Welcome to the final show! I hope you’re wearing your best clothes!
I can’t believe that I am writing my final blog post. Before I went on this trip, in fact before the application was even posted, I poured through the blog posts of those who had gone last year. Naturally, I came upon the final posts first. Hearing how the trip had been life-changing, freeing, and artistically impactful excited me for this trip even more than I already was, which I didn’t think possible. So many people I loved loved this experience, and I was excited to get to try it myself. I knew that if I even found 10% of the joy they did, I would be over the moon with happiness. As the months crept on, a lot of life happened, and though we would periodically meet as a group, everything else took up time and mental space. Then, somehow, we were in class and leaving in just a few days’ time. I won’t go into too much detail about everything that has happened since being here, because I have talked about most of it in blog posts, but this trip turned out to be greater than I imagined.
I am not sure what my expectations were for this trip, but they surpassed them. I absolutely loved our routine of getting up and going to breakfast, having my toast and fruit, and then meeting in the lobby. We would go on a walk, tour, or museum visit, and then break off for the day. My dearest friends and I would find something fun and awesome to do, and then we would meet back up as a class for a show if we had one. I cannot think of any day that sounds better. I am going to miss that being my normal infinitely. Even now, I can’t believe that that was what I had the privilege of doing for a month straight. I didn’t take a single second for granted, and soaked up every moment we were in London together.
Obviously, a large part of our trip was theater, and trying to think about how many shows we saw is overwhelming. We saw absolutely brilliant theater, and some less-than-brilliant theater. I will think about our My Master Builder class for the rest of my life, and laugh about how much people just tore into it. It definitely got everyone’s opinions flowing. Or when we saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and we were all sobbing and came into class without a single note. On my own, I was able to see 7 shows, and I think every single one was a hit. The peak of them being The Great Gatsby, Stranger Things, Wicked, and The Crucible. All of them were true bucket list shows, and each was entirely different than the one before. Honestly, I can say that about every show we saw. I don’t think there were any two that were supper alike. Especially when we saw more experimental shows like The Frogs and Here We Are. Maybe experimental is a stretch, but definitely not traditionally constructed shows.
Throughout this trip I have shed many tears. Inside theater, in parks, in hotel rooms, and outside of airports. But, I have also had a hundred times more smiles and laughs. The joy that I found in this trip is what I walk away from it holding onto. Yes, I am different than I was when I got here, but to me what matters the most is I have true, genuine happy memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I am indebted to the wonderful professors who put this together, and of course to my friends who made this trip what it was. Thank you to all, I love you forever!
Theatre in London U of A 