Going to Istanbul! (Where is that?)

Hey-o, kiddies!

Heading out tomorrow to the great meeting place of the East and West: ISTANBUL!! Fall break will be spent in the capital of Turkey. GOOGLE it. On Wednesday of next week we will fly to Dublin. (Did she just say Dublin? As in, IRELAND?) Why, yes, Virginia I did. We booked flights to Istanbul only to realize the only place we could really fly out of Istanbul was...back to London. So we picked another place to see on the back half! Hence, Dublin for two days, and then to Wexford to visit Teach Bhride, the House of Brigid! If you haven't heard about these guys (i.e., everyone who reads this who ISN'T in Folk Choir) check them out: http://houseofbrigid.blogspot.com/

So dearest, devoted bloggites, I wish ye well, because I won't be posting for the next ten days. But when I return, there shall be STORIES! PICTURES! TALES OF TRIUMPH AND WOE!! Well, hopefully not too much woe...

TO LIFE!! TO BYZANTIUM!! TO...NOT ACCIDENTALLY GETTING ON THE TRAIN TO BAGHDAD!!!



Taking in the view at Windsor Castle ;o)

But We All Speak Tolkienese

HEYO AND HULLO FROM OXFORD!!

So AFTER the hair, we went to Oxford. Why? Well, there is really only one reason anyone goes to Oxford...TO PAY HOMMAGE TO THE GREATEST STORY TELLER OF OUR TIME!!!

And apparently there's a school there, too.

I will warn you, as I type this the Rockies are in the heated middle of the Division Series against the Phillies. I have purchased my MLB.TV International Post Season subscription, and I'm wearing my Spilly shirt. ALL THE WAY FROM THE UK - LET'S GO ROCKS!!

Last semester my darling friend Kaitlyn studied abroad in this singular city. (London, not Oxford. Yet.) After her return she compiled a notebook of journeys for me, from afternoons around London to daytrips in, say, Oxford. Thus the notebook, filled with directions and warnings, was held fast in hand.

During the bus ride back from Winchester I sat next to Jim. Jim's friends with a priest who is OBSESSED with Lord of the Rings (henceforth referred to as LOTR). Jim said he wanted to visit Oxford because his friend said Tolkien lived/is buried there. I said, thank God, because I've been looking for someone to journey with me there to geek out! And so we gathered a gaggle of similarly-minded folk (and some who just wanted to get out for the day) and booked a train to Oxford.

Saturday morning we awoke and began to walk to the tube station. I wore my LOTR sweatshirt and brown Aragorn cape (standard issue New Line Cinema costume piece). About half way to the station I said, "Now does everyone have the credit card they used to pay for the train tickets online with them?" Shock and horror ran through the group as Lauren realized she had left hers in her room. She bolted back to the flats. It was then that Mike asked if everyone has their "reference number." Reference number? Humma? Cue a string of college kids running a breakneck speed (did we budget time for this? Dude...) up Farringdon road. I'd like you to envision myself in particular, in full LOTR regalia, cape flying back, pink hair blowing in the breeze, running. And darling, I don't run.

Have we ever been able to go somewhere with a nice, calm, uneventful beginning? Or one that is free from all-out panic? Of course not!

We play pass the laptop and all get our number, run to the tube station, and get to the train station. We run to the ticket printer only to realize that Lauren and Claire wrote down their order number, not their reference number. And our train leaves in 3 minutes.

RUN RUN RUN to the ticket booth. HI WE WROTE DOWN THE WRONG NUMBER CAN WE PICK UP OUR TICKETS HERE OUR TRAIN LEAVES IN 1 MINUTE PLEASE??? "All of you?" "No, just us two, the others printed their tickets already." At this the man started laughing. "If you've printed your tickets already, you better start running, because you can't get a refund if they're printed!" AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Cue more running. OF COURSE our train is on Platform 10. The furthest from the ticket booth. I must say, I am getting very good at bounding around people. Or perhaps I am just shocking them into stillness. There are assets of maintaining a perpetually outlandish appearance. JUMP on the train! And lo, from the heavens comes the conductor’s voice. "We're sorry to inform you that the train is experiencing technical difficulties. We will be delayed." OH THANK JESUS! The rest of our gaggle appears, and we travel ensemble. On the train next to the one we originally boarded, of course, because the technical difficulties caused us to switch trains. We spent the ride playing telephone Pictionary (visions of Ohio).

