(no subject)
So we went on a field trip to Ashland, Oregon, during the time of their famous Shakespeare Festival. I was told there would be hippies, but indeed, there were none.
ETA: Ben was offered weed by some guy. I guess i just repulse hippies away.
We still had to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn. Seems like I will have to compete with Stuart for taking the most pictures on this trip.
Helen was smart and brought the plan with her.
They're so cute together.
Alvey hates it when people take pictures of her. Teehee.
Did I mention the buttcrack of dawn part?
Yeah, everyone pretty much slept for the first hour or so.
Peter was looking ahead to a brighter future (I was so in the way). Or pretending to be a pirate. Arrrg.
The weather was still pretty cool which made no one happy.
But then we stopped by some quaint little town in southern Washington or northern Oregon and got some food.
We were pretty excited.
Bus driver: "You guys can eat on the bus, but be sure not to spill anything."
Yeah, okay.
We got rid of the evidence by pouring the rest of the offending liquid out the window.
After all of that excitement, we realized that we have like 7 more hours left to go.
Helen was sad.
Bez was actually being productive.
Scenery was nice though.
I think that's Mount Shasta? Then we must be near the border with California, which means that we are nearly there.
I remember when I went to the front of the bus to take that picture, Alvey said that she'd catch me if I started falling. Then she reconsidered it, and said that if it came to that, my shirt would come off.
Yeah, I see her concern.
Brooke was working the camera too.
When we got to the hotel, the pool was right next to a Mexican restaurant.
Bez: "This is probably their water source!"
So then we went and changed and came back to stand by the bus station.
But then Peter and Bez decided to join us.
Bez: "How'd you guys get on the other side?"
Us: "We... walked around?"
But that would be way too complicated.
We got too tired of waiting for the bus and just decided to walk to downtown Ashland (heehee, downtown).
(This is their high school. And the pictured parking area is all of the school's availible parking. I love Oregon.)
The scenery was pretty nice.
No comment. We didn't write it, I swear.
I think we know where J.K. Rowling found the Gryffindor mascot.
And speaking of stealing...
Who names a credit union after rogues?
Then there was a stage where musicians played pretty old-style instruments and their local ballet danced.
I think they are too fat to be in ballet, but that's just my Russian view.
And we wondered where all the chaperones on this trip disappeared to.
Pretty theatre.
Funky car.
I was too lazy to walk around and take the picture of the front of the statue.
Then we stopped for dinner.
I pretty much spent my evening lol-ing at this.
Then we went to our room (Helen + Brooke + Natalie) and were lazy.
Actually we went over to Bez + Peter + Stuart's room to hang out with all the other IB block people (Ben pasted a sign that said "the secret party is NOT here" on the neighbor's door). But apparently Alvey was looking all over for us, which included knocking on all of our doors EXCEPT for the room which we were in. So then one other girl found us and told us how Alvey was SO pissed (even though it wasn't even curfew yet, only like 11). So then we all scattered to our own rooms and waited for her to come yell at us. Like five minutes later, we find out that she was just looking for us so that we can have our lit discussion, so we ended up going back to Bez + Peter + Stuart's room to do that. Retarded.
~~~~~
The next morning, we decided to wait out for the bus.
Then we finally saw it coming.
The bus was nothing special.
This is where i expected to meet most of Ashland's hippies, or something out of the ordinary (because even the buses in Seattle have some weird-ass stuff on them), but there were only high school students who actually took public transportation to get to school (it was like 10 am). I'm jealous.
This is the theatre (the outdoor, replicated Shakespearean theatre).
We were so the last group to make it to the meeting.
Some random truck with props drove by.
I'm pimpin' those tickets like they are my hos.
More of the theatre, because we went on the backstage tour and this was basically the only time we were allowed to take pictures inside of it.
You can see them changing the scenery from the Merchant in Verona (I think) to Cyrano de Bergerac, which we would see later in the evening. It was pretty cool, because it wasn't even the opening night, it was the first preview, so we were basically the first audience they have ever played for. And they did pretty damn well. I really liked the show. We also saw A Winter's Tale earlier in the day, which has seen a lot of runs beforehand. We sat pretty close, which was amazing because we could see the facial expressions of the actors, especially when they cried. Some guy in the not-vital roles was really really hot. More on that later.
Katie said something stupid.
Bez chose a rather dramatic gesture to express his frustration on the matter. If someone animates this, I would really love them.
Then we went into a gift shop, which had some pretty cool stuff.
No, that's not a penis in my hand.
Helen was hoping to find her prince charming. NONE OF THAT.
Then we went into another restaurant. They had so many carrots it was freaking ridiculous, we couldn't possibly imagine what one would do with all of those carrots. But to be fair, there were carrots in every meal that we ordered.
Kim had me retake this picture like 5 times, and it still doesn't look that good. =[ Very bad lighting in that restaurant.
There was a headless statue outside. Pretty weird.
I lol-ed at this for a while too.
We were pretty tired after a while, so we sat and looked at the costumes.
We stopped by for ice cream a lot. But it was also really really hot, so none of that.
Then Alex attempted to do a line of raw sugar that he cut with a roll of 20-dollar bills. Only from the plateau...
We tried stuffing everyone in our group into a telephone booth, but then we realized that it didn't have a door, so Laura just posed for us.
Then we went into a shoe store.
And all the guys sat down. I almost feel bad for dragging them shopping with us so often.
But then we stopped by an antique store and tried on old military hats.
My mom wouldn't let me buy either of those because apparently I can get them for way cheaper in Russia.
Heehee, cripples. They had a sign inside that said that they discriminate against bad music, aka rap. Elitist whores.
Then we had a drawing contest at a restaurant with the waitress as the judge.
This is mine. I got frustrated and gave up.
This is Helen's, she's so creative.
This is Bez's, who got second place because it reminded the waitress of Fruit Loops. I didn't get a picture of the girl's who got first.
Then we spent quite a bit of time in a book store. Because yes, we are IB kids.
All those people are dead now.
...That's from the 80s.
Bez attempted to climb up to our rooms (which were on the second floor) but then the chaperone from the catholic prep school below us told him that it wouldn't be a good idea.
This is pretty much the only proof of hippies that I got:
Otherwise, Ashland was a pretty nice town.
Even their dark alleys were in fact light and really clean.
When we went to see our last play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, the ticket person told us to go around to get right to our seats.
At first it didn't look promising...
But then we found the gate and some random park.
It turned out to be really pretty.
And there were ducklings!
Oh god, so that really hot guy from A Winter's Tale... He was at The Two Gentlemen of Verona (that was their first preview too) and after the play we stalked him down and we got a picture.
He's in the middle, and the guy on the left played a king in a Winter's Tale.
He was like, "you did see the play, right?"
Because we get lonely at night, we pushed the beds together so we could have like a giant sleepover. The next night we found this:
We were sad but hey,we only had one more night left.
Since we had to get up at 5, we just decided to not go to bed.
So we played Truth or Dare.
Helen did an interpretive dance.
Laura confessed her love to Stuart visually.
And we shaved a strip down Bez's leg.
And then we had some more undocumented fun.
~~~~~~~
It must be said that this is probably the most Asian trip taken in history of Skyline.
le fin.