The Bard, The Legend, The Shopping: Stratford-upon-Avon

Ladies and gentlemen - The last of my November travels.

The weekend after Thanksgiving (which I did celebrate, my friends... just a week late), I once again boarded a lovely National Express coach to travel the highways of the UK. My destination: Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare.

The town of Stratford, in addition to attempting to conserve the bard's houses and housing his grave in the Trinity Church, is apparently a small-town shopping mecca for the Midlands. 'Tis a quaint ol' place, full of boutiques and chain-stores, pubs and cafes, hair salons, toy shops, electronic stores, souvenir shops, Christmas stores, travel agencies... need I go on? For my Michigan readers, think Downtown Plymouth tripled. For my Ohio followers, think Medina doubled. That'll give you a pretty good idea of the place.

My main motivation for visiting Stratford was, of course, the theatre. That Friday evening I attended a new production called 'The Heart of Robin Hood' at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The show was entertaining - pretty family-friendly, lots of humor, etc. Nothing completely new on the Robin-Hood-legend front, except that the production focused on Marian, who becomes a good outlaw and teaches the thug Robin Hood the error of his ways. They did add a new character I liked a lot though - Marian's prissy French manservant, Pierre. I enjoyed myself and the theatre itself was amazing - an indoor version of the Globe... with real, padded seats (thank goodness!).

I also fulfilled the requisite visits for a literary pilgrim. A slightly over-priced pass got me into three of Shakespeare's residences in the town. Did I say three? I mean two of his residences and one museum in the building next door where his final house (now demolished) once stood. C'est la vie. The exhibit and birthplace of Shakespeare are pretty sweet though, and I actually learned a thing or two there.

The problem about my visit to Stratford was that it was too long for a broke college student by herself. After seeing all the Shakespeare sites, I still had hours before my coach back to London Saturday night. So I did what everyone else in Stratford was doing: I shopped. Bad news. I do have a nice new overnight bag and some delicious luxury white hot chocolate though. But even shopping couldn't keep me amused for that long. I ended up at this tiny little Italian cafe, attempting to read over a cup of coffee. The waiter convinced me that I needed a crepe too as I sat there for a few hours. Lucky for him, it was a good crepe.

Shakespeare Monument on the river Avon

Avon

Royal Shakespeare Co. Theatre

Hall Croft, the home of Shakespeare's eldest daughter and her husband. Will resided with them for a time.

The Bard's grave in Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon

The town decorated for Christmas. Notice all the shoppers.

Coffee and a yummy crepe.

Christmas lights!

At Shakespeare's birthplace.

So ends my final weekend of mayhem in the month of November. Here are some things I have learned:

-Hostels - not as bad as people hint they are, but then again, I've been pretty lucky.

-Food = expensive. Coffee = less expensive. When broke, drink coffee for that third meal of the day.

-Traveling alone - this is very tricky. Some of my solo experiences were amazing (Laugharne in Wales, St. Andrews in Scotland), while others brought me to the verge of tears when I had no one to sympathize with me (Swansea in Wales, almost Stratford). Places of natural beauty and an energetic local character were wonderful to see alone - I liked being able to just enjoy myself without worrying about what anyone else wanted or thought. Places filled with shoppers and, in the case of Swansea, appalling weather were not good - I got very lonely and bored once I had finished seeing and doing what I wanted. Part of the joy of travelling is companionship and sharing those travels (mishaps and high points alike) with someone.

-Christmas markets MAKE you spend money. Seriously. They advertise these amazing deals that you cannot refuse.

-Waterstones bookstores are everywhere. Foyles is not.

-I love London. It has Foyles. And friends. And church. All great, amazing things.

Well, that is all for my crazy month, folks. These first two weeks of December are dedicated to schoolwork (lots of essays to start and finish), friends, and Christmas in London. My grandmother is coming a week from Friday (YAY!) to stay with me for three weeks and my travels will commence again at that time. In the meantime, when I am avoiding homework, I may do a few posts that I've been meaning to do about more ordinary things like classes, church, etc.

Two Weekends in London - Friends, Literature, and Food.

I've fallen horribly behind on keeping this up to date, but I intend to remedy the situation. Life has been BUSY and will only be getting more busy from here on out, so apologies for future failures in posting in a timely fashion.

