The Dig

It's so bright out before I start digging that, at first, I always try to avoid it. The world is a world of distraction for she who desires to avoid her work. But it's inevitable; it's necessary. So I begin to dig, a discouraging number of blind hacks into the Rock of Pages until I finally catch a glimpse of a tiny glimmer—hope. So I dig faster, this time with more precision. I accidentally slip and my pick lands in an unexpected chapter. A shimmer of a different colour. What luck! I widen the circumference of my tunnel. As I get deeper and deeper into the rock, an array of hidden gems become known to me. I've become obsessive in my digging. The brightness that I left behind me long ago without noticing could not compare with the shimmering jewels now illuminating my mind. I can't stop. The desire for more pulses through my entire body. I feel like I'm going to explode. The ring of my pick pounds in my head nearly drowning out the unfortunate announcement: Ten minutes until the library closes.

Is research like this for everybody?

So....I have this tendency to overdramatize everything. Sometimes this plays out in my actual behavior and activities (i.e. I dance alone in abandoned fields, travel to Ireland and make an Irish couple fall in love with me, perform with my British a cappella group in Scotland and Germany, convince my apartment mates to go cliff jumping or swimming in our underwear in the ocean at midnight, etc) but sometimes my life is relatively normal so I have to overdramatize it in the way I understand it and communicate it. It's true, that opening paragraph is merely my reflection on a long night researching in the library, but you know what? It really was as cool as that paragraph makes it sound.

I'm in this really neat place at school right now where everything I'm learning and writing (or at least the things I'm dedicating most of my time to) is going towards what I want to do with my life after I graduate ["What? You've figured out what you want to do with your life?" you ask. Why yes, I have. And I'd love to chat with you about it if you want to hear more]. I'm combining all that love of learning that I've had since I was pretty little with the passion of understanding that I'm finally going to be doing something about it. I won't just have a collection of pretty facts and ideas when I'm done with this. I'll have a quiver full of arrows that will be useful as I head into battle (please excuse my excessive use of unrelated metaphors tonight. Sometimes I just think that metaphors are the only ways to get a hold of the strange plethora of worms wiggling around in my head.......ew).

Well, anyhow, I think this is going to be a short post tonight. I liked the digging metaphor that came to me while I was being sucked into the tunnel of my book at the library so I thought I'd share. Especially since I have this horrible tendency to think that I'm only supposed to write blog posts when cool stuff happens to me. Blog posts are snap shots of the thoughts and ideas and activities that constitute my life, right? And put simply, nobody takes a snap shot of a girl in an oversized college hoodie, wide-eyed and gaping at a boring-looking paperback book sitting at a little cubby in a run-of-the-mill reference room. But, you know what? Maybe they should. Because maybe it's those moments that make life feel worth-living. Maybe it's in those seemingly unglamorous moments that your life changes and your heart explodes with feelings that seep into your entire body and remind you that you're alive. Maybe every once in a while we need to put down the instagram filter and let those moments of deep experience colour themselves. Maybe, just maybe, that's what makes something #Beautiful

Whirl·wind

Whirl·wind, n
[hwurl-wind, wurl-]

 2. transf. and fig. Something rushing impetuously like a whirlwind ... a confused and tumultuous process or condition (OED).

I thought I would start this post off with a definition just so we're all on the same page when I describe this past month as a whirlwind. I thought maybe I could keep y'all updated on my Fringe adventure. A post a week? Not terribly bushy tailed, am I right? Well, obviously I didn't write any posts during our run. Why is that? you ask. Because, dear reader, because I didn't even have enough extra time nor brain power to do basic things like eat normally or sleep. So much has happened since the last time I posted that I nearly don't believe it happened. But alas, I have pictures to prove it. So for today's post I'm going to give you a whirlwind review of my past month. With pictures.

Week 1: Rehearse til you die (and brief exploring)

Oh, Ottie!

Up at 9am. Sing til lunch. Eat. Sing til dinner. Eat. Sing til midnight. Sleep. Repeat. This was week one. We sang so many songs, so many times. But I was with my girls again. And therefore all was right and good in the world.

Every once in a while we got a break, and I went exploring. I accidentally wandered here one day, to the foot of Arthur's Seat, and it was gorgeous. I could've stayed for a very long time, but naturally I had to sing more. So it was back to rehearsing. And you know what? All that rehearsing paid off.

Week 2: The Beginning of shows (and other shenanigans)

This was our lovely theatre

In the Pink, my fabulous female a cappella group, performed at 4:30pm in C Venues on Chambers Street every day for 2 weeks. And we were ridiculously awesome. Over 1,000 people came to see our shows, and we received several great views including a 5 star review from one of the big-deal newspapers that reviews Fringe shows. It was good times.

