begin the phase of the journey that is the purpose of our journey; to study music.  

Sister Wimmer took us on a walk around South Kensington.  We saw bits of the High Street area, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace (Princess Diana's favorite), Queen Victoria's memorial to Albert, and got some groceries at London's version of Walmart, Tesco.  I got a weeks worth of groceries (two meals) for 12 pounds!!! yahoo.  Living in my own flat is going to be so much more economical.  Our next adventure was planned for the evening.

Once more of the BYU Londoners had arrived and gathered, we heard about a YSA dance from another group and decided we needed to attend.  As you can imagine, YSA dances are not always the most enticing of friday night activities.  I was holding out hope that things would be different in a foreign country.  We set out with a massive group of students, probably about 15 of us, and went to the pubs for a quick bite to eat before dancing the night away!  Well, we didn't realize each pub would be so crowded that we would have to fight to get a table large enough for all of us.  We wound up splitting into smaller groups.  Scott and I ate with Danny and Chris which was entertaining mainly because they were both so exhausted that they were practically falling over as they ate their fish and chips.  tee hee.  

When we arrived at the dance naturally there were like 4 people on the dance floor.  I started dancing with some of the theatre study abroad kids and eventually more and more people showed up and the party started.  Several of our music students chose to leave early simply because the music was too loud.  As musicians, our ears are very valuable tools and exposure to overly loud sounds can be damaging if in excess.  So, being the cautious students that they are, some headed home in search for quiet and rest.  Scott and I stayed a bit longer.  The picture of us against a white wall is taken far far away from the dancing and the speakers.  One of the songs was a bit loud so I went to be with dear Scotty as he escaped.  :)  Me and this theatre student Shelby really tried to get the BYU kids to mingle with the local YSA kids.  Plan kinda failed.  I guess the YSA's here are really used to seeing new faces and it totally messes with their dynamic.  The American girls flirt with the guys and the ward and the local girls get jealous...and visa versa.  I found church to be really wonderful but at the dance...things got clicky.  Perhaps it would be better to mingle with the locals on a more intimate level.  Who knows.  Scott and I had fun dancing with our BYU friends.  Logan was really enjoying exploring everyone's negative space (it's a modern dance thing) and in the process of doing so, he hit both Scott and me in the face with his elbows.  haha.  Despite our little mishap, the dance was a fun way to spend our friday night.

The adventures have merely begun.

Oh, by the way...that white building....thats 37 Hyde Park Gate...WHERE I LIVE!!!

Thursday-Brighton

Today was another wonderful day!  Janice prepared another lovely breakfast; this one a bit smaller.  It consisted of hard boiled eggs.  We each got two and she made the yokes runny so we could dip our toast inside.  I've never seen hard boiled eggs done that way.   It makes me want to call them slightly runny boiled eggs.  They were yummy nonetheless and we headed off straight away for our wonderful adventure outside of London!  

 Scott and I made our way to the Victoria station where we would catch a coach to Brighton.  This little trip is Scott's baby.  He's been talking about making our way out there since we arrived!  I read the play "Brighton Beach Memoirs" by Neil Simon but, that took place on Coney Island.  I didn't even know about Brighton England but it was apparently the place to be!  It's where London's best and most elite would go to spend their vacation time

!  We planned on heading out on an earlier coach but didn't anticipate having such trouble finding the actual coach station.  I felt like we wondered around in a few circles before actually reaching the place!  Interestingly, coaches are one of the cheaper ways of travel around Europe.  You pay less to hire a private coach than you do to ride a train which sounds like a deal to me. Coaches are usually pretty comfy!  Our tickets all the way to Brighton were only around 12 pounds which is about half the price to take a train.  Deal!  We had just missed this other train so we had to wait for about an hour.  We just decided to walk down Buckingham Palace Road and check out the palace.  We actually didn't make it there in time!  I got distracted by this hat making shop!  I'm so glad Scott puts up with my vanity....I'm only a little vain.  Finally we reached the train station and Scott was so excited about this little adventure that he planned that he fell asleep on the coach. :)  The hour ride was a much needed rest though.  Scott told me "If you see anything cool just wake me".  About 3 minutes later, I was also asleep.  I woke up with saliva dripping onto the lapel of my coat.  Eeew.  Does that make me a drooler?  Sure hope not.  I'm going to assume that was a one time thing. 