We arrived in Oxford and detrained. We had not gotten but a MINTUE out of the station before a high-accented British woman asked me how to get to city hall. I'm such a native. Even though I looked at her like she had just asked me directions to Mars. "I...um...I've never been here...I can tell you directions to Mordor..."

We walked to the centre of the city and caught a bus going towards Wolvercote Cemetery. The driver told us where to hop off and we found ourselves...THERE.



There were about 50 of these guys dotting the path. Jim took a picture of every single one. And thus, we arrived.







I was thinking to myself, this may be the most epic moment of my life. I wonder how I should BOOM I started weeping. I dropped to my knees and wept. No preconceived thoughts, no trigger, just the weight of being next to TOLKIEN'S BONES. That man in the ground wrote the story that changed my life, in all ways cheesy and uncheesy. There are no words, people. My first true friendships were built on the ground he laid.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in depth about the history of Middle earth. Within his mythology is the story of an elf named Luthien and a man named Beren. Beren came across Luthien standing in a forest and fell in love with her. Theirs was a forbidden love, because she was immortal and he was a man. They defied the confines of their races and wed. Their relationship closely parallels that between Aragorn and Arwen.

Tolkien's wife Edith died before him, and when he buried her he had the name Luthien written beneath her name. When he died, they put Beren beneath his.



The real weight of the gravesite is that it is covered in fresh flowers and thank you's. His books were published in the 1940's, and people are still being touched by them. People from all over the world (signaled by the thank you's in different languages) come here to pay homage and to leave something. The real affecting nature of this place is not that it is where Tolkien is buried, but that it shows LOTR fans are not alone. Other people feel the way I do. Other people care.



We also creeped our way to Tolkien's house. Kaitlyn's directions in the notebook were, specifically, "STEPHANIE REIGN YOURSELF IN SOMEONE LIVES HERE. Pay quite homage and leave." Thus we did.





We then toddled around the school itself. 38 independent colleges. It was during our walking tour of the college area, in between Anglican this and Once-Was-Catholic that, that Jim uttered the immortal words, "#*&$ing Henry VII, Josquin. This could have been OURS!"











Dinner was had at the Eagle and Child, AKA, The Bird and the Babe, AKA, where the Inklings met. The Inklings were a group of authors that included Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They ate and exchanged stories, shared essays and gave each other criticism. How much would I pay to be able to go back in time and sit in on a meal with them? First born work?





And a good time was had by all.

Pinky in the Zoo

Catchy band name, eh?

This is the story of a girl who always dreamed of having fluorescent hair. This girl once bought a wig of pink, and wore it oft, finding any and every reason to wear it in public. It also made a number of appearances (three, to be exact) at Harry Potter release parties, from Barnes and Noble to the Tattered Cover, as the key piece for producing the venerated visage of Nymphadora Tonks.

So this girl dreams of one day creating such a mane, dying blonde locks a rosy shade. Nay, say her elders. So she bides her time until one day realizes that whilst in a foreign land, she will be free from those who may dislike the look. After obtaining the blessing of her parents (“Do whatever you want to your hair over there, just come back looking normal”) she seeks out a stylist and goes forth to fulfill her greatest cosmetic desire.

So last Wednesday, I dyed my hair pink.

I chose to do it at a salon called Sanrizz which is along my walk to school. I inquired about a dye job, got a price quote and prepared for D-Day. When the day had finally arrived, I armed myself with Tonksqesue confidence and strode into the salon after class.


A stock photo of a Sanrizz Salon

My hairstylist was a guy named Ben. Ben is a little taller than me, has a very stylish, side-shaved-with-flippy-long-on-top-hair-yes-I-do-hair-hair, a gauged ear, and lots of tattoos. (Mommy, just Google “gauged ear.” Actually, no. Do not Google that. Stay far away from googling that.) Basically the perfect person you want dying your hair the color of a fluorescent flamingo. First he bleached it yellow-white. After he washed it out, I tipped my head out of the basin, looked in the mirror and realized what I would look like as an alien. With mutant eyebrows. Then came the first wave of pink.

During this time the salon speakers were playing an array of American pop-punk, from Paramore to Green Day. I felt particularly interesting when the line “Don’t want to be an American idiot” came on just as Ben was telling me that if the dye causes all my hair to fall out, that’ll teach me to be rebellious. Crap.