Cheers to you, Edinburgh!

To celebrate our first show, I returned to the place pictured above and climbed the ridge next to Arthur's Seat in order to watch the sunset over Edinburgh. 

          

It was kinda a little bit breathtaking.

So that was amazing, but pretty much the only time I had to explore. The rest of week 2 was consumed with Fringe-related activites.  

A particularly exciting/horrible/exhilarating/exhausting/necessary/annoying/wonderful
activity that we had to do every day was busking. Every morning, we would journey to the Royal Mile, the High Street (city centre) in Edinburgh, and fight tooth and nail (jokes) with other performers for slots on stages like the one pictured here. Once on stage, we would yell and sing and stomp and dance and try to convince the unknowing civilians passing by to stop, listen to us, take a flyer, and then come to our show at 4:30 (just around the corner!). Some days this was really fun. Other days it would rain or be freezing and it was less fun.





Thankfully, though, we would always get a nice break for lunch to relieve us of the strains of busking. Many of the days, I journeyed over to the University of Edinburgh and enjoyed lunch with my lovely friends on the grassy quad.

A moment's rest

Yum.

And with food in our bellies, we continued on.

Towards the end of week 2, we Pinkies found ourselves traveling across the street from C Venues to the National Museum of Scotland. We, along with several other companies performing at C Venues, were to present a shortened version of our shows for an audience of just about 1,000 people at a Museum After Hours event. Super cool, right? While we were at the museum doing a test run a couple days before the show, we met Nick, the chap nearly featured in this here photo, who was the manager of C Venues. He explained to us that he was still looking for a compère (i.e. MC, announcer, all that jazz) for the event and asked if we knew anyone who could do the job. I, for some reason, was not paying attention when he was explaining this to the group, but I was suddenly pulled into the conversation when my girls started pointing to me and pushing me towards Nick. I was hired! That's right, this random little American girl was the announcer for a huge Fringe event at the National Museum of SCOTLAND. Yah, that makes sense.

Actually, it didn't make any sense, but it was a blast. The night was a huge success! All the acts were fabulous and the announcer was the highlight of the evening. Ha! Jokes. But people did seem to like me. They actually clapped when I came on stage to announce things AND laughed when I made jokes. What a party! It really was so much fun. I especially loved getting to know the C Venues staff and museum staff. [Side plug, if you ever go to Edinburgh, you have to go to this museum. It's so unbelievably cool. Oh, and say hi to Craig the museum manager for me. He's my pal].

To thank me for my exceptional compèreing (ha), Nick made me an honorary CIP (VIP but at C Venues). I got to get discounts on basically everything, but the coolest part was just having an official looking lanyard to wear around the theater. Yah, I was kinda a big deal. Well, ok not really. But I did have lots of friends at the theater after the Museum night who were always excited to see me which made week three even better than week two.

Week 3: Our 5 star show had its final run (and I went to as many shows as I possibly could with my get-in-free pass)

So there was a lot that happened during week three. I went to lots of shows including several improv shows, a sketch comedy show, a musical about Latin American prison-mates, and a show of all swing music by none other than the Rat Pack (the impersonators were actually pretty convincing), just to name a few. It was really fun to go to shows, but it was also just so much fun to be with my girls all the time. We had house parties and went out to get drinks together and sometimes just sat on the floor in the corner of C Venues bar, but no matter what we were doing, whenever we were together, I never wanted to be anywhere else. 

The last few days went by way too fast. I had one last day of accidental exploring (I was trying to find a show... then I found the castle. Oops?) 

I saw a cool guitar player and snapped a picture of this adorable kid watching him so intently.

And then finally it was our last day. Last day busking on the Mile. Our last show in Edinburgh. We went crazy. We dressed up from head to toe in pink and danced up and down the Mile like fools trying to get people to come. I regrettably do not have any good pictures of our entire ensembles, but trust me when I say we were magnificent.

Ottie rockin that flyering! "Looking
for a show to go to this afternoon?"

Our final show was amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better way to end our run. We had such a full, engaging audience and we were all on the top of our game (despite the fact that we had lost 2 members since the beginning of our run and multiple girls had been losing their voices). It all came together in that moment of brilliance, and I wouldn't trade that feeling I experienced at the end of our show for anything in the world. As I held the hands of the girls next to me and they held the hands next to them and we took our final bow, together, I knew in that moment a depth of happiness that nearly made my heart burst. Sounds incredible, right? Oh but wait, it's not finished yet.