Scott and I woke up at around the same time, arriving into Brighton was so exciting.  This was an adventure.  On a whim and almost unplanned, here we were in this lovely seaside town!  Interestingly, Brighton is now known as the Gay capital of Europe thus, Scott and I were not surprised to see an all male sauna/ day spa thing. ha.  The coach brought us to a station just across the street from the beach.  I could not have been happier with the weather that day!  It was incredible...so incredible that we wanted to buy swimsuits so we could fully enjoy the warmth of the sun on our Provonian bleached skin!  What I mean to say is, my flesh is in desperate need of some healthy color since I've been hiding in the winter cave that is Utah.  Well, the only swim shop nearby sold one type of swimsuit...the string bikini and I mean string.  This thing was so much money for so little fabric and besides there is the whole modesty issue so, we decided to forgo the swimwear and just take a little nap on the beach.  The sunshine was like a gift from the heavens.  We walked down the pier and down the beach front shopping area.  There were so many fun things to see!  One of my favorite moments was when we passed this maritime museum.  Across the path there was a little shack with a sign on it advertising it.  I thought the shack was the museum!  I thought "it's no wonder the admission is free".  The town is preparing for their mackerel festival and there was a sign above the museum that said "Holy Mackerel".  I thought of my daddy.  He uses that expression quite a bit.   Then we passed a bar with a pretty large outdoor eating area and a live band playing ska and reggae music.  I loved that!!!

Then we wondered around town.  We had yummy 2 pound burgers! (as in they cost 2 pounds! haha)  Janice suggested that we stop by this place called "the lanes" which is known for it's cool antiques and such.  It was so much fun!  There were similar goods as those we found on Portobello road only this felt more like diagon alley from Harry Potter!  Narrow walkways and shops back to back.  Scott found another manly store of course!  It was full of weaponry and armour.  There was so much testosterone in that shop!  Naturally, Scott struck up a conversation with the shop owner and he had some interesting information to share and stories to tell.  Scott determined that we needed to pay this place another visit but, we were headed out to see some more sights before everything closed!

 There is this cool palace there called the Pavillion built by King George IV who was apparently pretty reckless in his youth.  This extravagant home is actually referred to as his pleasure palace.  I was amazed at the decoration in each room.  The orient was considered to be very exotic and artists and designers were trying to create architecture that mimicked what they believed to be "oriental".  With royal money at his disiposal, King George was able to go all out.  I learned some interesting things at the palace.  One is that there was a surprising amount of culinary innovation in his kitchen.  There was an island where steam kept the waiting food hot.  In the dining hall there was this metal sculpted dragon that was holding the chandelier in his claw or mouth or something.  There was a huge mural of palm leaves painted on the ceiling and some metal leaves were fixed above the dragon to make the scene look more lifelike.  The next room was sort of a sitting room or after dinner parlor sort of place.  There were these stands with oval shaped face shields that were placed in front of the fire.  Women's cosmetics during King George IV's time were wax based and if a lady's face got too exposed to the heat of the fire, her makeup would melt.  This is thought to be the origin of the expression "why the long face"!  Who would have thought!  We really enjoyed the palace but had to leave because, like all things, it closed at 5.

Our next stop was this church that had been converted into an art gallery.  Brian Eno, the producer, was the creator of this little project.  The idea was to bring local and international artists together to show their work in the space.  I had interesting feelings being in this church turned gallery.  I thought, what an effective use of space but I also thought, what did you have to destroy to create this.  After all, I decided that it was a worthy project and that what was created was worth while.  I actually rather enjoyed the concept as I looked through the history of works that were shown there.  It seemed like the kind of place that really brought people and their ideas together.

