Oxford: Part II

May 15, 2010

Today was another great day. We had an early rehearsal this morning in the flats because we were asked to sing in the Oxford ward on Sunday. So I didn't get enough sleep yet again. I was able to catch up a bit on the coach we took to Oxford. I never sleep well on a bus though. I have a general annoyance with typical bus mentality. Choral people especially seem to have a talent for being loud, obnoxious and generally inconsiderate. Don't get me wrong. I love all of these people, but small, enclosed spaces aren't conducive to a pleasant atmosphere. It's common practice with Dr. Staheli to maintain a strict no-singing policy on the bus. I'm not sure why, but this rule has been slackened a lot on these day trips to Oxford. It might be simply because we're not spending much time traveling by coach. Either way, there has been some singing and loud boisterousness. Oh well. I still love them dearly. I should bring my earplugs tomorrow. Wow, that was kind of a rant. When we arrived in Oxford we had some free time to enjoy and discover the place. Michelle and I went with Logan Bradford to the covered market. Along the way we were taking a lot of pictures. Logan has a pretty nice DSLR camera. He has wanted some headshots for him to use for his auditions. Michelle and I took turns shooting and using a price of white paper to bounce a little more light into Logan's face to get the lighting right. It was a little hodge-podge, but it was really fun. At the market I almost bought an umbrella because I found the same umbrella I used on my mission. It was the greatest umbrella ever. It was constructed with a brass rod, 16 points made of fiberglass and a nice non-slip curved grip. It's a gentleman's umbrella. I used the one on my mission for most of my time in Chile but lost it about a week before coming home. Saddest day! I didn't get the one I found in the market because it isn't really very rainy in London this time of year, I don't really have an easy way of getting it home and I didn't really want to spend the money. I wrote down the website though, so I might order one when I get home. We had to go meet our group to go on a walking tour of Oxford. It is such a beautiful place. The buildings everywhere you turn are so old! Incredible! We saw the colleges of people like William Tindale and where Tolken and C.S. Lewis taught. It is so neat to be in such a historic and majestic place. So many of the world's best minds have come through there! We learned that, because of its position relative to The Prime Meridian, Oxford decided to change their time to be more precise based on its location. As a result, Oxford time runs five minutes behind. Most of Oxford has given it up by now, but Christ Church College still runs five minutes later (ex. Evensong begins at 5:05 local time instead of 5:00). After the tour I went with Michelle and Logan, still taking pictures along the way. We ate sandwiches on fresh baguette bread from a small sandwich shop called Morten's. They had an outdoor area with tables and chairs. So great! We ran over to the Ashmolean Museum to see a few exhibits. We only had time to see some 16th century paintings, some jewelry and some stringed instruments from the 18th century including a Stradivarius violin. It was beautiful! Of the paintings we enjoyed The Adoration of the Shepherds by Paolo Caliari and The Resurrection of Christ by Jacopo Robusti. We didn't have much time at the museum because we had to meet our group again to go to Evensong. We could choose between New College and Magdalen College. I wanted Michelle to hear New College, so that's what we opted for. Michelle got to sit in on a bit of the boys' rehearsal before the service. I was glad she got to experience the same kind of thing I'd seen yesterday. Again, they only took 6 people in, so I think she thought it was pretty neat. We all went into the chapel for the last portion of their rehearsal with the basses, tenors and counter-tenors. It was amazing to hear the entire group together. The service was beautiful. This one wasn't open to the public. New College seems to be quite exclusive. We were lucky to be there. There was a much more reverent attitude in New College than any of the other services we've seen. The British sound is so distinctive. The quality is very close to my own tastes. I disagree with vowel formulation in many cases because it seems to stress unimportant syllables in the text. My opinion about vowels is purely founded upon the indoctrination I’ve received by being a student at BYU. We really enjoyed the trip to Oxford. It gets pretty tiring though. Michelle slept on my arm the whole way back. I feel to take a moment to express how glad I am that Michelle and I got a head start on experiencing London. We get free time every day, but we got to do so much that first week that now we can really spend our free time doing exactly what we want without feeling a need to squeeze in all of the big tourist attractions because, by and large, we've already done them. It's great. What an amazing experience this is. Who gets to do this sort of thing? Who has the chance to go to Europe with their girlfriend for 6 weeks? Incredible. So grateful.