Vanessa, Sammy, and I took a train up to Stratford on Friday afternoon and got in to the town with just enough time to check into the group's hostel and head to dinner.
This was our B&B. The woman who owned the house cooked us a full British Breakfast every morning -- that's poached eggs, bacon (which is more like Canadian bacon than the regular kind), roasted tomatoes, and baked beans. I was a bit wary of it at first, but it was actually quite delicious. =)
That evening we met up with all the USC students for a group dinner. One of the best things about USC trips is that they're meant to be "free" to us, so USC covers everything. That means that we get to eat at a nice restaurant and order whatever we'd like! Hooray! I've been eating pretty cheaply as of late (it gives me more money to travel with), so I definitely got a fillet mignon, some red wine, and a delicious slice of chocolate mousse cake for dessert. YUM.
After dinner, a group of us went to a Weatherspoons and hung out. The town was pretty quiet, it seemed like there was only one pub open and very few people were out on the streets. It was pretty fun though and when we went to bed that night it definitely felt like a sleepover, haha.
The next morning, Vanessa and I got backstage tickets to The Courtyard Theatre, where our show was going to be played.
The theatre itself was tiny, but very intimate. It featured what's called a "thrust" stage, which means that the audience is on 3 sides of the stage. Our tour guide told us some of the history of the theatre (it started out as a tin shack!) and we were able to walk around backstage a bit and take a look at the props. They also let us wander around the stage itself, which was really cool. I really enjoyed the guide's stories about stage blood (there was some splattered on one of the walls backstage). I think it'd be fun to bags of it under my clothes and stage fights with my friends to get reactions out of strangers... hehehe.
We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, but I was sneaky. This is a closeup of one of the props they had -- it was supposed to be a dead body on the island. I thought it was neat that the teeth were made out of tiny shells.
I love this picture, haha! It was very windy, which explains my glorious hair. ;)
Vanessa and I met up with everyone else from USC and took a walking tour of Stratford. Most of the things we saw had something to do with Shakespeare. We saw where he was born and baptized, where he lived and was buried, his secondary school, and various places where he was said to write. It made me wonder -- wouldn't most people find it strange and a bit creepy to find out that 100s of years later, people make pilgrimages to the places they've been? Moving on...
This is the Church of the Holy Trinity (better known as "Shakespeare's Church"), where Shakespeare was baptized and buried.
Once we were inside, we got to see Shakespeare's grave! The man who was in here speaking about it was crazy... he spoke very slowly, but in a mystical kind of way. It was pretty funny because he was difficult to understand. The church had copies of the actual records of Shakespeare's baptism and burial on display.
Our group walk ended at Shakespeare's birthplace. I took a tour of the inside, but they wouldn't allow pictures. The house was pretty small, but we were told that it was large for its day. It had a room for his father's glove business and they set it up to include sample gloves. Shakespeare was probably born in one of the rooms upstairs. One of the coolest parts of Shakespeare's birthplace was the museum upstairs where they had taken down some of the windows from earlier periods when the house was being shown. There are signatures and dates scratched onto them and you can pick out other famous writers and politicians who visited.
After Shakespeare's birthplace, we wandered around Stratford a bit until it was time to meet for dinner. There were some great giftshops around town selling all sorts of touristy Shakespeare things. One of my favorite souvenirs is an eraser that says "Out, damned spot!" on it. =)
While looking around, I chanced upon an amazing find: the complete works of Shakespeare -- illustrated. The best part? It was pretty cheap, too! =) I was really happy with myself. I have absolutely no idea how to get it home (the current plan is to ship it or have my mom take it home with her when she visits... it's between 5 and 10 pounds).
Dinner was delicious! Sammy and I got exciting cocktails and I ended up having duck for dinner and a blackcurrant tart for dessert. On a side note, the English love their blackcurrants -- there's no grape jelly in any of the stores in London, only blackcurrant.
After dinner, we went back to the Courtyard Theatre to see The Tempest. The Royal Shakespeare Company paried up with the University of South Africa for this rendition of the play, and the result was fantastic. They put an African spin on it, which was pretty interesting. I had read the play in high school and loved it, so it was really great to see it live. They had a lot of African music and I think the tribal feel to it helped make Ariel's character (and Prospero's magic) more believable. Also, the actor who played Ferdinand was really handsome and performed one of the scenes shirtless, which I appreciated. Yum. =) hahaha!
When the play was over, most of us went to a pub called the Dirty Duck (renamed from the Black Swan) for a few drinks. It was overpriced, so we ended up just sitting outside an talking for a few hours before going back to the B&B. Most of the actors came to the pub because it was their last performance and all of the girls jokingly made a big deal about Ferdinand being there ("I have to *cough* use the restroom... Anyone want to come with me? It's right across from the private room in the back...").
The next morning, Vanessa and I decided to stay for a bit before heading back to London so we could see Anne Hathaway's cottage.
Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. They married when she was 28 and he was 19, which made me giggle. The cottage itself was beautiful! I would have loved to see it in the spring when the gardens were in full bloom. Again, we were told that the cottage was pretty large for its day (and was built onto in the years that followed), but I think that if the rooms hadn't been built in miniature, it wouldn't have seemed as tiny. I had to duck to get through doorways! Also, some of the floors weren't on the same level, so it felt like you would have to go up a step to get to another room in the house, which I thought was pretty funny. The cottage was very quaint and I'm really glad we went. =)
Before we took a train back to London, Vanessa and I stopped for lunch at a corner pub in the town called the Old Thatch Tavern. They were having a special featuring the British traditional Sunday roast, so both of us got that. What an enormous amount of food! They filled my plate to the brim with beef, pork, vegetables, yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and lots of gravy. It was SO delicious!
And so with high spirits and full tummies, Vanessa and I ended our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and came back to lovely East End! What a wonderful trip!
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