July 8th/9th: In which I arrive

I saw Ruined at the Intiman Theatre my last night with two of my dearest and oldest friends. It was a really excellent show (PLEASE go see it if you are in the Seattle area! Student tickets $10, adult $42. I would have paid full price to see it if I had to.), and made me so excited and ready to go do some theatre again, after a month and a half of missing it!

Got to SeaTac airport with my mother around 5:15 am, and caused a hubbub at security when I had the wrong boarding pass out and had to dig around my backpack for the right one, thus holding up the line. This was a bit embarrassing since I had just had a moment with the stressed out woman behind me where we rolled our eyes at how people were so unprepared when they get to the security checkpoint. I guess our newfound camaraderie was short-lived. Went through security and hit up the starbucks right away. With only two hours of sleep, I upgraded from my usual Tall to a Grande. Flight to Charlotte went off without a hitch, and I got another two hours of sleep in. My roommate Gracyn went to high school with a girl named Mary who is doing BADA as well, and we found out that we are on the same flight out of Charlotte! We met up at the gate, and I already know that I like her.

Got a smoothie from Jamba Juice for dinner. As a former Jamba employee, I can tell you that they forgot to add ice, and did not blend the granola in with the smoothie. That’s’ ok though, because I got a semi-decent pasta for dinner on the plane ride, which was made better by The Fantastic Mr. Fox on the little screen in front of me.

We landed, and spent the next hour going through customs along with hundreds of other people, in a non air-conditioned sub-basement. We got through, got our luggage, found an ATM, and were feeling pretty efficient by that point. Mary and I basically had a mantra of “we’re doing good.” “yeah, we’re on it, this is great!” to remind ourselves that lugging our heavy luggage wasn’t so bad. Took a pit stop in a restroom to brush our teeth, change, and make ourselves presentable to the world.

While in the bathroom (or “Toilet”), we had some nice exchanges with multiple british girls, and I felt a bit like I was in Spice World or Bend It Like Beckham with all the accents (the picture above if from that).

Had a rough time finding the correct bus to take, but once we got on it I was hesitant to sleep because I didn’t want to miss the scenery. Turns out, British highways are a lot like US high ways, and the view was reminiscent of a drive from Bothell to Duval, give or take an old church or two. Once we got into Oxford City though, Mary and I were jumping in our seats and screaming silently to each other. Every thing is so beautiful! There are old churches and colleges everywhere, and the further you get into town the older every thing gets. We found lots of good pub candidates for where to watch the world cup Sunday. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to see every thing here that I want too! Our shoulders and legs ached from carrying our luggage, and we finally made it to Balliol, after some searching.

I’ll be playing the part of Rapunzel this summer, because my room is at the very top of this tower, on the corner. My legs are going to be super strong by the end of the month, since I walk up 3 flights of a winding staircase. Because it was in the 80s today and I am at the top of the tower it is super hot in there, but I’ll take the trade, because my room is pretty big and convenient for people to hang out in.

Had an opening talk and drinks from the Dean, then ate dinner in the dining hall, which is like the one in Hogwarts but smaller, and without floating candles and house elfs, alas. I was far too jetlagged to be as social as I would have liked to have been, but Elizabeth, Victoria, Mary and I went with a larger group to a pub a british student led us to, and we stayed there a while before we went back to my room to run monologues. Those three girls are so good! Victoria commented on how amazing it was that we were helping each other on our Shakespeare monologues, in a college this old, where we could hear Oxford outside the window. Went to bed around eleven, completely exhausted and ready for auditions and exploring on Saturday!

I'll leave you with the view from my window!