Apparently the trade-off to flying cheaply, at least on EasyJet, is significant delays; at least they like apologizing for them profusely. We got into Stansted about two hours late, but once I'd finally made it through customs and everything all the frustration sort of melted away when Andy met me on the other side. We had an hour or so to cuddle and catch up on the bus ride back to Cambridge, which looked only vaguely familiar (I'd been there on a day trip in 2003 when I did a summer program at Oxford).
After a delightfully late start on Saturday (neither of us had been sleeping well the week before), we did a bit of sight-seeing on the quick-fast half-hour walk to the train station, where (after some credit card frustration) we caught a train at the last second to London. Lunch, a couple of Tube transfers, and one inconveniently closed Victoria line later, we made it to the theater for Billy Elliot: The Musical. Major brownie points to the boy, whose idea seeing a West End show was.
The show itself was pretty cute-- I like Elton John scores! The set had a solid working-class feel to it, even as stuff moved around on hydraulics (and we were sitting high enough to see backstage a bit, which was nifty). I thought it trivialized a few things I remembered from the movie (like the gay best friend and the father's epiphany), and some of the artistic choices (dancing dresses and the entire cast doing a curtain call/finale in tutus) were less than wise. But overall, it was incredibly endearing and uplifting, the music was fun, and the performances were stellar, particularly the super-talented little teenage kid who played Billy. The choreography was really remarkable, too.
After the show, we high-tailed it back to Cambridge. We missed the train we'd meant to take, and the later one got us back just in time to rush to Andy's room to change and be slightly late for Formal Hall. For those unfamiliar with this Cambridge tradition (as I was), it involves a formal dinner with the college fellows-- formal as in wearing long black academic robesover your suit. And everyone brings their own wine bottle to finish over the course of the meal. If someone tosses a penny successfully in your glass, you have to drain it on the spot. A fun bit of tradition, I discovered, even though there were inexplicably no fellows that night. (And I'm not a big wine drinker.) They even had a vegetarian option and excellent creme brulee.
After dinner, we met some of Andy's British and Americans-in-Britain friends over at the Eagle, the nearby pub where Watson and Crick announced their discovery of DNA. A few of the people in the group actually go to Brown, though I'd never met them before. That's something I've found here in Denmark, too-- I had forgotten how big my school is. There are about 20 Brown kids here, and I didn't really know any of them coming into this. It sounded like the same story at Cambridge: you meet someone new, exchange pleasantries, and then sort of goggle awkwardly when you realize you've probably had classes together in the last two and half years and never noticed.
In any case, that was the end of Saturday-- nice folks in a non-smoking pub with some kind of sweet pear cider.
Sunday brought another late morning, followed by a two-mile walk through the countryside to the Orchard, a brunch sort of place where Virginia Woolf and various other notables had once worked. We had tea and scones and baguette sandwiches (brie and cranberry sauce-- major Oxford flashbacks for me!) outside under the trees, where it was wonderfully not that chilly. I'd also forgotten how much I love a real British scone--possibly more than wienerbrød here (not that I'm complaining).
On the way back, we wandered through the town-- Andy had several of the grander collegiate sights he wanted to show me, and wow. Kind of crazy to think that people go to school in some of those places (try Googling Trinity College!), rather than, like, languish there as royalty. The gardens and college-specific cathedrals were just as stunning. I'll post pictures soon.
The trip back to Copenhagen involved far fewer delays, although there was one incident in which I had to dash down an "up" escalator at the airport to retrieve the purse I'd left on the bus. So now I'm back in class-mode for another couple of weeks before spring break, missing the boy already. But it was a wonderful, wonderful weekend; it's hard to believe but very happy to realize that it's been two whole years together!
No comments:
Post a Comment