Monday
Class. Then I went to do laundry for the first time. Don't "eww Dani" me, I held off because I've been handwashing all my whites, which has worked out surprisingly well, and because it takes FOREVER to do laundry and costs a lot here (3 pounds 10p to wash and dry one load). So, clean jeans now.
Tuesday
We leave for Stratford-Upon-Avon!
Train ride across the English countryside....
I love this town. Little touches of Shakespeare are everywhere and it was nice to leave the city for a few days. Like I said to my flatmates, we've already experienced London, but now we were really visiting England.
View from our room at the bed and breakfast. It was tiny. It was cramped. It was in the attic (I called it the garret) and even though our host tried to reassure us by saying it was the quietest part of the house so we could sleep late, it wasn't at all! The church bells rang constantly, the pigeons made a racket, and we were near a school, so the laughter of children drifted around too (gross). Plus the bathroom door didn't lock and we only had one key among the four of us. These were truly ALL the cons to the trip though. Our host, Imen, was the GREATEST HOST EVER. He was determined that everyone should enjoy themselves as much as possible and seemed genuinely excited to make us feel at home. Ten seconds after we got there, someone said they were hungry, so he dropped all his gardening supplies, walked us into town, and tried to show us his favorite restaurant, but it was closed, so he took us to a fish and chips shop where he evidently knew the owner. "These are my friends and they're very hungry!" he said. "Give them a good deal and lots of food!"
Biggest portion of fish and chips I've ever seen in my life, the lid wouldn't even close. And the drinks were free! (OMG, Jamaican ginger beer, come home with me...)
Then it was off to the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway are buried. Gorgeous place, and pictures ahoy!
The man, the legend.
"Blessed be the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones"
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre! Tuesday night we saw Julius Caesar here, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was happy to get to see something, like always, but until fifteen minutes before the curtain, I wasn't terribly excited for this particular show because I don't much like Caesar and it was a nearly three hour show with no intermission. Bleh. Dull.
Then I saw a program and the set.
It was set in Africa.
It was amazing. Let me reiterate that: It. Was. Amazing. The setting made it fresh and original, the costumes were fun, the cast was spectacular. I really loved it. After, we went to a pub for a pint then home to bed.
Wednesday
Another happy day in Stratford. First thing first, breakfast. Let me begin by telling you that I was looking forward to eating breakfast since, like, I found out about this part of the trip. We were promised a full English breakfast and word got round that Imen has been training to become a professional chef in New York, so YEAH, IT WAS ON. And it totally was. We had eggs, beans, hashbrown patties, sausage, fried ham, tea, and endless slices of toast. I throughly stuffed myself and wished my stomach was bigger so I could eat more (I just realized I've said that at on at least three separate occasions this week...whatever, my skinny jeans are still loose, I'm solid). Then we walked a mile to visit Anne Hathaway's cottage and I discovered my camera had got left on and the battery had died. :( At least I had my phone.
So cute.
That woman there? The one cutting fresh flowers by the cottage? She was a tour guide, the most adorable I've ever heard. Ughhhhh, the people here are SO GREAT.
After visiting a few more important sites around town and eating lunch in the park by the theatre, we decided to rent a rowboats. That's the one I was in, the Virgilia (they're all named after female characters in Shakespeare plays. Including Opheila. Because, obviously.) And I got to row it! There are pictures of this on Facebook that I naturally couldn't take because I was busy telling everyone that they had to call me Captain, making googly-eyes at the sexy mens rowing, and rowing the boat the wrong way. Seriously, for at least 20 minutes of our half hour. I didn't even realize. It was easier that way, shut up! Definitely a highlight of the trip.
In the evening, we ate delicious korma at an Indian restaurant and saw Richard the Third, also by the RSC. Even though I was blown away by Caesar, I still wasn't convinced I was going to have fun because I didn't find the play interesting at all.
Yeah, it wasn't just great, it was super great.
It was fresh, it was engaging, it was funny! How was it so funny?! I've been trying to decide ever since which play I liked better, but either way, they were definitely my top picks for the trip. Brilliant, really brilliant.
Thursday
Best part of wakin' up is IMEN MAKING YOUR BREAKFAST. This day was even better because we had the full breakfast WITH waffles and fruit and pastry thingies and yogurt. Sheer bliss. The only downside was that breakfast was served at eight, forcing us to get up reaaaaally early and kill a few hours after, before the train left. Flatmate Jessica and I walked around town and pondered deep thoughts. Then we trained it home and spent the rest of the day napping and laying around. So here's some more Stratford photos.
The Birthplace, as they call it, the home where little Will was born. Fun fact time: did you know Shakespeare was a highly successful business man who owned a number of properties and rented them out? Or that he acted throughout his life? That Anne was pregnant when they were married, but that actually wasn't particularly scandalous at the time? That he was exceptionally lucky to even survive because he was born during a plague year? This trip is so educational.
Theatre from afar.
Players at the Birthplace performing a scene from Caesar.
Swans and geese EVERYWHERE, cheeky buggers, wouldn't leave you alone if you had food.
