Catching up! Thursday 7/26

Sorry for skipping wednesday, nothing too significant to note happened...I went to school, came home to my flat, got dinner with people on my trip and met up with a friend from home for drinks...

I woke up Thursday morning with a terrible migraine. I choked down a muffin and a large coffee from Cafe Nero (my FAVORITE coffee place right around the corner from my flat) and went to Marylebone station to meet up with my class. Instead of the typical classroom setting, we went to the birthplace of Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon. Our train left around 9am and even though I fully planned on sleeping on the train, I ended up sitting with my friends and enjoying the views of the English countryside as we moved toward our destination. When we got to Stratford-Upon-Avon we went right to the birthplace of Shakespeare. It was a decently sized house, the most notable thing about it was that the floors that we walked on were the original floors that were in the house while Shakespeare's family was living there. We got to walk around the few rooms that were available for touring. I think my favorite part was the guestbook room because so many famous people including: John Adams & Thomas Jefferson, Princess Diana, The Obamas, and Queen Elizabeth had visited the house since it became available to the public. (I was most mesmerized by the first two...two future presidents traveling to London together to go visit the place I just got to tour as well?? Unreal!) After the house tour, we went outside in the garden where some people in costume were acting out scenes from Romeo and Juliet as well as some of Shakespeare's other plays. We then had some time to explore the giftshop ( I may or may not have picked up a few nerdy Shakespeare goodies for my house at school next year...) and walk around the small touristy town.
Shortly after we headed to the Royal Shakespeare Company's theater to see "Twelfth Night" another play of mistaken identities which had the same actors as "A Comedy of Errors" which we saw earlier in the summer. Our seats for the play were so odd, they were up off the ground and we were looking down at the stage so we could only see the tops of the actors' heads!!
After the play we were given money and found a "tea-room" to eat dinner at! It was actually pretty good, I had chicken and chips which was essentially chicken nuggets, yum.
After dinner, we headed back to the train station and went home- another 2 hour train ride back!

Back of Shakespeare's house!

my name in the guestbook at Shakespeare's house!