Scott and I found ourselves doing more wonderings.  We made our way to this fountain in the center of town and just sat down to chat for a while.  As the sun was starting to set, I had this idea to go get some hot coco and drink it while watching the sunset.  We did just that.  We wondered and found an Italian cafe.  This little old man made us our drinks and filled our cups about half way.  I got someone's attention and demanded a full cup!  For 1.90 pounds I better get a full cup of coco!  We brought those down to the beach and sat on this pier and watched the sky and the waves.  The rocks on the beach glistened from the water and the setting sun.  Hot coco warmed me.  It was simply lovely.  

Meanderings were next on our to do list.  We wandered about some more and happened upon another small old church.  There just so happened to be a flamenco dance/ Guitar concert that night.  Scott and I walked in the first set of doors and sat in the entry way. A nice man saw us there and invited us in to watch the whole concert.  We said we didn't have tickets but he invited us in anyway.  I felt really cultured to be watching flamenco dancing in a beach town in England.  ??? Wha? haha. It was kind of random but certainly entertaining.

By then it was time to head back home.  Scott and I made our long treck back deciding that we simply must visit Brighton again!

Wednesday 5/5/10

Breakfast this morning was rushed like none other!  I sat down to this wonderful cheese and tomato sandwich, my Canadian roommates would call it a snack master, with tea and juice as always.  Albert kindly volunteered to drive us to Hampton Court but, from the time we sat down to breakfast, we only had 15 minutes until Albert needed to leave in order to get us there and be back in time for work!  Boy oh boy were Scott and I getting ready fast.  Fast like none other!  I'm afraid I held us up just a little bit trying to get all of my things together...a coat and socks and shoes and grabbing some makeup really fast.  Well, we ran out to the car really.  Scott accidentally went to the wrong side!  haha.  The whole driving on the other side of the road thing is ok and easy to get used to but getting into a car where the driver is on the right is seriously strange.  If I thought driving with my grandfather was scary, try driving as a passenger on the left side of a utility van down the narrow streets of Wimbledon.  My blood was pumping!  With cars parked on either side of these streets, two lanes seem to become one.  It felt like we were playing chicken with the oncoming traffic.  At one point, we had crossed through a neighborhood that has limited access because there are these metal poles restricting certain cars from getting through.  The side mirrors would normally hit but, Albert's handy man van is taller than most cars and he fits right in.  He laughed as we passed the metal rods because he knew he was cheating the system.  That was a little exciting but nothing compared to passing on a main road on the right hand side of the car in front of us, heading into the oncoming traffic.  Albert even got honked at.  I will admit, I feared for my life at this point.  We made it there safe and sound.  Alberts driving may be a touch on the crazy side but, it sure was time efficient! 

Scott and I stepped onto the grounds of Hampton Court, home of the oldest clock in the world and built by King Henry VIII.  What incredible grounds!  And the palace...I have no idea what it looks like :)  It would have cost us somewhere around 22 US dollars to enter this thing!  What in the world are they running in there?  A day spa?  Unless that tour came with a continental breakfast at the end, it was not going to be worth $22!  Scott and I said pshhh, no!  I saw a group of small children, probably a school group, and I suggested we follow in with them :).  Scott suggested we grab a few of their hands so as to look more a part.  haha.  Genius!  Well, we didn't do that.  I suggested that we just walk around the flower gardens and enjoy the grounds.  Turns out, there is a separate charge for walking around the gardens even!  I boycotted.  I was so disgusted by how much money this place was costing that I wanted to start looking for back entrances to the gardens and the hedge maze.  Scott keeps me honest.  I've realized since being in London that I'm a little on the...let's call it thrifty side.  Well, I was soooo done with the palace and we decided to walk along the river for a bit before catching a train to Waterloo.  We sat on a fence and watched little goslings swim by with their mum.  The sun was shining and it seemed quite lovely but, we needed to head out for the Globe because we had tickets for Macbeth!!!

