I have sailed the world, beheld its wonders...

Alright. For the next few posts, I will endeavor to give you an accurate description of my fall break, as most people have barely heard anything from me about what's happened, and my parents are on my case about that. In short, it was an incredible, spiritual, sensual, and necessary experience. Click any pictures to enlarge.

Here's how my planning worked: I got the idea to go to Europe, I chose the places to go, and then I emailed/talked to people who knew me who'd been to those places before about what I should do. I printed these out, along with days/times things were open, figured out public transportation, and left. I vaguely planned what I'd do... the only thing REALLY planned was that I knew I had to go to a certain museum in London on the first Saturday of break, otherwise it wouldn't be open when I was in London, and that I'd go to Chartres on Friday because of the labyrinth. I think, had I been planning this trip back in August, I would have had complete maps for every location printed out along with a really intense itinerary and subway maps and information about every airport/train station I'd be in and out off, but my stage managerial side relaxed a bit. That was good. Generally I'd vaguely map out each day the night before, just to save time, but it was nice tonot be as much of a control freak as I often can be. Keep in mind, until this trip, I'd only been to the US and Ghana. I fear no international travel now!

I left Ghana late Thursday (October 14th), flying incredibly cheaply on Afriqiyah Airways. ($660 roundtrip. My roommates paid more to go to Morocco.) Afriqiyah Airways had a crash recently where a plane exploded at Tripoli, so some people were worried about me, but I figure just after a crash is usually the best time to fly because the airlines are paranoid/embarrassed. I had a fine time flying Afriqiyah. The food was better than United's food, and the in-flight entertainment included the audio option of listening to people recite the Qu'ran. 2.5 hour layover in Tripoli, which made my roommate Leigh nervous. ("Wear something conservative." "I'm going someplace where it's cold and I don't have a coat. Of course I'm going to be wearing something conservative.") Arriving in Gatwick was extremely bizarre. The toilets there have hand sensors to flush and it was actually like I was seven again, discovering how all these things worked. (Similarly, my roommate Madison nearly broke the faucet trying to turn it on in the Dubai airport because automatic faucets are such a far-away concept to our daily lives in Ghana.) I saw a white guy listening to his iPod and thought, "You really shouldn't be showing that you have that in public," and then I realized, "Wait. He doesn't stand out here. I don't stand out here. We're not automatic theft targets!" Waiting to go through immigration, I kept close to the Ghanaians that were on my flight, because they were more familiar to me than anyone else I was encountering. They were wearing fabric I knew.

Interesting moment at Gatwick: I bought some guidebooks mainly for maps, and when I went to go pay for them I smiled at the woman and said, "Hello, how are you?" She was taken aback and seemed so surprised that I'd genuinely asked how she was. Of course, in Ghana, it's really rude if you don't care to ask how someone is doing before you do business with them. I think the woman and I both had a really nice time in our little interaction. Ghanaian friendliness. It works.

First order of business after I got into London was getting a coat. I didn't bring a coat to Africa, we don't need coats here and I didn't think I'd be going anywhere that I needed a coat. I was wearing the warmest clothing I had - long pants and a long-sleeved, white linen shirt. (Leigh protested that linen is a summer fabric, which is true, but she doesn't even know how to iron.) So, I walked from Victoria Station to Oxford Street, past a couple parks, to Primark, which is where you can buy really cheap clothing that might dissolve in the wash, but is perfect if you only need that coat for 10 days. Bought a coat for 15 pounds. (later bought a scarf for 2 pounds. In Prague I splurged on a pair of gloves for 290 crowns, but they'll last and that's only $17.) Met up with my friend and Sweeneyfamily member Laura, whose floor I was crashing on for the next two nights. We got pub food, then headed over to the Victoria and Albert museum.

Generally, I'm not the biggest fan of big museums. They're overwhelming. I like going to the Met, but that's because I live in New York and can go back again and again. I don't have to see it all at once. I went to the V&A mainly because Madison said that she'd found a room full of hats there. Turns out, that was a temporary exhibition that went up while she was studying in London, so there were few hats to be found, BUT we did stumble upon the section of the V&A that's like the Cloisters, and checked out the performing arts section. (Which did have some very impressive hats.) There we saw things like one of the costumes for Rhinocerous, and giant interactive exhibit on Edward Gordon Craig, who's one of my favorites. We found, there, a modelbox from a production of Sweeney Todd (I think the Leicester Haymarket production), with switches for lights for different scenes andfeels. This was a delightful prequel to the next day's adventure: the Sweeney Todd pilgrimage. Spent more time in a pub with her friends that night, delightful, interesting people.

That night, we tried to figure out if we should see a show. After poking around online, our best option in our price range seemed to be a production of HMS Pinafore in a pub with free drinks, until Laura said, "Wait! What about Passion?!"