*Cue wistful sigh*
Friday
Class, followed by a discussion by a London study abroad alumni who offered a lot of good information about moving to London and starting a career that was of absolute no value whatsoever to non-actors. I was hungry and fidgety.
Grocery store next, then I was feeling antsy so I went shopping for a while. I hung out at Waterstones for an hour or so, which is a massive book shop (this one was only three floor, we've gone by ones that are five), and flipped through some books on tattoos and one guide on how to be a modern English gentleman (*shrug* it was just there...).
In the evening we went to see "Comedy of Errors" at the Roundhouse Theatre (out in the middle of nowhere). The set was really cool, but not practical for the stage, I could only see some of the action where I was for the first half (our director has this habit of switching seats around at intermission, including taking front row seats if no one's using him. I followed his lead to a front row seat for the second half, where I could see better, but I got splashed with water from this pond on the corner of the stage....basically exactly like Sea World). The concept was interesting too, the setting seemed to be a seedy modern city with the characters part of a rich and tacky family, but overall, it was weirdly dark, strangely forced, and worst of all, not that funny. Definitely the weakest play we've seen.
Saturday
Shakespeare walking tour around town! This was a treat because we got to see things the general public doesn't and that's always sneaky and fun. We started out at Temple, which is where every lawyer in the UK must take their bar exam and where there is an impressive order of knighthood that goes back til the fifteenth century, I believe. This is the hall where each lawyer-to-be must eat 12 meals (it's required, I DON'T KNOW EITHER).
Charles the Second!
At this church...the design was really important for influencing the construction of halls which influenced how theatres were built by Shakespeare's day because professional acting was a new profession and professional theatres were based on great halls, which were at most colleges, where actors had just finished their schooling? (I think that's right, that's why we were at the hall anyway)
Also, this church was in the Da Vinci Code for about thirty second, the main bloke suspects the Holy Grail is in this tomb:
We also visited the excavation site of the Rose theatre, which was very similar in design to the Globe (and a rival), the site were the Globe was originally, and the church Shakespeare would have attended while in London.
Not an undead demon, just Will, chillin'.
This was a cool bit of stained glass, it was directly over Will and depicts a number of bits from his plays, if you enlarge it, you can see Bottom in the upper left hand corner, Malvolio in the yellow stockings under him, Romeo and Juliet in the upper right hand, Richard the Third directly underneath with the horse, and Othello to the right of him.
Finally, FINALLY, we were free to eat! At the Borough Food Market, aka, the happiest place on earth. For reals. It's at the top of my Recommended in London list, it's open Thursday to Saturday at the London Bridge tube station, and you need to go there. This time around, I had a sizzling pork sandwich with apple sauce, cracklings, and stuffing and it was the best sandwich, um, ever. And I had some apple strudel and a ton of samples and I would have had a cheese sandwich, a pie, and a veggie burger if I had the stomach space. Ughhhh, first world problems....
Sunday
Today we woke up early to see the Thames river pageant for the Diamond Jubilee. This was a Big Deal, such an event has only ever been done once before on the river, a thousand boats with the royal family among them. Getting there, of course, was MADNESS.
There are parties in the streets everywhere and over a million people turned out to the river today. Luckily, we were able to avoid the worst it the whole time and even managed to get a pretty good spot, I could actually see the river, which is more than most people could say. Unluckily, it was freezing cold, still incredibly packed, and a two and a half hour wait. It was also pretty impossible to get pictures, but I still managed a few decent ones.
These last two make it seem a lot less exciting than it was, but allow yourself to be excited nevertheless because this red and gold boat is where the royals are! The tiny white dot in the center of the boat, just above and to the right of the man in the orange jump suit in the next shot? That's the queen. I have seen the queen, I even waved my flag at her! Just amazing, this was truly a once in a lifetime event.
The fun went downhill pretty fast after the queenspotting though, primarily because it started to rain, heavily. Most our little group tried to get back to the Globe (did I forget to mention there's a modern reconstruction of it that took over ten years to complete? It doesn't cost much to go either, just like in Shakespeare's day, and it's the site of the global Shakespeare festival, with a bunch of plays being performed in different languages by companies across the globe. The US's production was a hip-hop version of Othello I would have LOVED to go see.), but the security guards were directing people away. They had to catch a production of Hamlet. In Lithuanian. Standing room only. In the rain. For four hours. God bless them. Jessica and I motored back home, which seemed to take forever even though we didn't encounter much traffic on the tube. Most satisfying homecoming and pants-changing ever.
Now flatmates and I are watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Fin. Here's a cool shot I took of the Eye today, closest I've ever been to it.
Best Play of the Week
Still a toss-up between Jules and Rich.
Most Magical Moment of the Week
Walking by the Holy Trinity Church graveyard in the misty morning.
Sad Realization of the Week
No more breakfasts by Imen.
Another Sad Realization of the Week
Only two weeks left!!
Badass of the Week
Queen Elizabeth, for somehow managing to stand and wave for over four hours on a boat. Happy 60th, Your Majesty.
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