Les Mis in London and Piccadilly Circus!

Goodness.

These past two days have been FANTASTIC!

We're singing at Oxford this weekend.  Both in Sacrament meeting, and at their evensongs.

We've split into "Houses" or "colleges" for the evensong--I'm in Brasenose.  Can I just say we're rocking it?  We sound great!  Although I definitely feel a bit... inexperienced.

So today the only class we had was practicing that.

BUT BACK TO YESTERDAY...

Yesterday, we practiced, and analyzed three different masses.  Have you ever analyzed music with Dr. Staheli?  I thought not.  It's extremely intense!  I feel so musically inadequate, but it's enthralling.

Anyway, we attended the TALLIS SCHOLARS concert.  They're like the ultimate rockstars of renaissance music.  We arrived, sat in the second row of the balcony, and were AMAZED.  Now, my roommates and I did NOT want to fall asleep during this, and so we took a preparatory nap.  Then, all night through we wrote in our journals about the music.  IT WAS AMAZING!

OH MY STARS!

it was amazing.  I tried to explain it to my class as swimming... but most people know how BAD I am at expressing my ... feelings about things.  Anyway, they were beautiful.

Then back to today :) 

Practice, fun.

THEN PICCADILLY CIRCUS!  It's really not a circus.  It's a section of London which has a WHOLE BUNCH of shops.  I bought shoes.  Tennis shoes for 11 pounds that have leather upper annnnnnd they're usually 55 pounds so ACTUALLY I got them, what, 80% off?  YEAH. Amazing.  Almost $80 shoes, for maybe $15.

That's us below.

Elena, Me, Haley, Anna.  We wore hats and felt SO classy.

We then went to a chinese ALL YOU CAN EAT buffet, which was probably the most fantastic food I've had this whole trip.  Besides the night that I was so hungry I ate a half of a pizza, and then some. 

The food was amazing.  And Jonny (a boy in my study abroad) could speak Chinese so he negotiated EVERYTHING always.  We sat on the upper floor and sang Prince of Egypt and Sara Bareilles and Adele and practically every song ever. 

The best part (maybe) about this study abroad is everywhere I go, if I sing a song like "Come Go With Me" by the Beach Boys or songs from the Sister Act soundtrack, everyone joins in... AND HARMONIZES!  

We're considering buying a permit and singing in a tunnel down by the tube.   

But alas, we have to focus.  So what do we do?  Go to...

LES MISERABLES!

Could life be any better tonight?  I submit that it CANNOT.  Everyone cried.  Even the boys. ... Or at least one of them.  We got discounted tickets for being students, on the second row of the balcony!  It was AWESOME!

We could basically see the freckles on the actor's faces  ... If they had them.  And if they weren't wearing stage make-up.

I can't even express how that made me feel.  Overwhelmed?

Yes.

We got onto the bus going home, and we were all giddy and laughing.  I'm surprised the quiet Londoners didn't kick us off!

We got home, shared our joy with practically the entire world, and then proceeded to blog and facebook.  It's like a nice sigh to the end of a very very exciting day.