Week 3.5 When we flew to Berlin, performed in a German music festival, and received the biggest standing ovation(s) ever

So, yah. Our last show in Edinburgh was on a Friday. We had a house party and went out dancing on Friday night. Saturday morning we woke up and flew to Berlin. (Nbd). In Berlin, we were picked up in the airport by a few of the festival staff. They drove us directly to the site of Chor Open Stage Air Festival, the huge all day music festival for which we were headlining. That's right. We weren't just performing, we were HEADLINING. As in, we were actually a big deal, the grand finale, if you will.

They set us up in a nice big room with a lofted bed and magical couch and a shower where we could relax and prepare ourselves for the evening. We waited out the day, eating sausages and listening to other German music groups. It was wonderful.

Then the time came for which everyone had been waiting for all day: it was time for us to perform. When we came on stage, there erupted a thunderous applause from the hundreds and hundreds of unbelievably enthusiastic audience members. We had to wait minutes between each of our songs until the people would stop clapping. That doesn't seem like a very long time, but the average clap between songs usually lasts about 20 seconds, if that. We had to wait several minutes between every single song! And when I got up to give a little speech (to an audience of Germans. Of whom maybe half actually understood me), they laughed so enthusiastically and clapped so hard you'd think I was announcing that they won the lottery. I was blown away by their reception of us. I had so much fun that night.




And it doesn't even end there! The next day we woke up for a quick rehearsal during which we learned a new song that we would be preforming that afternoon with a German a cappella group called CrossOver. We were met at the train station by Sven, the group's conductor who was to lead us to the place of the concert. We arrived just a little after lunch to a hall bustling with enthusiastic singers who were eager to feed us from the bountiful table covered in cakes and biscuits. Once again, we were treated as the guests of honor. Once we had had our fill of sweets, both groups joined on stage to warm up and rehearse together.

We kinda had a lot of fun.... like, so much fun.

Before we knew it, the audience was pouring in and it was time to begin. CrossOver, fearlessly led by Sven in his red, red suit, led the charge and we brought up the rear. The whole thing was a massive success. The audience asked for two encores and we nearly gave them another since they were clapping for so long.

However, it was eventually time to be on our way. After a few drinks with some of the CrossOver singers, we made our way back to the train station so we could prepare for a night out to celebrate one of the girl's birthday.








On the train back, we all sat in the end of a car and improvised some a cappella arrangements (yah, we're that cool). Some of our fellow train riders seemed to enjoy the debacle we were making of ourselves... some others just moved away from us... But it was so much fun. And even though I killed my vocal chords on that ride, I wouldn't have changed a second of it.

Sven gave us one last little talk about getting together and singing more (ha...no. That wasn't going to happen) and then he hopped off the train a few stops before us. Bye, Sven! He was fabulous, and maybe a little bit insane.

Once back to the hostel, we dressed up all snazzy-like and headed out for a night on the town... but mostly we headed out to find a tapas restaurant. I'm pretty sure the girls were always hungry. Like always. We finally found the place after an unfortunate run-in with a biker (I don't have very good luck when it comes to bikers) and the dinner was worth the wait!









The food was almost as good as the company!

The rest of the night was a party. We attempted to sneak our way into a 21+ club with a bunch of random guys that one of the girls knew from Oxford, got rejected, then wandered the streets of Berlin until we finally found a club that would take us. Besides having to fight some random kid that was messing with my friend, the night was splendid. We danced and danced the night away, literally. It was 4 am before I made it back to our hostel and I had to leave for the airport by 5am. You can sleep when you're dead right?

It was such a crazy few days, I didn't even have time to cry my eyes out when saying good-bye to my girls. Before I knew it, my bags were packed and I was in the lobby saying good-bye to our lovely hostel and the very kind kid behind the desk (we became friends while I was waiting for my cab). And just like that, I headed out towards the airport, of course, also becoming friends with my cab driver. Gosh, I just loved Berlin.



So, that's kinda my trip in a semi-large nutshell. Lots of other things happened during my trip. Too many for me to write about in detail, but if you want to know more about fun things I did, just ask me. We can get lunch and chat! And if you live in a place other than Wenham, Massachusetts, we can have a tea date over Skype. (But actually). I'm still not entirely sure that this all happened, but I'm back at college now so I don't have time to sit around and ponder the reality of the last couple weeks. Instead I'm just going to be so grateful, even if it wasn't real, for the greatest dream I ever could have imagined. 

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt