Counting down the days...

It seems that everyone has now hit panic mode. With only a few short weeks left in London, we are spending our days trying to pack the sightseeing and stuff we've meant to do all semester into any free time we have, all while gearing up for final exams and papers. I am no exception to this, and consequently had a very busy weekend.

Thursday night Rick and I planned to see a show. We really wanted to see MacBeth, because the lead role is currently being played by none other than Patrick Stewart (aka Captain Jean-Luc Picard). We were dismayed to find out that MacBeth has sold out all of its remaining shows. It turns out Patrick Stewart is sick and wouldn't be appearing anyways.

We ended up seeing Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I am not a Python fanatic, but was introduced to the movies in middle school by some friends and can quote a fair share of Holy Grail lines. The musical turned out to be a perfect combination of Monty Python quotes and new material. While preserving the main storyline, it also managed to poke fun at the show biz industry and the actors themselves. It was really funny.

Friday we went on another school trip - this time to Oxford, about an hour and a half west of London. Like Cambridge, Oxford University is made up of separate, fiercely independent colleges. The architecture was impressive and there were also some very nice green spaces. We had a professor as a tour guide who took us around and showed us some main points of the campus, and also took us inside one of the colleges. The Hogwarts dining hall is filmed in one of Oxford's halls, but it was about $6 to go in and we didn't have much time.

By luck, there happened to be a French market in town while we were there. The professor told us that the vendors set up in one city for a day and then move right on to the next, all over Europe, and that it would probably take three years for them to return to Oxford again. There was a tantalizing selection of bread, cheeses, and other French staples. Rick and I settled for some delicious pastries for the bus ride home.

Saturday was quite an experience - we went played paintball with a group from school. They had worked out a deal where we got our own field, 600 paintballs, guns, and protective gear for only $20. I'd never been paintballing before, but I'm told this is a really good deal. It was a lot of fun. We had two marshals who took us to different fields and explained different games to us. I felt like a little kid running around and basically playing capture the flag, but it was a lot of fun. I am a little bruised and battered - some welts from paintball shots and some bruised knees from crawling around - but it was worth it.

Sunday afternoon Rick and I visited the Natural History Museum. We didn't have much time before the museum closed, but we had a good time wandering around the models of the Earth, the stuffed birds and the dinosaur bones. On our way back, we had just rounded the corner away from the museum when we heard a very frightened little voice yelling, "Maman! Maman!" Recognizing the cries of a lost little boy, I asked him if he was lost. My fear was that he would not speak any English - his accent sounded French to me, but very well could have been Spanish or Italian. French would have been okay, but I didn't know how I could help him if he started rattling off something else.

It turned out he was French, but immediately started talking to me in perfect English. He had lost his mother and siblings when he stopped to tie his shoe. After getting him to stop crying, we walked back towards the museum with him until his mother caught up to where we had been walking (she hadn't even left the museum yet). They started talking rapidly in French and Rick and I set off home.

I don't bring this story up for the fact that the little boy was lost, but for his language skills. At eight years old his English, although with a French accent, could not have been better if he had been born in the U.K. In most European non-English speaking countries, children begin learning English as a second language by the time they are five, if not before. In fact, this is supposed to be the time when it is easiest to learn a new language. Why then in America do we not start another language until seventh or eighth grade? The world is shrinking, and foreign languages are becoming more and more important. We're not keeping up.

Excuse my rant. Back to Sunday - Sometime while we were in the museum the heavens had let loose and it was pouring. At one point, we went through an underpass to cross under one of the very busy streets. Rick said, "Be careful on the stairs, they are probably slippery." No sooner had the words come out of his mouth, my feet went out from underneath me and I slid down a few concrete steps. Luckily I escaped with nothing more than small bruises to my backside and my pride.

Sunday night, as you may know, my Buffalo Bills played the undefeated New England Patriots in the night game. Having discovered that Sunday and Monday Night Football are aired here (albeit at 1:30 at the morning), and having an altered class schedule on Monday (I didn't have to be in until noon), I was thrilled to realize I could watch the Bills play. I don't really know what I was hoping for. When it was 55-10 at 4:00 in the morning, I gave up and went to bed.

The weather seems to have turned for the worse in Britain. When we went to Oxford it was bitterly cold, and the rest of the weekend it rained or at least sprinkled almost constantly. Today has been a very odd day, with random downpours and chilly winds paired with sunshine and moderate temperatures. Kind of reminds me of Syracuse....