It's hard to believe how much I actually did in the span of about 30 hours, from the time class ended Friday afternoon to dinner time Saturday night. It was a crazy, exciting (at times, stressful) couple of days.

On Friday, Cristina and I went to catch the 4:01 train to London, which was delayed to 4:30. We got into London Paddington station at 5:30, figured out which Underground line we needed to take, and I walked out into the city of London for the first time at Trafalgar Square. Hundreds of people were sitting around watching the Olympics on this huge screen. I could see Big Ben down the road. It was very cool. We didn't really have time to absorb, though, because we only had an hour to get to Leicester Square before they stopped selling tickets. And then (let me preface this by saying- Mom, don't freak out, everything turned out fine) we got really lost. We were walking around for about 45 minutes trying to read our stupid tiny maps and having no idea where we were. We decided to ask someone for directions, but most people either looked sketchy or like they were tourists, too. We finally found someone who was standing on a street corner selling newspapers, and he told us where to go. Turns out, it was only about 5 minutes from where we had started. That was an awesome realization. Anyway, we went to one of the ticket offices. They didn't have anything left for Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera, so we decided to go see Billy Elliot. I've seen the movie- didn't love it- but we had heard good things about the musical. Now, with 45 minutes until the show started, we could finally relax and enjoy London as we meandered our way over to the theatre. Except, NOT because our theatre was the only one that was no where to be found on the convenient little West End theatre map! So once again, we are trying to figure out where we are going. We walk about a mile in the wrong direction and then begin running because there's no way we're going to make it to the theatre on time and we still don't even know where that is. We decided to take a cab. We drove by Westminster Abbey. I was like, "Hey, there's Westminster Abbey. Except I'm sweating and out of breath and don't have the energy to look at it. Oh well." We arrived at the theatre and found our seats with about 5 minutes to spare.

The show was incredible. It's set in Durham in the 1980's during a coal miners' strike. Billy is a 12-year old kid whose mom has passed away. His dad and older brother are involved in the strike. He takes boxing lessons, but he secretly starts going to ballet class and discovers that he's really good at it. His teacher works with him to get him ready for an audition for the Royal Ballet School. His dad finds out and won't let him go. Several months later, the situation with the strike has gotten worse, and Billy's dad has a change of heart, knowing that if Billy is good enough to get into the school that he could have a better life. All the people in the town help Billy raise the money he needs to get to the audition. He goes, he dances, he gets in. The end.

The singing in the show was good, but it was mainly part of the background. Billy Elliot is all about the dancing. The little boy that played Billy would have an intense ballet routine, followed by a tap routine, followed by a jazz number. He was beyond amazing. In one song, "Electricity," he sings, then he dances - doing somersaults across the stage - he sings again, and then he does that move from Singin' in the Rain where Donald O'Connor runs up a wall and does a backflip. Fantastic.

Our trip back to Oxford was uneventful (thank goodness).

A group of 7 of us went to Bath on Saturday. First we went to the Abbey and stayed for quite a while. The windows there are the most beautiful that I've seen yet. When we left, we went to find a place to get lunch and brought it back to eat in the square outside the Abbey where there are a bunch of street performers. One guy that had a particularly large crowd around him was wearing a black suit and juggling fire sticks. When I came back a half hour later, he was wearing a pink leotard and tutu and riding on a unicycle while he juggled knives... Next we went to the Roman Baths. We walked through and listened to our audio tours. A lot of the stuff I had learned in Latin class, but it was awesome to be able to see it. They have done a great job there of recreating what it looked like back when the Romans were there, so you can walk through the temple courtyard and see the steps worn down from use. At times, though, their recreation can be a little disconcerting - when you go into the dark room with the beautiful green plunging pool, sparkling from all the coins tossed into it, they have projected the images of a bunch of men with towels around their waists walking around the pool. It's kinda freaky.

The last thing we did in Bath was go to the Jane Austen Centre. There's a video that talks about what Jane's life was like when she lived in Bath. They have a bunch of costumes on display from the BBC production about her, "Miss Austen Regrets." One of Jane's letters is hanging on the wall. There wasn't much else there, but I still enjoyed it.

We got back to Oxford in time to have dinner in the college, and then we all were exhausted and went to bed. I got to sleep in this morning and am enjoying a relaxing day. This week is going to be fun because Andrew gets here on Thursday. Yay!