Trip to Stratford

Here's what happened this weekend. . .

Thursday night was supposed to be early-to-bed, since I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to leave on the Stratford trip at 4:30. I got back from choir practice at 9 p.m., just in time to see Kerry and Bush give their wrap-up speeches at the debate. After that, despite doing no homework, somehow I didn't get to bed till 11. Then I got up at 11:30, remembering I hadn't filled out an overnight slip. Back to bed. Here followed a pleasant 2 hours or so of sleep, till I was shocked awake by a very noisy alarm - the fire alarm. What do you know, they decided to have the drill that night. We all raced out and shivered in the cold for about 15 minutes. One more hour of sleep, then up, shower, hastily stuff my overnight gear into a backpack, run downstairs and call my friend to make sure she was up. We left from the McClain parking lot a little after 4:30, two 12-passenger vans and a 7-passenger that a student was driving.

Here and there on the trip up I almost dozed off. About 11 o'clock, we finally reached the U.S.-Canadian border. One of the girls is here in the U.S. on a student visa, and she didn't get the email about bringing her passport. Our van, the last one in the caravan, was sent to Canadian customs while the others traveled on. Customs officials (all ladies) tell us we can't enter the country. So, we try to head back across the border, only to be stopped again and sent into U.S. customs. Canadian customs was very modern, glass walls, alarms, etc. Coming into U.S. customs was like coming to Ellis Island as an immigrant about 100 years ago. They did have computers. Also big guys in blue uniforms behind the desk who barked out, "Next! Who's got an orange card?" to a crowd of non-middle-class non-white people. One lady was speaking another language. Dan (who speaks Spanish) and I (who attempt to speak French) figured out that it was Italian. We all felt very out of place.

After that, finally making cellphone contact with Professor Sauders' van, we dropped our poor passport-less friend Charity off at the house of one of the students' parents. She felt terrible that we'd already missed the first play, and wanted to make sure we made the second that evening. We felt terrible to leave her behind. Nevertheless, we persevered, reaching Stratford in time to check into the hotel and eat supper at a restaurant which was unfortunately behind, causing us to just miss the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Thus we had to watch the first two scenes on the lobby TV before we were conducted up dark stairs and hallways to our balcony seats.

The play was superb. The music and lighting together were just overpowering enough to tip me into the story. Not to mention superb acting, with just a touch of modernism that made us crack up laughing. I personally find Shakespeare anything but dry on the page, yet it's amazing how it comes to life through acting. You'd almost think Shakespeare wrote plays. Towards the end, Nick Bottom was performing before Theseus and Hippolyta, and pretending to die, with repeated shouts or groans of "Die!" and appropriate jerks and collapses, while I nearly died laughing in the top row of seats. I could see Jason, Derek, even Ethan doing it. Oh, and the Wall. The Wall was very good too.

To make a very long story short, we went out for dessert, went to bed, got up and toured the Shakespeare costume warehouse, went sightseeing and shopping (including an all-important visit to the chocolate shop), and set out on the return journey, nearly drugging ourselves with sugar when we used up our Canadian change at a gas station to buy candy bars and donuts. Crossing back into the U.S., we all held our breaths and could hardly believe no one stopped us. Except we did have to declare the bamboo - "No, it's not in dirt" - why did that guy buy bamboo anyway. We picked up Charity, who treated us to personality analyses on the way back, before it got dark and someone played the Veggie Tales DVD he had bought on a laptop (I think it was the same one who bought the bamboo). Arrived back a little after 9, good time considering all the delays.

Needless to say, we all became friends after spending hours and hours together. It was an unexpectedly wonderful weekend.