I'll begin with two weekends ago (21 October).

Friday - Afternoon spent at the Imperial War Musuem, which is HUGE. There's so much to see in this musuem; I was there about 3 hours and barely saw half of it, I think. There's a wing on WWI, a wing on WWII, an exhibit on the Holocaust, a gallery on London for Children during the Blitz, an exhibit on General Montgomery, and a special exhibit on Intelligence Agencies in Britain (MI5, MI6, etc.). Each exhibit had displays full of photographs, uniforms, weapons, documents of various sorts, medals, and lengthy descriptions of the artifacts. It was overwhelming to try to take in everything. Luckily, the IWM is free, so I'll definitely head back there at some future date - hopefully when Dad and Eric are here to visit!

In front of the IWM

The Lobby of the IWM - A boy's paradise.

The weekend of 21-23 October was also the Bloomsbury Festival, which is a literary festival held in the Bloomsbury area of London (Russell Square to be precise). There were events all weekend long, but I only made it to a handful. On Friday night, my friend Shana and I went down to Russell Square for the opening of the festival - the Lantern Parade.

Russell Square

Lanterns in the Square

Drums at the Lantern Parade

Shana Graff and I at the Lantern Parade

Hundreds of schoolchildren from the area make the lanterns and then parade around the Square. It wasn't quite the epic event I had imagined, but it was a neat atmosphere and I had a cup of very delicious (but very strong) mulled wine. Overall, a nice night out.

On Saturday, 22 October, I headed to Greenwich Market and Park with a group of friends from Tower Hamlets Community Church. I got a bit lost on the way there, which was interesting. To cross the Thames, I took the foot tunnel under the river - quite a scary experience. It did give me some idea of just how wide the Thames is, though I hated to think about walking under it...

The foot tunnel under the Thames

Two things. 1. So many stairs. Counting the landings for me = not helpful or encouraging. 2. 'Blasting'?!!!! WHAT?! Very terrifying.

Anyways, after the ordeal of the tunnel, I finally met up with the group. We grabbed some lunch from Greenwich market, which is a really nice market held in a lovely area of London. The food was DELICIOUS. I went for a Mediterranean wrap with lamb and spices and veggies. Yum. We had a little picnic in the grassy area near the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich before heading to the gorgeous Greenwich Park. At the top of the hill in the park, I got to straddle the Meridian line (wooo whoo, big moment) and take the cheesiest tourist photo ever. The group of us then spent some time at the Tea Pavilion, drinking coffee and tea and playing silly games. It was nice to just hang out with friends and enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

Straddling the Meridian line. Two time zones at once.

View of London from the hill at Greenwich Park

Lovely fall day in Greenwich Park

I left the group a bit early to head to an evening event for the Bloomsbury Festival. I saw "The Bloomsbury Foursome" - a group of four poets who did readings from their works. The performance was free and was enjoyable. One of the poets (Bob Goody) was particularly amusing, though the subject matter of his poems was... special... inappropriate... anatomical... yeah. The musician who played a set as part of the reading was my favorite part though. Be sure to look out for L.A. Salami in the future - he's got quite a voice and a real talent for songwriting. His song "She Ran" was perfect.

On Sunday, 23 October, I went to church - twice. First to THCC in the morning, then to Hillsong London in the evening. Hillsong had AMAZING worship - obviously, they're HILLSONG. It was wonderful to see so many people come together to worship with such energy and excitement.

Last week Monday, I continued in the literary vein and attended a talk by writer Sebastian Faulks, the author of novels such as Birdsong and Devil May Care (the latest James Bond novel). Faulks talked about writing - his process, how he forms characters, what he thinks is important for inventors of tales, research, etc. It was fascinating and inspiring. The event was hosted by the Royal Society of Literature and held at King's Place near King's Cross. After the event, I met up with friends to celebrate a birthday. We had some  fish and chips and drinks at the Glassblower Pub on Oxford Street to end the evening.

Fish and chips! And a gin and tonic! Yummm.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet - Tuesday night dinner and study with THCC small group, Wednesday student bible study and a nice Skype date with the grandparents.

And then Thursday, I left for a weekend holiday in Swansea, Wales. But that's for another post.