Scott and I arrived at the Waterloo station and walked along the Thames to the Globe.  Scott decided to curb his hunger with a 45 pence piece of bread from Pret.  I documented that price for my posterity.  Maybe their bread will be more expensive and they might like to hear about mine.  Maybe they won't even eat bread.  I digress.  We walked under a tunnel, along with a group of school kids, and there were some musicians performing some jammin music.  These kids were kinda bopping along to the beat of the music and Scott and I kinda...ok really got into it too.  I loved that.  Finally we reached the Globe Theatre.  We waited outside for a minute in the groundlings queue and realized we needed our tickets.  Scott went to grab those but, just as he left the groundlings were taken through the gates.  I didn't have my ticket yet but, some how I still got into the courtyard portion of the theatre.  Scott went back out to where our first queue was and didn't see me.  As you can imagine, that sent him into a panic.  Well, I asked a couple in the second queue I was waiting in to hold my spot while I went to find my boyfriend.  Just then Scott rounded the corner with tickets in hand.  He said when he walked out to the outer gate where the first queue and asked where everyone went they told him it would have been impossible for me to get in without a ticket so that's probably why he was getting a little nervous.  Well Globe theatre...I got in!  What now? boom baby.  

The show was incredible! Not that i expected anything less at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  His writing is timeless!  Sure there is plenty of stylistic things that we are unfamiliar with but, he wrote about human issues that we experience today...passion, jealousy, politics.  It was amazing to see how such an "old" play could feel so modern and edgy yet authentically Shakespeare.  There was a sheath that covered the "groundlings" area with little slits for us to put our heads through.  This allowed the actors to sort of sneak up on us and interact with the audience.  I could feel the three witches as they came up from the "underworld" (aka, below the sheets and between our legs).  I thought that was pretty innovative.  Of course there was your standard blood packet and fake tongue but there were some staging choices that I really loved.  When Lady Macbeth comes out for the scene when her chamber maid calls on the doctor because she is sleep walking and rubbing her hands, they brought her downstage through this sheer dark curtain.  She walked straight forward wearing a silky white night gown and light shining down on her face casting these dark shadows.  I really felt the creepy intensity of her character and that scene.  There was quite a bit of music used throughout the piece also.  I was impressed with how much there really was!  I'm used to hearing a little bit of music in plays but, there was music in at least every other scene!  It felt like a horror movie at times.  

After our adventures at the Globe, we headed for Picadilli Circus to meet up with our friend and fellow student Steve Durtschi.  We walked for a bit looking for some reasonably priced food for dinner and of course...nothing was less than 5 pounds. :/  So we decided today would be a good day to get some fish and chips.  Steve left us there and headed back to visit with our friend Jeff Lark who is now living in London.  There was an extra charge to dine in at the tables outside the little fish & chips place so naturally, Scott and I refused to pay and we dined at the center of town on this little monument circle/ round about.  :)  It was nice though I'm not fond of fish and chips.  Scott and I took a walk around looking at more closed shops and exploring some more.  We decided it might be fun to hit the National Portrait Gallery but by the time we reached it, it was closed for a private event.  We walked back to the monument area and I popped in to see what it would cost to get rush tickets for Chicago the musical.  Prices for 4th row seats dropped from about 70 pounds to about 30 pounds!  Amazing but, Scott didn't seem to excited about seeing that show :)  We decided to head back because we were exhausted from the day full of walking.  Scott and I both fell asleep on the tube and were woken up at the Wimbledon station by some fellow tube riders.  Lucky for us someone decided to wake us...who knows how long we would have been sleeping there!!  Then we made one of our last trecks back to Albert and Janice's.  I've really enjoyed these walks.  They give Scott and I time to chat about anything from experience to memories to beliefs and dreams, goals and desires...just everything and anything.  Once back at their home we sat down to yet another cup of tea with cookies.  Sometimes I just feel like I don't deserve to live like this!  It's far to lovely have even imagined.  I'm so lucky!