Vacation Numero Dos 2010

The 2nd leg of vacation 2010 began the day after we landed in SFO. We drove up to Ashland OR with my mom to meet NWB’s parents for our annual Shakespeare festival trip. Due to some strong differences of opinion, we did not all attend the same plays. The first night, everyone (except NWB, who saw Hamlet by himself, so stubborn is he with his Shakespeare choices) saw Twelfth Night. After last year’s boring Henry VIII (which should have been good, right?), I decided to never again see another of Shakespeare’s historical plays. So the second night, my mother and I opted for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, while the B-Y’s saw Henry IV. The last evening of our trip, we all went to The Merchant of Venice.



Twelfth Night was good with lots of the cross-dressing and confusion that one could reasonably expect from Shakespeare. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was excellent—there’s nothing like Southern familial dysfunction and a peek into the inner workings of a dying relationship to set your mind on fire! The Merchant of Venice confused me. I’ve heard that it’s anti-Semitic in that it makes the Jew (Merchant) look like a bad, selfish character. When I saw the play, however, I found the Jew to be the most sympathetic character. It was heartbreaking to see the disdain and mockery the characters had for the Jew. In the end, when the Jew is convicted in court, they sentence him to religious conversion! It’s the ultimate sadistic act! I mean, to make someone verbally renounce their entire belief system?--100% degrading.

It was a fantastic play, and then I read that Al Pacino played the Jew in New York’s Shakespeare in the park, which seemed a bit unfair.


We got lucky, though, in that we happened to be attending a play on the 75th anniversary of the festival. Everyone got free cupcakes!


I will reiterate my thoughts from my first visit to Ashland and ask you this: why are there not more young, hip people there? Cupcakes? Plays? Liberal Ashland? Lots of potential nature trips?

Because the plays are at night and there’s only so much shopping and eating that one family can do in three days, we decided to go river rafting one day. We picked out the “senior float trip”, and it was very fun. So fun, in fact that NWB and I went back during vacation 4 and did a more advanced float. I think we’ve found our out-of-doors activity of choice!