so that happened..

Yesterday we went to Stratford in London with the sole purpose of heading to Westfield Stratford City.

In case you don't know what that is, it's the third largest shopping center in the UK. Yeah.
Then we went to Oxford Street.
In case you don't know what that is, it's Europe's busiest shopping street.

Needless to say, a small amount of damage was done.
  

richard III and the wah! wah! girls

1. About to feed a goat

2. Crazy goat eyes and Kim
3. Emily petting a horse

On Tuesday after our Anthropology class a few of us decided to try to find the petting zoo one of our profs mentioned was nearby in Harlow. My friend Emily in particular was pretty excited to pet a goat. I could take or leave smelly farm animals but it sounded like a fun day out, plus the weather was warm and sunny again (seriously, does it actually rain in England or is that something they tell everyone to keep people out?), so why not? We left down a footpath near the school in the direction we assumed was right, and asked a few locals where it was. So far the directions we generally get in England are, "Yeah, you just go straight and ah, keep going straight, and if you go straight you can't miss it!". I'm serious. How do you get to Anne Hathaway's cottage? You go straight! Where's the Domino's bus stop? Oh, just keep going straight!

Anyways. I digress.
We kept going straight and eventually found a children's playground that was way more pimped out than any playground I've seen in Canada. There was a massive 30 foot high spiderweb thing that you can climb (Emily made it to the top.. I watched from the rope lowest to the ground), hippo rocking horses and a zipline. A ZIPLINE.
Naturally, we stopped and had a little play for about a half hour before asking some of the parents watching their kids how to get to the petting zoo. You guessed it, we had to leave the playground and go straight! England must be built in a straight line. I like it.
So we found the petting zoo and spent about an hour petting all the animals. Well, my friends pet all the animals. I fed a goat and banged my head off a horse's face. It smelled really bad there.

 

1. The Globe

2. Standing outside one of the entrace doors
3. The Globe stage
4. The groundlings
5. The Millennium Bridge
6. Katie and a massive coffee

Yesterday, we got our bagged Tesco lunch from the cafeteria and ventured into London to go see Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe!! I can't even tell you how excited I was. For those of you who don't know, the Globe is the theatre where Shakespeare wrote for and probably performed in in the late fifteen-/early sixteen-hundreds. It was used until the closure of all theatres in England in 1642, and was eventually demolished. In the mid-1900's, Sam Wanamaker initiated the project to rebuild the Globe and around 1996 it was finished.

A little history lesson for you. I think that's all correct information.
So we bussed into London and walked to the theater. It was so cool there, right on the riverbank. There were stones outside the theatre with names engraved into them, I think they are the names of people who made a donation to help the theatre be built. After a little wander through the giftshop (I bought a miniature copy of Twelfth Night), we walked inside to find our seats. Thankfully, we weren't groundlings and actually got to sit for the play. We were right up top and had a great view.
Richard the III is one of the longest plays Shakespeare ever wrote and I really don't think they cut anything out. Maybe they did. But we were there for over three hours. I'm not going to lie, I've only read Richard III once and was really confused at times. Rich just kept killing everyone and I couldn't keep them straight. It was an all-male cast, which made being in the Globe seem even more authentic (Generally, only men acted in the Elizabethan era), and it was really funny. The sheer volume of the text is impressive, and the fact that it was performed so flawlessly is actually hard to wrap my head around. It would take me a lifetime to learn the lines in this play! Anyways, my experience at the Globe was amazing and I can't really believe I was there. So cool.
Also, Barty Crouch from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was in RIII as well. So, basically, me and Dan Radcliffe are now bff because of that.
After the Globe we trotted across the Millennium Bridge (another Harry Potter fun fact! This is the bridge in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that gets completely demolished by death eaters.). Luckily, no death eaters were lurking in London yesterday, and we made it across without falling into the Thames. We had a bit of free time before our next show, so we grabbed some coffee at Starbucks (Katie's was bigger than her face), and had a look around the area. Um. Let me just say this: massive Primark, H&M, Lush, Forever 21 and Zara. I will be returning to that mall.

