Edinburgh
Edinburgh was great. I watched lots of
performances at the Fringe, half of which I attended alone. It was difficult figuring people out, and I’m
usually pretty quick to judge (or, as I like to call it, discern) whether
someone is ‘my kind’ of person but it’s definitely a lot harder given a smaller
pool. I also got ditched a couple of times, but no hard feelings there.
Everyone was still figuring things out, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who
got left behind a couple times.
It sometimes turned out to be a blessing in
disguise—the coolest thing that happened was that I met Paula, a Spanish
actress who had gone to a performing arts/clown school in France and then a
dance academy, and was at the Fringe to watch some of her friends’ shows. I
ended up going to a show with her, where her friends (clowns) put on a
hilarious performance. I would later meet her again for drinks in Madrid (her
hometown), but I haven’t quite reached out to her since. It’s slightly
difficult to communicate given the language/lifestyle barrier, but it was
definitely an interesting experience getting to know her.
London
London actually felt more like the start of
the program, after the relaxed time we had in Edinburgh (we had a lot of free
time, mainly meant to be spent on seeing Fringe performances, which I did). We
took several day trips to some other parts of England (Canterbury, Stonehenge,
Avebury, etc.) but also spent some time in the city. I managed to catch The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which was AMAZING!!! So glad I
got to see it, even though I’ve never actually read it. It was a super
well-done performance, with really great props and all sorts of different
elements that they added that just made it a joy to watch. We also saw As You
Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe, which was okay, and Othello at
Stratford-Upon-Avon on the way down to London, but I didn’t enjoy them nearly
as much.
St. Paul’s Cathedral was beautiful, and Westminster Abbey was okay in
comparison, but still pretty. But it was pretty cool to have been able to attend evensong in
both. As for food, I had a really great steak for 10 pounds at Flat Iron, but
also tons of sandwiches. I tried to see the changing of the guards, but failed,
went down through Churchill’s war rooms, which was super cool, and visited the
Imperial War Museum, where they have the original flag that was raised above
the former Singapore town hall (I have no idea where that would have been... The building in front of the Padang I'm guessing?) at
the end of the Japanese occupation on display.
I also took a bus down to Oxford on my free
day to go visit Ms Grace, my sec 2 lit teacher from St Marg’s, who I believe
was the one who first sparked my interest in lit. I remember going back to her
for consultation in sec 3, even after she was no longer my teacher because I
just loved her different perspectives and ways of explaining the concepts that
I could not understand from my own lit teacher at the time. She’s now getting
her Masters in Theatre and I can’t wait to see where she ends up. It was super
nice getting to catch up with her, and that was definitely one of the
highlights of London as well. I actually barely did any touristy things (London
Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, etc.), because of the lack of time, plus
I’m leaving them for next time. Overall, I really liked London and it’s
probably at the top of my list of places that I’m definitely returning to.
Spain
I’m just condensing Spain into one category
even though we were there for 3 weeks and spent time in 4 different cities (not
including day trips). We were in Madrid, Granada, Sevilla and Barcelona and took
day trips to all sorts of places, such as Avilia, Segovia, Toledo, Cordoba, Rhonda...
Funny story about Rhonda—I’d actually been there before a couple years ago but
I didn’t realize/recognize the place until we walked past a McDonalds that I
remember going into for wifi, and then everywhere else immediately looked very
familiar. It’s actually pretty sad because that was basically my #1 priority at
the time (and probably would still be, if I didn’t have data) and I pretty much
ignored the beauty of everything else that was around me (but I was younger and
stupider, I forgive myself).
I ate a lot of steak and gelato, not as many
churros (the ones I had weren’t that great, sadly) and got soooo sick of pork
and tapas in general. I did drink a lot of Sangria, though. I actually didn’t
particularly love Spain because our schedule was packed and we were rushed
around by tour guides all the time and I just felt like there was never time to
really stop and appreciate anything, even though we were seeing some really
amazing stuff. But I definitely got to see and learn and experience a lot, so
I’m thankful for that part. It’s pretty understandable that given how little
time we have in every city, we basically have to jam-pack seeing everything
into those few days. Plus I gotta go back to see La Sagrada Familia when its construction is complete.
