Oxford

OXFORD!!!

Sooooo ooooooold. There were literally men in the cape things that you expect Oxford professors to wear. Some sort of graduation ceremony was going on, and may I say, if you want your audience to take you seriously without strenuous effort on their part, do NOT accessorize with a powdered wig. It's quite counter-productive.

We found an amahaaaaazing exhibit. I haven't googled it yet, but try searching something like "Oxford Story Museum" or "Alice Day." It was so magical! Local artists and poets had converted an old warehouse into a children's/fairy-tale lover's art installation. Each room had a different theme.

My favorites:

The Room of Secrets, which featured locked boxes and keys with little tag lines on them, such as, "Long story short, I wouldn't recommend waking up on the pavement in just your boxers," and other cringe-worthy insinuations; when you matched the key to the box, the rest of the story was inside. They were real-life stories donated by real-life citizens. I added one to the post box, but you'll never know which!

The Room of Lost Objects - aaaaah, I would have stayed there all day if it weren't the size of a generous closet. There were little nails and screws and shiny bits-and-bobs all over. They were made into sculptures, hidden in secret compartments in very tiny boxes, AH! Everywhere. And in the middle of the room was a big safe with lots of small manila envelopes inside - visitors take one and then e-mail a story about it back to the museum.

It was just awesome. OH and there was the SNEEZE factory! Ah. God. Sometimes I want to borrow a kid so that it's socially acceptable for me to stay in places like that longer. But it was a little adult, too. It wasn't totally for kids.

Anyway, we also saw The Ashmolean, which is, like, Britain's oldest art museum or oldest... bah. I don't remember. Oldest something. It was great and chock-full, but we only had 30 minutes. Poor Vicky had to spend it being hit on by the most socially awkward man... very full ginger beard, kind of popped up out of the woodwork. She was looking at a violin and he goes, "Do you play?" "Nope." "Have you ever... built an instrument before?" "N... no, I haven't." "I have! A fender stratocaster! (launches into story)"

I abandoned her to that and ran around to find the Pre-Raphaelites, a movement I am quite proud to know by name! Thank you, Art History 102. I really like Dante Rossetti, because he paints strong women that I feel related to. I mean that literally, not poetically. The room I was looking for was a "smallest chamber, tallest tower" situation, so I got there, out of breath and sweaty, just in time to locate and photograph one of my favorite paintings of his ("Persephone") before the steward shooed me back out. I rebelliously found my exit through a bunch of other exhibits, claiming I was lost whenever approached. I reeeeeally want to go back and spend the day there. They have a medieval exhibit with swords and crowns from maybe 900 a.d.! WHAAAAAT!?

And then. Fatefully. We wanted to see a show - the only one playing was Anne Frank. Anne Frank, right? Can't screw that up too much, right? Wrong. It was spectacularly bad. When Hitler's forces (or rather, Hitler's force, in the singular) raided the annex in the end, Vick and I were crying with laughter. See, the Nazi, the lone, very effeminate Nazi had been sitting onstage for the entirety of the show with a bright light shining on him, not moving and ruining all dramatic, low-lit moments. Finally, after all that build-up, he just walked into the attic and started shouting "Ssssssschnell! Sssschnell!" in lispy, surprisingly tenor German and poking people in the head with his gun. The Franks and Van Damms, who weren't bad actors in their own right, sort of obligingly shouted a bit and tripped over themselves, but their heart wasn't in it. 

Because of the atrocity we'd just seen, Vicky and I ran to the nearest pub for a post-show chat-up. And that's how we missed the last train out of Oxford.

But the hostel was nice! We stayed up until about three watching "Oliver!" with three very drunk men, one of whom was Russian, ("Hahahaha!!! They are sell him, like animal!") and then retired to our chamber. I passed out immediately, but Vicky said she had trouble sleeping because "one of the girls'" kept snoring and farting. In my defence, we had had a lot of beer and Lebanese food.

Tomorrow we go to Chiltenham to see Gifford's Circus, then back for an evening rehearsal. More. To. Come.