Passion, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a heart-breakingly gorgeous Sondheim musical. When people ask me what my favorite musicals are, I say, "1. Sweeney Todd, 2. The Hidden Sky, 3. Passion." After that, I can't order them anymore. I first saw Passion in high school, broadcast on PBS (God bless PBS), in a concert version directed by Lonny Price starring Patti LuPone, Michael Cerveris, and Audra McDonald. It's one of the very few shows I would willingly act in (did a bit of it for Voice and Speech last year). I have been known to watch my tape of the PBS broadcast of it, get to the end, rewind it and watch it again immediately - because there's a moment towards the end that's just so beautiful, but it's only beautiful because of what came before, so you have to watch the whole thing to get the effect.

Some people don't like Passion. Many Sondheim fans are even split on Passion. It's very non-traditional in the realm of musical theater, it's very different musically. It's more like one long art song. There are no applause breaks. The original production started with two people naked in a bed just after having sex, which was a bit of a shocker. I once got into a giant argument with Becker about Passion. Becker didn't like it, citing the fact that it had no traditional melodic structure. I nearly ripped his head off with, "Does it NEED to have a traditional melodic structure?!" I believe his retort was, "No, but not everyone's as smart as you!" (He admitted later that he saw the original Broadway production with his parents, which would have been while he was still in college and was probably rather awkward for all of them.)

Passion was (is) playing at Donmar Warehouse. I'm also quite familiar with Donmar Warehouse, being a musical theater fan. They tend to do shows I like and from everything I've read and heard, they tend to do them well. I have a couple cast recordings of shows they've done (their recording of Parade is the most complete). Elena Roger was in this production, and she caused a bit stir in Evita a couple of years ago. And since we were already planning to have a Sweeney pilgrimage, we might as well make it a Sondheim day. So we headed down to Donmar Warehouse that morning to get day seats. 15 pounds, which, we considered, was still less than Sweeney Todd rush tickets were. Not bad at all.

I have stood in a good number of rush lines in my time. Usually for Sondheim shows. We got there a little bit over an hour before because we didn't know what British Sondheim fans were like as far as things like this. While waiting, we met these two elderly ladies (who had never met before but were great friends by the time they got their tickets) and had absolutely delightful conversations. They knew their theater, loved their opera, and suddenly I found myself talking about things that never come up in Ghana - like Robert LePage's new Ring Cycle at the Met Opera. (how excited am I for that? SO EXCITED.) Also, upon finding out I was a theater major they didn't automatically assume I was an actor, which was refreshing. (One actually asked, "So what are you planning on doing in theater? Directing?" Am I that obvious?) They were vicious if anyone tried to get in front of the queue. At one point, they asked, "You're a bit young to be a Sondheim fan, aren't you?" which led to a whole conversation on Sweeney Todd.

Having secured our seats, we headed over to the Sir John Soanes museum.

The Sir John Soanes museum is one of those small delightful museums that you probably wouldn't know exists unless someone told you about it. Sir John Soanes was an architect and a collector, and when he died they made his house into a museum. Full of paintings, sculpture, interesting objects, books. I love museums that are houses, because they're a window into lives, and I might be more fascinated by a pen than a Canaletto.

An aside, but an important one:

My second year of college, I took this really phenomenal class called Seminar for Designers. It drove me crazy and I generally had to pull all-nighters every week because of the combination of work brought on by that class and Second Year Laboratory, but it was worth it. The class was basically the history of the world, from 1800-1970, focused on Europe and North America, through art, architecture, history, clothing, music, everything. It was a look at history filled with humanity. Unlike so many other history classes that are about dates, even art history classes that are about dates and styles, this was about people, what was happening to the people, how ideas spread and grew. It wasn't just about what happened, but about the SIGNIFICANCE of what happened, which is far more valuable than facts and figures, because with a knowledge of humanity and significance you can begin to truly learn from the past and use it. It also exposed me to things and ideas I became obsessed with. I came back after that semester and started rummaging through all of my aunt's art books, or I'd see a picture of a bar stool and think, "That's totally a shape from 1930." For this class, we created books with sections for each decade, with pictures of important art, clothing shapes, moments of historical significance, music, things that interested us personally, these scrapbooks of historical research that are deeply personal. I pull out mine often when I'm working on shows to find ideas that relate, or to use as a jumping-off point for further research.

The teacher of this class was the one who told me about this museum. I'd forgotten, but he'd mentioned it briefly during that class when we were talking about neoclassicism. He'd shown some pictures of it, there was one picture in particular, of a room FILLED with bits of sculpture, that I'd put into my book. It was such a moment for me, walking into that room and thinking, "OH." Rather emotional, actually, coming to the source of something I'd seen. My words are stumbling, because my relationship with history is ra

ther new, but it was a comfort, that there were markers of things past that I could see. I have very little fear of time, of mortality (well, I'm young, though I think my religious life is such that I'm not going to be too bothered by mortality), it's not that I was comforted by the seeming-permance of the existence of this place... but comforted by a physical reminder that the past is here for us. To learn from, to use, to help, to love.

