Busy as a bumble bee!

Sorry it's been a few days since I've updated my blog. We've been really busy the last couple of days and by the time I get back to the dorm i'm just too tired and head straight to bed. So here's a quick run down of the past couple of days.

Monday, July 11

The Tomb of Shakespeare

 I honestly felt like the majority of our day was spent on the bus, first to Stonehenge and then to Stratford-upon-Avon. The bus picked us up around mid morning and we headed off to Stonehenge for a brief photo op. I was really sad when we got there because my camera wasn't working and for some strange reason it wasn't letting me take any pictures with the memory card so I had to save them on the actual camera only to find out that I didn't have the cord to upload them. Once we got back on the bus I started to fiddle around with the camera to try and find out what was wrong with it and then whala I realized that the memory card was set to Lock and that was what was causing all the problems. After I moved the little switch over it started to work just perfectly.We continued on our Journey to Stratford, the Birth of Shakespeare, and I tried to take a quick nap but that didn't work too well. We were suppose to get to Stratford by 2:30 so that we would have plenty of time to stop by the Holy trinity church, Shakespeares' Birth place as well as Anne Hathaway's house all before our tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Unfortanetly we didn't arrive until 4:30 and had to make a quick stop by the Church where Shakespeare and his wife Anne are buried and were given the option of either going on the RSC tour or the tour of Shakespeare's birthplace. I thought that I'd finish with plenty of time to do both but I didn't I was only able to go on the RSC tour. The tour was nice and quite enjoyable. After the tour I had 30 minutes before The Merchant of Venice and decided to grab a quick bite to eat. McDonalds was just around the corner and since they specialize in Fast food I figured that would be my best option. Yep, the food definitely did not taste like the food in America. It was quite flavorless and gross. Needless to say i'm going to make sure to stay away from any big fast food chains and stick to the little mom and pop places and the pubs. I headed back to the RSC for the show and made it just in time. I felt like the show for that evening was alright. I liked the concept of taking Shakespeare and contemporizing it, and I give props to the director for sticking to his concept, but I felt like it was a little overkill. I wasn't a big fan of the stereotypical American's or the Elvis who sang like every 5 minutes. To be honest for it being a RSC production I expected a lot more from them and I felt like they just didn't deliver. One good thing was that I got to see Patrick Stewart on stage and thought he was brilliant. After the play was over I headed back to the bus for the ride back to the dorms, hoping that this time it didn't take 5 hours when it should have only taken 2.

Tuesday, July 12

Outside area of the NT

On Tuesday we had the morning off to do as we pleased and then we were to meet up in the middle of Trafalagar's square so we could walk as a group to the National Theatre for a tour of their facilities. Well Sara and I were exhausted from the trip the day before and decided to sleep in until about 11. After we both got ready we headed over to Primark because Sara needed to buy some leggings. Let's just say we left with more than we expected (including 15 pairs of leggings, 2 pairs of matching slippers, and hand sanitizer) and spent way more time in there than we anticipated. After we finally left Primark we headed to the National Gallery to work on our projects but only had about and hours time to do so. When our time was up we headed to our meeting grounds and walked as a group over to the National theatre. I really enjoyed the tour of the NT because they were really the only ones who gave us a look at their actual backstage area. We saw the costume area, passed by the dressing rooms, and were able to see some of the props in action (one of the horses from War Horse). After the tour we attended a performance of Emperor and Galilean, which was very complex but still very interesting. One thing I absolutely loved about it was the set design, it was so intricate and was used in so many different ways that it completely blew my mind.  Overall it was a pretty good day.

Wednesday, July 13

View of the Abbey from the Courtyard

We had another tour on Wednesday but this time instead of a theater it was of Westminster Abbey. We met back up with Ingrid, the lady who gave us our very first guided tour here of London. Words cannot explain how amazingly beautiful the church was on the inside. The fact that they have been able to preserve so much of its' history there is mind boggling. On our tour we were able to see the actual coronation chair that has been used for all of the Royal Coronations going back all the way to 1300 and was even used for the current Queen's coronation's and they plan on using it for many more to come. We also saw the tombs of many of the past Monarchs, the area where the Royal wedding took place as well as poet's corner where many famous poets are buried. I also saw where Charles Darwin and Sir Issac Newton were buried which I thought was really cool. One of the most touching tombs we visited was the Tomb of the Unknown Solider which is actually the only tomb in the Abbey that you are not allowed to walk on. One thing about the Abbey is that during the day it is still a working church meaning that while we were on our tour we had to stop and remian silent while a daily prayer was said on the hour. Ingrid was amazing as usual and had loads of information for us on the tour. After the tour was done we were free to explore until the show at 7:45. Sara and I were really hungry and decided to join Alison for a tasty meal at a pub down the street (they really have good food). When lunch was over Sara and I decided to go looking for this Venetian Mask store that I had found online, since I was trying to be a good sister. I didn't know much about this store since I had only briefly looked at it but I knew which tube station we needed to get off but as far as remebering the address I wasn't so sure about. We still decided to go and try our luck since we had quite a long time before we needed to be at the Open Air theater. When we got to Old street station, the area we were in was not what we had expected. It was quite shabby compared to all the places we had been to and we didn't feel as safe there as we normally had in London. By this time I had remembered that the place was on Tabernacle street and so we headed that way to look up and down the street for the store. Since Sara is bad with directions, I was given the task of finding our destination, but to be honest it was like the blind leading the blind and we ended up lost. After asking several times about the store no one seemed to know what we were taking about so we left Tabernacle street and headed back to the dorms for a bit. Getting back wasn't so hard since we just retraced our steps. We relaxed for a bit at our dorm before setting off to find Regent's Park for our first Open air theater experience. We left about an our before our scheduled class meeting time to make sure we had plenty of time to get there. What we hadn't taken into consideration was the fact that it would be packed with people just getting off of work. The tube line was a little packed but nothing we hadn't dealt with before. Once we were on the tube we kept stopping in the middle of the tunnels to let other stations catch up so there wouldn't be a long break between tubes, and at one point we were stopped for 5 minutes. These unexpected pauses caused us to loose a lot of time. We eventually made it to baker street station and headed out to find the theater. As we walked out of the station there is a sign that points left for Madam Tussauds and right for Regent's Park. Since I was leading us to the place I went right because I knew I was looking for Regent's park. After about 15 minutes of walking and not seeing anything that looked like a park I stopped and asked a local women and she told us we were heading in the completly opposite direction from the park. She let us know that the sign we followed causes confusion quite often because it leads to Regent's Park street and not the actual Regent's Park. By this time we were already suppose to have been there but were running late and hurried back the way we were suppose to have gone. We eventually made it to the Park, which was gorgeous, and were only about 25 minutes late for class. The good thing was we made it before The Beggar's Opera had started. We grabbed some dinner from the theater and took our seats. The Beggar's Opera  was probably one of the most enjoyable plays that I have seen since I've been it. It had great moments and really had me laughing the whole time. Besides the two minor detors we took today, it wasn't that bad of a day.





 

Sara and myself with our matching slippers