I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it.

~ Shakespeare, As You Like It

This pretty much describes my feelings about Shakespeare land. :)

Friday
We caught our train to Stratford-Upon-Avon in the late morning and got into the station after lunch. After dropping our bags off at our respective Bed & Breakfasts (we had to have four between all of us!), we all went to Trinity Church and saw the Bard's grave. (Some people thought is was a bit anticlimactic--and the atmosphere was a bit subdued--but I still thought it was surreal to be in the actual church that he attended and at the site of his last resting place. Crazy! Then we trekked over to the Shakespeare Center and his Birthplace. We saw an exhibition about him (which didn't say much new, but was still fairly interesting). And we saw the house he was born in and the garden around it (gardens are a big deal here). Before we went in and after we came out of the house we saw these three actors (two men, one women) performing Shakespeare scenes (one of them looked a lot like Eric from Much Ado!). They were good and very entertaining. I was proud that I could pick out what plays all the scenes were from. :) Then we got to do what we wanted until the show that night. A few of us headed over to see Nash's house and New Place. Thomas Nash married Shakespeare's granddaughter Elizabeth Hall. Nash's House can be toured, but it is also how you have access to the foundations of New Place (which was the house Shakespeare retired to). Unfortunately, due to several incidents (the last of which being a tax issue), the last owner of New Place had it leveled! AAAAAAHHHHH!!! Needless to say, Stratfordian's were outraged and ran the man out of town. But the deed was done and now we can only see the foundation of Shakespeare's last house and visit the garden around it. (Oh, and Nash's house had a couple cool extra things to see. One was this quiz game--that I totally dominated--and the other was this wall poster that had a picture of every prop you would need to perform the entire works of William Shakespeare. So cool!) After that we went to the Rose & Crown for some inexpensive pub food. Then we went down to the river Avon and walked around and took pictures. We found a cool monument with a large statue of Shakespeare in the center and four smaller ones of characters from his plays at the corners (they had Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal, and Falstaff--I'm not sure why Henry IV got to double dip, but maybe they were thinking of the Merry Wives of Windsor). We took lots of pictures there, too.

The grave.

At the Birthplace.

I love Shakespeare! :)

Then we headed off to the theatre. We saw As You Like It performed by the RSC at The Courtyard Theatre. It was an interesting production. I liked it. It had three actors who had also been in the King Lear that our class liked so much. At first I was taken aback by their interpretation of the forest of Arden--they set it in winter and made it a lot harsher than I'm used to. But I got used to it. It was also interesting to see them perform in that space. It was a very long thrust stage, so they had people almost all around them. We were in the front row (on one of the sides). It was a fun time. After the show we headed over to this pub next to the theatre. Actually, I'm not sure if it was one pub or two, because it had two sides with two different names: The Black Swan and The Dirty Duck. It's where the actors go after the play. I got to talk to two of them, but I left pretty early to walk with Bethany back to the B&B area. My B&B was called Linhill. Our room (Jessica was my roomie for the weekend) was so cute--very Spring/Easter feeling in it's color theme. And I slept well, so I guess the bed was comfortable. :)

A picture of the theatre I had taken earlier that day.

Saturday
We had a nice homemade breakfast (I had cereal, eggs, bacon, and toast) in the morning. Then our group went to Anne Hathaway's cottage. It's about a mile out of the center of town. The place is very pretty. After we saw the house, some of us signed Shakespeare's birthday card and then "Shakespeare" spoke a couple of sonnets to me. That was fun. They had a large garden/orchard/forest area and a few different walks you could take in them. It was nice to get a little country into our trip. :) Then we headed into town and saw one of the parades (that were happening for the Bard's Birthday). It wasn't that impressive, but it was still fun. Then some of us got lunch at a Tea House and then we went to pick up our bags from one of the B&B's. After that, Beth and I went to Hall's Croft, which is the house that Shakespeare's son-in-law lived and practiced medicine in. Then we walked around a bit (and saw more Shakespeare performances along our way). We saw surprisingly few stores devoted just to Shakespeare stuff--bummer. Then we walked to the train station and caught the 3:40pm train to get back (around 6pm, I think). It was a very fun weekend in Shakespeare land!

Look! I'm in England! :)
(This was part of a sculpture collection in the garden at Anne Hathaway's cottage.)

Pretty flowers at Hall's Croft.