Cry of the Cynical Romantic

I love Chekhov.I love Victorian romances.
Oops.

Inevitiable

Here in London, 4895 miles from Provo, our flat has acquired a classic couchboy from Draper, Utah. He just finished telling a mission story about how his companion didn't speak English and how Mexican people are crazy.

Wild- and Domesticlife of the West Midlands

Wild rose in the countryside outside Clifford Chambers, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Open wild rose
Black sheep at Mary Arden and Palmer's Farm, Wilmcote
Very fat and proud rooster in WilmcoteMother Goose in WilmcoteWild BYU coeds at Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, WarwickshireView from the eel trap at Warwick Castle, Castle Hill, Warwick
Wildlife in the Warwick Castle ZooVery reputable-looking jeweller in Stratford-upon-Avon

Going mad at Oxford

NO8DO

During the thirteenth century, King Alfonso X's son Don Sancho led a revolt against his father. Sevilla remained loyal to the king. Of the city, Alfonso said, "No me ha dejado." Now, around Sevilla is written NO8DO, the 8 representing a skein of wool, madeja in Spanish. Read it aloud: "No madeja-do."

A Walk in the Country

Well-hydrated roomies
Reflections on Blackfriar's station
London suburbs flying by
Barred into the castle
Norman ruins
Celtic cross in the churchyard of a Gothic church
Old Gothic church
Madonna and child
The green gorgeousness almost became passé after we saw so much of it
Behind Shoreham church
Sheep
A hairy cow
Stream in Eynsford
Rape blossoms (from which canola oil is made)

Yesterday a gigantic group including my programme, all three programmes from the BYU London Centre, and a few people from a nearby stake took a train to Shoreham, Kent, and then walked through the Sevenoaks district. We saw several small towns (Eynsford, Lullingstone) and a lot of devastatingly beautiful countryside.

Buckingham Palace

Today we saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. In the middle of the half-hour long, solemn spectacle, the band of beefeaters played a medley of all the songs from Grease—proving that the English can never be completely serious about anything.

The National Theatre

A Matter of Life and Death—how do I describe it? A deconstructed musical about war, true love, and death featuring smoking nurses on bicycles, a burning bed, a flying dead Norwegian magician, a camera obscura, heavenly bureaucracy, and English fog in which the ending was decided by the flip of a coin (the ending is different on different nights depending on that coin toss). I was a little tramatized by the ending (we saw the "sad" ending), so I ended up drowning my grief in Cherry Garcia ice cream.
However, I have a lot to think about. The play gave us hope by showing that death is not a terrible thing. At the same time, the randomness and futility and pointless deaths of war are cause for despair.
The Reporter is an exploration of why star BBC coorespondent James Mossman killed himself. I was disappointed in the actor who played Louis, but otherwise I am again experiencing catharsis. Does our "real self" lie somewhere beneath the layers of deception that we take on, or are the layers what we really are?