1. The theatre where we saw the Wah! Wah! Girls

2. One of the sets
3. The finale

The play we went to see was called the Wah! Wah! Girls. It was actually so much fun. Another Bollywood production, Jamie (one of my profs on this trip, if I haven't already mentioned him) booked last minute because he though it'd be a nice comparison to make to the Bollywood production of Much Ado About Nothing that we saw last week.
The play had great music, amazing dancing, beautiful costumes and a cute, fun love story. It was basically a Bollywood movie performed on stage, which was obviously the idea as the premise of the entire story was that it was being watched on tv. I think most of us enjoyed it and looked like idiots in the tube afterwards because we were all trying to Bollywood dance. It was not a pretty sight.
Also, sorry the pictures inside the play are bad.. I took them illegally. What can I saw? Being in England has turned me into a rebel.

A few people have gone away for the weekend, so it's going to be quiet around here! I'm not sure what my plans are.. but a return trip to that massive Primark might be in order.

Talk to you soon!

pints, castles and shakespeare

1. What I see when I look out my room window
2. The Marquis, a local pub

3. Camden Lock
4. Jewellery at Camden
5. Falafel
6. Westminster Abbey

7. First pint in England

On Friday morning I woke up pretty early and wandered to the little bakery up the road to get breakfast. I ordered some fresh made croissants and ate one while wandering around Old Harlow. It has been hot and sunny every single day since we got here; at this point my umbrella is just wasted space in my purse.

After my criossant adventure me and a few of my friends went into London for the day, to Camden Lock market. Holy crap. You guys. I've never seen such a massive market. It's never ending. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of magic maze made up of rings and tshirts and food and hookah. We wandered through the stalls for ages and ages, stopped for lunch (falafel!) and then wandered some more.

Then we took the train to Picadilly Circus and sat on the steps of the statue of Eros for a minute for a break. Picadilly Circus is like a mini Times Square in London with giant screens on the buildings.

Following an adventure through the park including a big swan who ignored us and a detour in front of Westminster Abbey (I would like to get married there, future husband of mine), we ended up back at the riverbank again drinking pints in front of the London Eye and Big Ben. Not a big deal, or anything. Thanks to Uncle Wayne, Aunt Carolyn and Mr and Mrs Anderson who supplied the pounds for my first pints in England!

1. Warwick Castle in the fog
2. The Great Hall

3. View from the tower
4. Cauliflower Soup and doorstop bread
5. Much Ado About Nothing at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Saturday was our field trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. We had a singalong on the bus of all our songs from the play. Needless to say my voice at 8am in the morning after a few pints sounded like angels singing. My prof, who is also our director, sat next to me during this singalong. Your welcome, Jamie, for that beautiful melody. A solo may be in order.

Before Stratford we went to Warwick Castle in Warwickshire. It's apparently the most well preserved castle in England! It was amazing there, massive grounds and grand rooms. There was lots of touristy stuff too, of course, and we were a little disappointed that the Princess Tower was only for 5-8 year olds. But we watched a trebuchet being fired and a bird show with bald eagles and owls! It was a good afternoon, minus the fact that I wore jeans and was practically cremating on top of Bishop's Tower.

We went to our hostel after a few hours at the castle. My first ever hostel! It was pretty nice, huge grounds and our room had a massive window overlooking the front yard. We had dinner at a local pub (I had a pint of cider and cauliflower soup with "doorstop bread") and then went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Courtyard Theatre to see Much Ado About Nothing. It was this production and it was unbelievable. The music, the costumes and the dancing were unreal. I must say it was slightly better than Carnesky's Tarot Drome (plus I never got kicked in the face!).

1. Shakespeare's birthplace
2. English cream tea and scones
3. Tea with friends
4. Henley Street Tea Room

5. Woven bunny in Anne Hathaway's garden
6. Curly plants

Yesterday morning we got up and had breakfast at the hostel, and then went into Stratford for the day to explore. Me, Emily and Kim went to Shakespeare's birthplace and Anne Hathaway's Cottage (The Anne Hathaway who was Shakespeare's wife, not Mia Thermopolis in Princess Diaries). Not a big deal. Just two places where Shakespeare stood. I may have nerded out a bit. The cottages were in such well kept conditions; Shakespeare's birthplace had the original stone floors in the main room and Anne Hathaway's cottage had a seat that she and Shakespeare likely sat in when he came to visit her. What. The gardens at Anne Hathaway's cottage were stunning, and there was a summer festival going on there so there was a choir, and a play and locals selling crafts and quilts and things all throughout the gardens.

