roommates, train travel, and musicals - oh my!

last night i saw "a little night music" and i was in the first row.  i actually probably would not sit in the first row again, given the choice, because i'm short and the stage is tall and i couldn't see what was happening below about waist level when the characters were all the way at the back on the stage (upstage? downstage? joey, i need help with vocabulary.)  but the show was AWESOME - great music, funny lyrics, and i loved the girl who played anne, one of the main characters.  joey is totally going, "well duh," right now, but at one point in the show she cried REAL TEARS.  okay, i know actors cry real tears all the time, but she does this show every night!  she has to get worked up and cry every night!  and that is amazing to me.  i have been singing "a weekend in the country," one of the best songs, all day.  silently, of course.  i haven't been alone long enough that i'm talking outloud to myself just yet.  and being so close i got to see facial expressions and the real tears and there was no one tall in front of my to block the view.  it was very cool.

i took the train to bath today, and i'll be here through sunday, when i go to oxford.  now, connecting between big cities is easy to do on a train, but i found out today that connecting between smaller cities (when i bought my ticket for sunday's travel from bath to oxford) will be a little more difficult - i'll take the bus to didcot parkway (where ever that is), changing buses twice along the way, and then i'll take the train to oxford from this didcot parkway station.  so far travel has been very easy, so i hope that continues tomorrow, even though i'll be lugging my suitcase from bus to bus to bus to train.  sigh.  i'm trying not to think about it.  the ticket i got is pretty funny - i shows me leaving bath and arriving in oxford during "off peak" hours (apparently, that is sunday mornings) on june 28th, and the route is listed as "not reading."  i was really confused about this, but the train company has a very helpful website that explained it to me.  apparently i can take any route i want to get from bath to oxford, but i can NOT go through reading.  alrighty then.  done.  

for my two nights in london i stayed in a six person dorm room that was for women only.  i had previously thought that men were louder and somewhat less considerate (not ALL men, mind you, just some of the ones who stay in hostels.  exhibit a: the three americans from our hostel in budapest who talked at the top of their drunken voices at 5am).  for this reason, when given the option, i booked an all-women room.  i have changed my tune, ladies and gents.  the five girls i shared a room with were the loudest get-ready-in-the-morning people i have ever been around in my life.  hairdryers, messing around with loud plastic bags, going into the room with the sink and toilet (and letting the door slam) a grillion times.  both mornings it started at about 6am and continued until i wanted to get up (8:30).  and this is just annoying.  men may occasionally be loud when they come back to the hostel at night, but women are loud when getting ready in the morning.  and i have decided that THAT is more annoying.

right before jenny left, i looked at my remaining hostel reservations and said to her, "okay, 6 person room in london and 14 person room in bath.  i must be out of my [expletive deleted] mind."  14 people.  what was i thinking?  in retrospect, i think the options were 14 person room for 17 pounds a night or 2 person room for something much more expensive.  so i bit the bullet and picked the 14 person room.  after my last two nights in london i was NOT happy about twice the number of people, and thus twice the amount of noise, in my room.  when i arrived at my hostel in bath this afternoon, the guy at reception said, "you're booked in a dormitory, right?  huh.  okay, well it's your lucky day - you're in a single dormitory."  um, excuse me?  for the same price (17 pounds a night), i am in a room WHERE I AM THE ONLY PERSON.  THERE IS ONLY ONE BED.  i do not know how this happened, but i am not complaining.  the sign on the door says "leader's room," which i think means it was designed for a trip leader/camp counselor to stay in while students stayed in the three dormitories on the same floor that have 14 beds each.  and i have wireless internet.  and i'm doing my laundry.  and the temperature has dropped considerably, but it isn't raining.  and i found a cheap take-away indian restaurant where i'm going to get dinner tonight.  HEAVEN.

and bath is gorgeous.  more on that tomorrow.