Off To France and Italy

I am getting ready to leave the campus in an hour for France and Italy for my mid-semester break. Didn't sleep much last night - too may dreams about gettig ripped off and not being able to communicate with anyone. Usually I am overprepared for any situation, but this trip I haven't spent hardly any time on things to do, train tickets, cultural differences - this is a true adventure.

I fly out of London Stansted at 7pm to Marseilles, France. We will stay in Marseilles 2 days, then to Nice for 3 days, the Cinque Terre for 3, Florence for 2, ending up in Pisa for the last night before we fly back to London. I'll have lots to share when I get back, and wish the best for you all over the next 11 days!

A Medley of Observations 2

Hopefully, I will be able to deliver semi-monthly some of the things I have observed about life here. So for yet another month, here are some of the things I've noticed.

It started in July when I received my first physical letter from Newbold. I had been keeping a folder with all the paperwork of applications, transcripts, and other forms. When I put this paper in, it was more narrow and a bit longer than the rest of the papers in the folder. It stuck out of the end a little. I barely thought twice about it, writing it off as just an official letterhead thing. But when I came here and began gathering school supplies: pens, binders, notebooks, it became quite apparent. Paper is a different size.

Now, this may seem quite trivial. However, what one doesn't realize is how the standard 8 1/2' x 11' has been psychologically ingrained in our minds. This paper looks different, but feels different as well. Holding it in your hand - writing on it. When taking notes I have to switch to the next line faster. I've gotten into a certain groove in my note-taking without thinking about it. I know how many words I can fit on a line, I know approximately how many seconds it takes to fill up one line before moving along to the next. While this system makes sense, like most systems of measurement outside of the states, it can be a difficult adjustment. What would happen if the states tried to adjust to this A4 standard?

When I arrived in August, one of my first purchases was a cell phone. This is essential not just for social survival, but for safety purposes as well. When I'm walking down Carnaby Street unable to find the nine other member of my group I need a cell phone. When I get back into the train station at midnight in Bracknell from a long day in London I need a cell phone so I don't have to walk the 30 minutes back to school. But the cell phone here are not average cell phones. These are equipped with super-batteries that somehow last longer. The phone I ended up purchasing can last 12 days on one charge. Are we sold inferior technological devices just to have to buy a replacement in a year or even a few months?

I knew coming to England would mean an enormous increase in the number of times I would hear the word "cheers" on a given day. It isn't as if I've never said it myself for anything, but these anythings always involved a holiday or a wedding or some kind of special event that only occurred a few times a year. After just two uses of the word, my quota of "cheers" usages is up for the year. But being here, it is rare to hear the word less than 10 times a day. A few weeks ago I was out to dinner with several friends and every time the waiter came or left the table he began, or ended his phrases with "cheers" - every time. No exceptions. The first meeting I had with my tutor (which is basically my academic advisor) he concluded each of the last few farewell phrases of our conversation (i.e. thanks for meeting with me, hope your classes work out for you, have a good day) with "cheers". But this was nothing compared to what happened a few nights ago at a young adult bible study I attended. As we were beginning the study we paused for prayer, and at the end of this prayer more than one individual ended it with and affirmative "cheers" instead of the widely accepted "amen".

While America isn't necessarily the cleanest country in the world, I have come to realize that it certainly gives every opportunity to the individual to remedy this. I've been into London several times now, walked around Bracknell and other surrounding cities, and even around campus and one thing has become quite apparent: garbage cans are no where so be found! When I go into a town, buy something to drink, food, anything with a wrapper on it, I have to explore thoroughly to find a rubbish bin to throw things away in. This turns out to be a nearly impossibly task. Incredibly enough, however, this does not mean that the street and sidewalks of the town are particularly littered. In fact, they might even be less littered than cities I've been to in the states. Why is this? I can only begin to guess...

The Musicals

Les Misérables

Perhaps I'm a terrible citizen of the world for this confession: prior to two weeks ago, I had heard absolutely nothing about Jean Valjean and his struggles for redemption during the Paris uprising of 1832. My only exposure to this renown musical was a song I was assigned to sing during a short stint of voice lessons in high school - On My Own. I had also seen the haunting face of young Cosette outside of the theater on Broadway in New York City 3 years ago.

So after listening to a lecture at the National Gallery and watching a life-size chess match in Trafalgar Square, I found myself in The Queen's Theater ready for this experience - my experience. Sitting inside the theater, I suddenly had visions of "Honey I Shrunk The Kids". It felt like I had been shrunk to about a centimeter small and placed in the inside of a tin can with tiny little velvet seats glued all around the inside - me being in the very top row and the actors on the very bottom. We sat towards the front of the highest balcony and it seemed like an 80º angle to see the stage. On top of all of this, two rows in front of me at the front of the balcony was an eastern-European family (that didn't speak English) sitting on the edge of their seats, leaning as far forward as they possibly could.

Needless to say - I didn't catch much of the first act. However, after intermission the kind gentleman sitting next to me gestured to them trying to explain that we couldn't see and for the most part, during the last half, they did so. The second act was filled with dramatic, empowering songs, soft, intimate ballads, and exciting choreography. I went home satisfied.

Wicked

This being my third Wicked experience in the past year I was incredibly excited to see the magical production again - and with accents this time around. The musical was at the Apollo theater in London previously hosting The Sound of Music and Fiddler On The Roof. We had great seats this time around. On the ground level roughly in the middle of the floor, we had nearly a clear shot to the stage in this spacious theater.

Kasyn outside the Apollo Theater

I had heard a little about the leading actors of the West End production and listened to a few clips on YouTube but nothing could have prepared me for this. Alexia Khadime held the leading role of Elphaba - the wicked witch of the west. Before this she had played Nala in The Lion King on the West End and all before she was 26 (which is fairly young in musical theater years). But the best thing she has going for her is that she's black. The songs Elphaba sings are usually very powerful, requiring an extremely talented vocalist, especially to hit the high notes in full chest voice, notes this girl was born to sing. On the loud notes, her pitch didn't waver and the softer ones only gave her more room to show off her vocal abilities with deviations from the normal melody line.

The stage

Our seats

The theater

An interesting note on the show here was that every character was overall less physically expressive. The other leading-lady, Glinda, is usually portrayed in a very physically involved way with a lot of slap-stick humor, throwing her body around the stage a little - but while her vocal performance was fantastic, her mannerisms appeared stiff. But this was a common trend among all the characters, giving a relatively reserved performance. I spoke with a few people here who have seen this show (and several others) many times and they just said that that is how the West End is done. Theater-goers aren't amused by over-expressive, physical performances.

Every song was jaw-dropping. At the end of the evening, a friend took me outside to the stage door where we met and got autographs from most of the leads.

Alexia Khadime (Elphaba) and me

I managed to record the audio of a few numbers for those interested:

No Good Deed

Defying Gravity

As Long As You're Mine

Cornwall

First let me apologize for the delay in the writing of this blog - I haven't forgot about you and want to keep you all updated! I've just been occupied with a couple of research paper outlines:

Sustainable Development: How Environmental Conditions, Pollution, and Climate Change Affect Developing Countries

Universal Expressions and Non-verbal Communication in Cultural Anthropology

Last weekend the school took a large group of students, 70 or so, to the Seventh-day Adventist camp in county of England called "Cornwall" that encompasses the whole south-west peninsula of Great Britain. The SDA camp at Cornwall is the equivalent of our summer camps in the states in that they have their kids and family camps there and in the winter they have various retreats by groups throughout the conference.

Lukas (Germany) and Clément (France) at the rest stop (anyone else think Lukas looks like Seth Meyers from SNL Weekend Update?)

[From Left: Sopia (Korea), Mara (Latvia), and Sarah (Germany) at the start of our bus ride over]

It was roughly a six hour drive in a caravan of about seven large, 14-person, white vans. I was told we would be camping, which to me meant tents. However, when I arrived at the camp the visions I had of thickly-wooded forests, meals over a fire, and sleeping on the ground was quite different than what I now saw. The grounds of the camp are essentially a rectangular grassy 50x100 yd plot of land with 15 or so trailer homes on it. There is a small meeting house/cafeteria and a basketball court and that's it as far as multi-purpose recreational facilities goes. We stayed in a "caravan" (that's what they call the trailer homes) that was about 10x25 ft and had three small rooms with 5-foot beds in them. The great thing about the camp is that you can see the ocean from the camp. It is about half a mile, or a 10 minute walk down to the beach.

The camp at Cornwall (yes, this strip of green grass and trailer homes is it)

Some ruins near the camp-site

Sitting, watching the sunset at the beach near the camp-site

Our first trip down to the beach near Cornwall

The walk down to the beach

The sunset at the beach near the camp-site

After getting over the initial shock of the English-style SDA camps, we went on a walk down to the beach and around to some of the ruins in the area - old mining buildings from the early 1900's. Saturday afternoon we got in the vans once again to spend a few hours on a nearby beach. This beach was again: not what I was expecting. It was largely covered in smooth, fine, wet sand; both the water and the beach were very clean and the water was actually blue. A group of us all got into our swim-suits and ventured out into the water. We had a great time bobbing up and down with the 5-6 foot waves. The water was icy-cold but somehow it didn't matter. After I got out, my fingers were literally numb for about two hours.

Doing a fun hand-painting activity at church

The beach we went to Saturday

Friends building a sandcastle on the beach

A 3-in-1 soap dispenser, washer, and dryer in public restrooms at the beach

Sunday, we left the camp by 10 and drove a little over an hour to Tintagel. Tintagel is the supposed birthplace of King Arthur and the town milks this legend for all it's worth! Bookstores, gift shops, and restaurants don signs referencing the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table left and right. We walked down towards the castle, watched a brief historical video on the site, and payed to go up to see the ruins of the castle. On the top of the small plateau where the castle is supposed to have sat, there are barely minor remnants indicating a fortress ever stood there. We had lunch on the edge of the cliffs on one side, feeding the flock of sea birds that were hovering around us hoping for some lunch themselves. Not long after we had fed the appetite we worked up from sitting in the car that morning, we had to climb the steep steps down and back up to the village of Tintagel.

Kasyn feeling inspired by the castle

The few remains of the castle

The coast-line at Tintagel - yes, the colors are THAT vivid

Seven hours in a van later, we finally got back to Newbold for some relaxation!

(Here's a video of Mark talking about swimming at the beach Saturday)

A video of the students at the end of our trip to Cornwall, to give you an idea of the size of the camp and the number of students that went. The man speaking is named Henrik and is head of student life at the campus.

Coming soon: The Musicals (Wicked and Les Misérables), More Observations, and a Video Campus Tour