I was moved by the care of that building. There are some famous names (a room full of William Hogarth, a handful of Canalettos, the sarcophagus of Seti I), but so many smaller things, names unknown or forgotten, housed there for beauty, for significance. The collection of belief in the importance and significance of what human hands have formed.

I think, if you want to see what God is doing in the world, you must look at what humans have done.

That's a thought we'll come back to later.

After this, we headed down to Fleet Street, but I'll save my post about the Sweeneypiligrmage for my upcoming Sweeneyversary.

A fun fact is that if you walk down Fleet Street, you come to St. Paul's, which is where we went next. St. Paul's is

gorgeous, and is truly the most Zoroastrian cathedral I've ever been in. I walked in and thought that this was all The Hidden Sky. I went up all the steps, which might have been stupid of me as I still had a bum foot (my foot still hasn't fully healed, probably because of the immense amount of walking I've been doing), but was worth it. Not just for the view, but for the staircases. I really love staircases. Not sure why. I've always wanted to stage a theater piece in a stairwell. I have various ideas of pieces for different stairwells. I encountered some awesome stairs

on my trip to Europe.

We spent a good amount of time at the effigy of John Donne. Laura's obsessed with English literature and I'm obsessed with sensuality and God. (Me: John Donne and I are the same person. Leigh: No you're not, he's too depressing. Me: HE WROTE SENSUAL LOVE POETRY ABOUT GOD!) The audio guide noted that towards the end of his life John Donne became increasingly morbid and insisted on posing in a shroud. Down to the crypts to the William Blake memorial. I love William Blake for so many reasons. William Blake, John Donne and I. All interested in the same things. This summer when I discovered a book of William Blake's illustrations of the Book of Job in my house, I was beside myself. Also the quote on that memorial IS the musical The Hidden Sky, which is what St. Paul's reminds me of entirely.

Naptime, then Passion at Donmar. Which was indeed, beautiful, and I cried. A lot. It scrambled my brain, which I knew it would. Smart use of ensemble and echo on microphones. This production found a lot of humor, too, which was also smart. Voices EXTRAORDINARLY suited to the roles, which Laura noted, as well, before I even brought it up. I'll spare you all the critical analysis. Was taking notes on structure and event the whole time. Much became clear. I want to direct that piece but don't have my head wrapped around it yet. Seeing it was definitely Colleen-in-her-element, as musical theater/Sondheim analysis was my primary activity throughout high school. Refreshing.

The next day, we went to worship at Westminster Abbey. Here's how you do that: the Abbey is closed to tourists on Sundays, so that worship can happen, so when

you show up, there are tons of people with cameras standing at the gate, where there's a person in robes telling them they can't go in. You go up to the person in robes, say, "Worship?" And they let you through and you look really important to the tourists outside. I did this for Sunday morning on the 17th and Evensong on the 24th and felt awesome each time.

I loved Westminster Abbey. Their welcome towards people who come from all over the world to worship there is very well-handled, down to noting that we should all say the Lord's Prayer in our native tongue. I felt so comfortable there. The style of worship was familiar, the hymns a joy to sing. The choir was of course incredible, and I got to take communion, which we all know I love. We were seated actually on the front row, rather close to the high altar. So great. We exited while the organist was still playing the postlude, which I don't normally do, having an organist mother, but exiting at that moment meant we walked right between the organ pipes. Acoustical WONDER.

After church, I parted ways with Laura and made my way up to Speaker's Corner. Speaker's Corner is this corner of Hyde Park where everyone who has an opinion they want to shout sets up their soapbox and talks to anyone who will listen. Lively debate. THRILLING. Apparently William Morris and Kwame Nkrumah both used to frequent Speaker's Corner. Most of the debate was religious. I parked myself by a Muslim whose big thing was that Jesus was not God. He was joined by a Christian who believed in him. They were joined by another man who I SWEAR was Ghanaian, he was at least West African judging by his accent and his belief system, debating them based on the idea of the spirit of revelation. I heard the best argument I've ever heard about how you can believe everything in the Bible is true but still eat pork. Still, though, no one is able to explain away "I and the Father are one."

After a little while I wandered. Down the park, through some other parks, around Trafalgar Square. Got some food, then met up with friends of mine from NYU at a pub. Two of them had just been to Paris and gave me their maps. We chatted about life, theater, how things are different abroad, how the exchange rate is killing them, and how their dorms have had water issues. (I SCOFF at NYU in London's water issues.)

After this I had a miserable time getting to Stansted at 2am, but got there and safely on my way to Prague.

TO BE CONTINUED.

This picture taken for my father.

And here's the link to my other pictures.