February 1, 2012

Wow.  This has been a suuuuper busy week for me.  Monday I had to do a recitation of 20 lines from something of Shakespeare’s (I chose “To be or not to be” from Hamlet and had a lot of fun looking up performances on youtube of Kenneth Branagh (the fantastic Hamlet who I tried to channel during my presentation), David Tennant (the Hamlet who is apparently blind because he delivers the entire passage with his eyes closed), Mel Brooks (the freaky violent Hamlet who draws his dagger out and waves it around almost every scene), and Richard Burton (the bipolar version of Hamlet).  After that I worked on my loads of homework (you’d think they’d give us a lighter load seeing how we’re trying to play in London…) and got ready for the 2-day trip we had on Wednesday and Thursday.

Oh Hamlet, you fantastic man in tights you.

                The trip started on Wednesday morning going to Chipping Camden, a fantastic little village on the way to Stratford.  Commence construction on the picturesque village.  Our main purpose in going to Chipping Camden was just to explore and enjoy the tiny village and appreciate quaint British life.  It was so nice to get away from the busy city and walk around the little town.  They had thatched roofs, which are adorable and just about the most cottage-y things ever.  The coolest part about thatched roofs is looking up really close at them, because they are made up of millions of little thin sticks bound together and then chicken wire is placed over them to keep them together.  Fantastic.  

Thatched roof!!!

We enjoyed ourselves going into some little shops, walking through a huge grassy field, checking out a small cemetery filled with some of the local residents (the deceased ones, that is), and peeking into some (ALL) of the little cottage windows.  I’m pretty sure it’s a law that if you live in Chipping Camden your house must ALWAYS be ready to be featured in prominent cottage magazines, such as “Cottage Living Today,” “Cottagepolitan,” or “Cottage Illustrated” (a sister company of “Sports Illustrated,” of course).  Or maybe I just stumbled on a secret clan of cottage interior designers trying to live simple lives outside of the public eye.  Can you imagine how the paparazzi would swarm if they knew where this colony of cottage decorators lived?!  Mayhem.  It would be pure mayhem.  I tried to snap a picture or two of the insides of some of the cottages, but I felt like a huge creeper and was really afraid of someone inside the houses catching me, with my nose pressed up against their glass, trying to take creeply pics of their house. 

The cemetery in Chipping Camden

Clothes on a clothesline?  How much more adorable country-esque can you get, Chipping Camden?

Open field in Chipping

                So after Chipping Camden we made our way to Anne Hathaway’s house, a small little cottage (more thatched roofs!) where she grew up.  There we got a tour of the house, and learned that people during those times slept sitting up, because they thought devils would take you if they saw you lying down, looking dead.  What a terrible life they must have had filled with sore backs all the time.  Also, we learned that Anne was a cradle robber, as she was 27 and he was 18 when they got married.  Oh, Anne. 

Anne's house.  See the thatched roof in the background?!!

                Next up was Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried.  It was a smaller church compared to many of the ones we’ve been to so far, and it was surprising to see how unimpressive Shakespeare’s grave was.  Other cathedrals and churches that aren’t even associated with Shakespeare have huge statues of Shakespeare and dedications to him.  But here, in the actual place he’s buried he just has a small floor-grave next to Anne (which should be romantic, but our guide talked about how Shakespeare cheated on her quite a bit, and then there’s the whole, “was Shakespeare gay?” thing…) and a creepy wax bust of Shakespeare keeping watch over his grave.  It’s creepy to think that the real Shakespeare was just chilling a couple feet down from where I was.  That’s been a really weird thing about coming to England- the famous people whose graves we visit are really buried there, and their real bones have been under my feet. 

William and Anne, side by side.  Oh, and if you couldn't tell which one is William, he's the one with the fantastic blue yarn boarder line.

                After Trinity we went to Shakespeare’s birthplace museum and house (yay!  more Shakespeare!.....).  This consisted of a walk-through museum that was set up basically like a Disneyland ride (without the fun cart to ride in), where you’d go into a little room that was a set and a video would play, explaining some part of Shakespeare’s life and then a door would automatically open at the end of the video, leading you into the next room.  The museum’s objective was to convince people that Shakespeare really lived and was the one who wrote all his plays.  Then we walked through Shakespeare’s house.  Kinda cool, I guess.  I felt bad, because I’m really not a big Shakespeare fan (sorry Aunt Marilei!  I know I’m a disappointment to you…).  At all.  And I’m not a fan of being force-fed Shakespeare in every English class I’ve been in since middle school.  But whatever, he was a genius and all, so I’ll try to be good.

Out in front of Shakespeare's house

                Finally a break from Shakespeare!  Next we checked into our little bed and breakfast.  Commence construction on the adorable B&B.  A young mother ran the B&B and she is basically my best friend.  She was absolutely adorable and precious.  She had a little daughter who was about 4, who was just about the most excitable thing I’ve ever met.  The best part was listening to the mother try to have the little girl settle down (“Come here sausage!”  “They don’t want to see your jumper sausage!”).  The rooms were adorable, and the one I shared with Lyssa had a roof-top access right out our window (too bad it was freezing, or else Operation Rooftop Sleepout in London would have been a success).  Oh, and they also had two cats, Tilly and Max who quickly became my best friends and the main subject in my photo-shoot. 

Tilly, my new bestie

B&B.  Best place ever!

                Anyways, back to Shakespeare.  That night, after dinner at a pub in town (where we got hit on by basically every man in the pub- freaking awesome.  I’ve never felt so flattered in my life! (regardless of the fact that most of them were old grungies or suuuuper drunk…that doesn’t matter!)), we went to the Royal Shakespeare Company and saw an….interesting….production of The Taming of the Shrew.  Suffice it to say that I feel like I’ve been exposed to more crap and nasty stuff since I’ve come to England than I’d ever allow myself to see back home.  I’ll just tell you this- the entire stage was one huge bed because the director felt most of the play is centered around activities that take place in bed…ya….so it was a bit much for me.  There were sexual innuendos aplenty, naked fat man butts, and awkward dirty jokes with nasty hand gestures to accompany the jokes.  But hey, two redeeming things from the play- the main actress, Kate, is Lisa Dillon, a prominent character in “Cranford.”  Pretty dang cool, and I like the sweet woman she plays in “Cranford” a lot more than the wild, smoking, drinking, cat-fighting character she played in The Taming of the Shrew.  And the best thing about the play was Petruchio, a sexy Scottish actor who was often ehem, without his shirt on, during the play.  Yeah, I guess the play wasn’t that bad now that I think about it…

Sexy Scottish arm and the shrew.