Submitted by Emily Toal on the 2018 winter session program in London, England sponsored by the Department of English and the Department of Theater…
Our second week in London was incredibly busy, but memorable. I am finally starting to get familiar with our area and using the tube/underground system (which is surprisingly much easier to navigate compared to the subways in Philly and NYC!). For our second week, we spent a lot of time after class exploring the city together with some sightseeing. We went to Westminster Abbey, which was a very unique experience. It is truly amazing to me how much history and culture we can appreciate just by getting the chance to walk around the inside of the Abbey and learning about the significance of even the smallest details. We spent about two hours exploring the Abbey and it is unreal to me that we had the opportunity to go inside one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country. That night, we saw our second play on our class schedule, A Christmas Carol. Even though, we happened to see this show a month after Christmas, our class really enjoyed it, and seeing this story unfold live helped us experience the message it was trying to convey. This particular version of the show was very interactive with the audience as well, which was something that made it especially unique. Our second show for the week, The Girl from the North Country, received a different reaction from the class. It was actually a show that had yet to be officially open to the public, but had received 5 star reviews from many critics. In class the next day, our discussion ended up being one of the most interesting, thought provoking conversations of the program so far, since many of our classmates challenged the positive reviews. It made the class much more interesting to have a productive conversation about the shows we see with differing opinions and views, which was what our professors intended. I am excited to experience the conversations we have after we attend all different types of shows each week.
The following weekend, a group of my classmates and I went to Amsterdam for the weekend, where we packed a great deal of sightseeing into only two days. It was interesting to see the contrast between Amsterdam and London. I noticed some differences as soon as we arrived. Many people in Amsterdam opt to bike for transportation as opposed to walking or taking public transportation, so pedestrians need to have an extra sense of awareness when crossing the street. We learned this quickly upon arriving, but it was interesting to see how quickly street etiquette can change between two countries that seem to be so close. Our group managed to learn the transportation system within a day, even when many of the street signs and bus/tram stop maps weren’t in English(we mainly took the tram between our hostel to the center of the city, and it made us feel very accomplished to learn the logistics of everything in such a short amount of time- I feel much mort independent about being able to get around in a foreign country after this weekend!). In terms of sightseeing, we managed to get to see the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh museum, take the Heineken Brewery tour, walk through the Amsterdam Cheese Museum, and take a canal tour on a boat at night. The city of Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful. I was fascinated by how we could see the water from every street we walked on. It was a crazy change of scenery from London. I feel that London is in such an ideal location where we can travel to other parts of Europe with ease during the weekends, which is perfect for a month-long program when we only have a few weekends free to do so. Even after being in Amsterdam, it was nice to come back to London and prepare for another week of class!
