Happy St. George's Day!

The past week or so has not been excessively interesting, except for weekends and the volcano in Iceland.  

The Iceland volcano, which I'm not even going to try to spell or pronounce, has been more applicable than just reading about it in the papers.  Martin, our program director and teacher of one of our classes, had to go to Portland, OR two weeks ago for some AHA conference.  He was supposed to be back this past week, but...volcano.  So he got stuck in Portland, we had no class on Monday, and had to get a substitute in on Wednesday to talk to us about Britain's political parties and the leaders' debate from last week.  We're not sure when Martin will be back, but it should be by Tuesday, at least.

Last Thursday I saw Wicked!  That was one of the shows I'd really been wanting to see, and it was really good.  I did like Billy Elliot better, but I'm definitely glad I got the chance to see Wicked as well.  It also made me want to watch The Wizard of Oz again, and maybe read the book at some point.

Last weekend I met two friends from the internet, one for dinner on Friday, and one, a closer friend, I met in London on Saturday and then went to Southampton, where she lives, on Sunday.  She'd warned me that Southampton wasn't very interesting, and it really wasn't, but I saw bits of Southampton castle scattered around (it's in ruins and the town grew up around it), and she showed me her university, and it was just really nice to get out of London and visit a friend in a nice, non-touristy English seaside town.  I found it very enjoyable, even if we did spend a lot of time sprawled on grass talking.

On Thursday I watched the second leaders' debate with my host mum.  These debates are between the leaders of the three main political parties, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrats, the men who would be Prime Minister if their party gets the majority.  Gordon Brown of Labour is PM now, but what's sort of funny is that his main rival, David Cameron of the Conservatives, pushed for televised debates because he's young, photogenic, and speaks well; he thought he'd do especially well compared to Gordon Brown.  Well, he did -- but I reckon he didn't account for Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, who have been a minority party for the past century and are unexpectedly being a force in this election.  Nick Clegg is also young and photogenic, and he speaks even better than David Cameron, so the general consensus is that he's won the past two debates (there's one more), giving his party a big boost.  I guess that one backfired in David Cameron's face. :p  I'm really loving being here for the British election.  It's so interesting!

Anyway, this weekend was, of course, Stratford-upon-Avon, for Shakespeare's birthday weekend and also St. George's Day (St. George is England's patron saint, so it's a bit of a holiday).  We got into Stratford yesterday, which was Shakespeare's actual birthday, and checked into our B&Bs, which were so much better than hostels.  Too bad I can't afford to do B&Bs for the rest of my time in Europe, but oh well, hostels are fine.

First we went to Holy Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's grave, and then we went to see Shakespeare's Birthplace.  Normally people are not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but because it was his birthday, we were allowed to, so I got some pictures of the house.  They were also giving out free samples of mead in the garden, and that was pretty good.  I'd never had mead before.

Stratford was, by the way, particularly gorgeous.  Friday was warm and completely cloudless, and all the Shakespeare houses we visited had big gardens, and wow the flowers were beautiful.  Tulips and daffodils and lavender and sweet pea and more flowers I couldn't even begin to name.  Spring in England is gorgeous, and Stratford is particularly picturesque.  Absolutely wonderful.

After Shakespeare's birthdplace, we went to New Place, which is the last house he bought and the one in which he died, so we went from his birth to his death in about half an hour.  But apparently the original house he bought was demolished around a century later and another house built very close to it, so when we were there they'd actually dug up half the garden as an archeological site.

We had free time after that until our play that evening, so we went for dinner at The Dirty Duck, which is the pub where the RSC likes to eat.  Which reminds me, we passed that pub on our way to Shakespeare's birthplace, and right as we were passing, actors playing Helena and Demetrius from Midsummer Night's Dream burst out the door to do their first scene in the woods together.  Random unexpected Shakespeare for the win!  We stayed until they finished their scene.

After dinner, we walked by the Avon for a bit, then went to the theatre.  It had a gift shop, so I browsed a bit, then saw the most perfect tote bag.  It's Shakespeare as a tube map.  There are different lines of, for instance, lovers, and villains, and fathers and daughters, with character names as different stops, and there are different intersections and clever services.  Like Ophelia offers riverboat services and Richard III has disabled access.  Such an awesome tote bag, and very much a souvenir of both Stratford and London, so I got it.

The play we saw was King Lear, which was really good.  We had front row seats, so we could see very well (even at some of the points I didn't necessarily want to see so well, like when Lear stripped down to almost his underwear).  Great play.  I've heard random bits of the story but had never actually seen it or read it before, so I'm glad I finally have.

This morning we really only had one thing on the schedule, visiting Anne Hathaway's cottage.  That is one play with another set of absolutely beautiful gardens.  In the garden they also had a gigantic birthday card for Shakespeare, which I both signed and got a picture of.  Inside the cottage we were sadly not allowed to take pictures, even though it was still the birthday weekend, but it was still quite interesting.  Tour guides gave us little lectures about what life would have been like for the Hathaways in Tudor England.

We had free time after Anne Hathaway's cottage, so most of us went to see the birthday parade.  That was pretty awesome.  We got a good spot near the end at the Holy Trinity Church, and saw a very long line of schoolboys carrying flowers for the grave, and a marching band, lots of random groups dressed in period clothing, and this group of middle-aged men dancing with bells strapped around their shins and waving handkerchiefs in their hands.  Really great stuff.

It was another gorgeous day, so after the parade we just sprawled on the grass in a park by the Avon and caught some sun.  Got a cheap lunch at Sainsbury's and just drowsed in the park, because Stratford is really quite small and we'd already done what there really was to do.  I stopped by the church again to get some pictures of Shakespeare's grave covered in flowers, but no one else in my group came with me.  I'm not sure why.  You can go to Stratford any day of the year and get a picture of Shakespeare's grave, but only on one weekend can you get it covered in flowers, so I'm pleased about having that.

Now I'm back in London.  I'd been going to go back to Oxford tomorrow, but the person I was going with said she can't afford it right now, and we made tentative plans for next Sunday, when we hope she can afford it.  And I don't want to go by myself, since I want to get a punt on the Isis or the Cherwell and that's not really something I can do by myself, so I hope she will be able to go or there's not much more point in me going back unless I can find someone else to go with me who wants to punt down the river.

I've made some tentative plans for next weekend.  Friday I want to do Dover and Canterbury, to see the white cliffs of Dover and Dover beach (mostly because of the poem) and I think it would be awesome to catch an Evensong in the Canterbury Cathedral.  Saturday I'm going to go to Brighton, because there's a festival starting there and also one of my teachers lives there and said she'll give us a little tour.  Sunday is either Oxford or free.

Tomorrow is unexpectedly free and my weekends from now on are going to be pretty busy, so I think tomorrow I'm going to try and get ahead on schoolwork.  With the added bonus of not spending any money!  Always a good thing.