I spent the hours dying and washing and dying (the color comes in waves) reading the book a bought a few weeks ago, “Moab is my Washpot” by Stephen Fry. I have been a fan of Fry ever since I met him through Hugh Laurie, the genius doc who runs my household. (Literally. My family’s entire week is built around a community viewing of House.) I became obsessed with Hugh Laurie, ran through his filmography and right into “A Bit of Fry and Laurie.” YouTube it sometime. It’s like SNL, but funnier. So when I saw Fry’s autobiography for 3lbs in HMV (the black whole of music and books that ceaselessly consumes my stipend) I bought it right away and have been picking at it in between classes and on buses and trains. It’s a fantastic look at the life of a boy growing up in upper-middle-class England, while at the same time being outwardly hilarious. There have been many moments when riding the train I have let out a lone “HAH!” because of a certain line or wording that Mr. Fry uses.

But when Green Day’s “American Idiot” came on in the middle of a hair salon in London, I had to put the book down and comment. This started Ben down a long road of conversation in which he explained his love of poetry, his work with “spoken word,” his description of some of the top spoken word artists around today, and his dreams of one day opening and owning a spoken word poetry venue. He explained his current work writing poetry about Hitler (“The man just fascinates me”) and how American punk has long run past its glory days of lyrics story telling. He even ran into the back room and came back with a list of British artists and bands I had to listen to for their lyrical value.

At this point we had done two washes of the pink, and at best, I looked like a mermaid. At worst, it looked like someone who’d had an entire strawberry milkshake had barfed all over my head. Three hours, three washes and two stylists after I walked in we decided we could do nothing else that day and I was told to return on Friday. I walked home with the gait of triumph, trying not to think about the fact that I had just thrown myself head-first (yup) into the rabbit hole, and the only thing to do was keep going.



I do my best to keep the internet creepies at bay. Thus far I have prided myself on using interesting angles to avoid overly informative shots, but it's kinda hard to pull off with the hair. So, here's looking at me.

I returned to my flat in triumph (it wasn’t that bad) and lots of photo-taking. That evening we hosted a dinner for one of our professors, Cornelius O’Boyle. It was an evening of good food and better conversation (and we didn’t spend the entire conversation talking about the food! Progress!).

Friday meant two things: my second hair appointment, and the Zoo! After class I joined the group of ten who had signed up to ogle animals in the afternoon. We walked through Piccadilly Square, up Regent Street and through Regent Park. Ah, the London Zoo. Best Zoo I’ve ever been too.



All photos were taken by yours truly, camera courtesy of Lauren. Cheers, chica.



Amanda, this is for you:





The great thing about the London Zoo is that a lot of the exhibits are open, as in, you walk into a caged area and see the animals all around you, like Mr. Monkey here. The ropes lined the path and went overhead, and monkeys crawled all over them!



It's...RUFUS!!!



I don't know what this means, but it's got to have some comedic value:



My mother in the morning:



When I saw this bird, I bent down and said, in my best sveedish accent, "Oh, you are GORdeus!" I named him Crupi.



PUMBA!!



My favorites were the Giraffes.



Disney Princess Moment: the lonely giraffe, longing to leave the palace and explore the outside world...



Otteriffic!





And now, to warm the cockels of your heart:







I only saw a fraction of the place, but it was great.

After the zoo, I returned to the salon for one last go at pinkifying my crown. Helas! No dice. Ben had someone print me out a map to the nearest salon supply store and told me of a self-dying product that I could use that would, instead of working into my too-pourus hair, just stick on top of it. I took the paper, bid farewell and began my journey of self-inflicted fluorescence. Dice! I got back to the flat Friday night and began the process of dying my hair pink.



I thought it odd that I had started at the salon and was demoted to the bathroom color, whereas one usually attempts it at home and then submits to the salon for damage control. I stood in our bathroom and combed fuchsia goop into my hair for about half an hour. Kelly, bless her heart, came in and finished the process. After letting it sit, Claire helped me wash it out, head first in the Chokie. The floor of the Chokie now has a lovely, rosy tint. And my hair has more than that!

YES!! YES!!! MY HAIR IS PINK!!! JUST HOW GOD INTENDED!!!!

The great thing about London is that pink hair isn’t that weird. I see someone about once a week with a full head of shocking flamingo hair, and it certainly isn’t the weirdest thing on the street. No one does a double take or stares. (Except for children, but that’s a good thing.) The people I’ve caught gaping? My fellow students! The profs all love it – it’s the kids who are shocked!

Finished Product: (Forgive my artistic liberties)