After we visited Shakespeare's birthplace we took the advice of an old English gentleman I spoke to on the bus and had English cream tea and scones across from Shakespeare's house. I could possibly live on that for the rest of my life.

Finally, we went to see Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It was another amazing production; Malvolio stole the show and let me just tell you Sebastian was most certainly not hard on the eyes. Ahem.

I was going to write about my day today but basically I went shopping and we had our first read through of the play (more on that later). Since this is now a short novel, I'll leave it here. Until next time!

london calling



1. Covent Garden

2. Pretty shops around Covent Garden

3. Hog Roast at the market

4. Union Jack pride
5. Emily, me, Heather, Kim
6. Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square

7. Fountain in front of Buckingham Palace

8. The Queen's pad
9. The London Eye
10. Ticket to our first play
11. Getting my fortune told
12. Hanging from one of the tunnels
13. Disco ceiling above the rollerskating girls in hot pants (what)

As you can probably tell by the cheesy title and pictures, yesterday we went into London for the first time!

We had introductory classes first for an hour and a half in the one room schoolhouse, ate our lunch cooked by Nick the chef, and walked the ten minutes it took to get the train. The road was lined with beautiful shrubbery and cherry trees. Of course it was.
The train was cleaner than I expected (sorry any Englishfolk reading this, but I had low expectations for some reason), and the scenery was lovely along the way. Rivers and fields and cows. Not too shabby. We got off at Liverpool Street Station, where we headed underground to take the tube. We took two; after the first one we headed down a bunch of escalator and stairs and someone ever so kindly pointed out "we just keep going further and further underground don't we?". Thanks pal. That's comforting.
Anyways, I survived the tube and we walked out into Covent Garden, which was packed with people. It was gorgeous out, hot and sunny. Where's all the rain London? Although I'm certainly not complaining.
We wandered around for a bit before heading off to Trafalgar Square. We passed through Leicester Square on the way but didn't stop. When we got to Trafalgar Square there was some Olympic Event going on that had the whole Square blocked up, so I sadly didn't get a picture of Aslan the giant lions.
Next we headed through a beautiful park where there were gigantic trees, squirrels, ducks, geese, shrubbery shaped like the Queen's crown.. it was beautiful (you'll probably be sick of me using the word beautiful by the end of these three months. I need a thesaurus).
We stopped in front of Buckingham Palace for a few minutes. I had to run in really quick and pick up some DVD's from Liz.
By this time we were all starving so we headed toward the riverbank to have dinner at Wagamama. The London Eye is gigantic, jeez. I imagined it as sort of a ferris wheel, maybe a bit bigger? Um, no. It's massive. Each pod is like the size of my old apartment. They look terrifying to go up in but I'm obviously going to have to do it at some point while I'm here.
Dinner was fast and delicious. We had a little bit of time to explore the waterfront before heading to the play, so me and few girls went and grabbed an ice cream from a not unattractive guy in an ice cream van who told us we should go to Brick Lane to party. So now that's on my list. Thanks, attractive ice cream guy.
Our final stop for the night was the play, Carnesky's Tarot Drome. Um. What. We wandered away from the riverbank and ended up in some grafittied tunnels where the entrance of the play was. We walked into a tunnel to the entrance room, which was a gigantic wrestling ring set up. After a strange introduction with a man and a woman in silver glittery showgirl outfits, we were told to wander through the tunnels to see the tarot cards in real life.
I'm not really sure what it was all about, to be honest. One woman was rubbing dirt all over herself. Another sang really creepily and handed out scrolls with odd fortunes on it which read more like facebook statuses than predictions. I got a stamp on my hand from a shaky woman in a unitard that said 05 APRIL 2018. Not entirely sure what that date is for.
After some time wandering in the tunnels we were invited back into the wrestling ring room where a wrestling match was about to happen. At this point I got kicked in the face by one of the wrestlers. That was nice. I have a bruise on my nose as a sovenier. Thanks!
The play ended with a rock bank and women rollerskating around wearing sparkly hot pants. So, there was that.
We took the train back into Harlow, and I debated going for a pint at the Crown but honestly all I could do was crawl into bed. 11 hours of walking and a kick in the face really did me in.