Finally term is over. Its actually been over for almost two weeks. I was going to total up the number of essays written, pages written, words written. Unfortunately I didn't feel like doing the math. Suffice it to say, I wrote a lot this term, again. As Emma pointed out the other day, we have written approximately 32 essays so far. We have only 16 to go.
Highlights:
--Orchestra concert: Haydn's Nelsonmesse. An amazing piece of music featuring full orchestra, full choir and four soloists. Apart from one movement falling to pieces, the performance was amazing, the audience huge and the music incredible.
--'Swan Lake' at the Royal Ballet. Emma's grandma has contacts at the Royal Ballet and she got us fabulous seats to celebrate Emma's birthday.
We decided that not only is the Royal Opera House more beautiful than the Met (not that it takes much...) but it also beats the Kennedy Center. We were also pleasantly thrilled when the Black Swan did her 32 fouettes. Youtube it if you have never seen them...its absolutely incredible.
--Emma's 21st Birthday. Since Emma turned 21, we obviously needed to have a party to celebrate. We decided it was going to be fancy dress because we definitely wanted an excuse to dress up. Massive success. The girls wore dresses, some of the boys wore suits, it was amazing.
--An essay on Arnhem: I was again studying the Two World Wars and I had asked my tutor if I could do a bit more work with individual battles and strategy stuffs. She set me an essay on Arnhem, one of the Allied failures in Operation Market-Garden (which was itself an overall mess). I thoroughly enjoyed reading about it and have decided to take a day trip to visit the city and the Bridge while my friends and I are in Amsterdam.
--Day trip to Bath: The Roman baths are absolutely beautiful. The city itself is beautiful. I wandered around the abbey and the baths with my friend Kate and had a marvelous time. I fully intend to take my family there when they come to visit at the end of the year!
Euro-tripping Agenda
Since I have more than a month until my next term starts and because I certainly won't be doing any work AT ALL over the break, I am traveling around Europe with various friends. Emma, Molly and I went to Dublin on St. Paddy's Day (and I celebrated by drinking a Guinness) and got back on Sunday. I am hanging out in Oxford by myself until Thursday when I board a plane at 6 am and fly to Paris. The final destination: Arromanches, a small town in Normandy, a hop, skip and jump from the beaches. Yes, I am a WWII nut. I get that a lot.
The order of travel is:
Arromanches
Venice
Rome (with a possible side trip to Anzio)
Vienna
Prague
Amsterdam (with a possible side trip to Arnhem)
Nice...to sit on the beach or in a cafe and read books in the sun for a week.
