What's that? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome this trip is

Sorry for the wait. I know you've all been refreshing the page constantly waiting for another post.

I've been busy this week. We had a Shakespeare paper due Monday that I spent my Sunday working on, and of course, my tutorial was today. I pretty much wrote the entire thing yesterday. The tutor says it was my best work yet. Not sure how that happened.

Let's start with Monday.

On Monday, I woke up, wrote a Shakespeare paper, and then went to high tea. It was a British as could be. We all had standard English breakfast tea, so that wasn't anything new. We also had various kinds of small sandwiches, like ham and mayonnaise, salmon, cucumber (nasty buggers), and egg salad sandwiches. The egg salad and ham sandwiches didn't stand a chance against me. In addition, there was pound cake with a ribbon of strawberry jam and clotted cream in the center, and scones. With strawberry jam and clotted cream to spread. I want more clotted cream. I want an entire tub of clotted cream. I want to put it on everything.

The rest of Monday went by relatively smoothly. I burned through more episodes of Orange is the New Black on Netflix. And read some of the book I checked out of the New College library for this past week's essay: significant features of French medieval romance Merlin. This was probably one of the coolest weeks for my tutorial subject.

On Tuesday, after the Shakespeare class, I went to the New College Library to look at some manuscripts and old books they had on display. A couple of the manuscripts dated back to the 12th century. Amazing. I didn't get to touch, though.

The rest of Tuesday passed without incident, as I spent the majority of it in the Bodleian Library, desperately trying to absorb as much information as I could before starting the paper that night. I only got through the introduction before I called it a night.

Wednesday, our professor mercifully let us off class so we could go to Stratford-upon-Avon. It was nice. It's a quiet town (except for the tourists, pah!), and we had a decent vacation away from work. We left at 12:36 sharp on the train, and passed by some beautiful countryside. 

On arrival, we started working our way into town, passing by the town center, where a nice little statue is located. Moving further, we came upon Shakespeare's parents' house. They lived in a fairly decently sized house, as one of the trades of Shakespeare's father was being a glove maker. So, he needed leather on hand, and therefore, cows. We also passed by a pedestal that was labeled "Shakespeare's Ghost" (see below). Nobody was there; I was tempted to throw in some coins for the laugh.

Eventually we came to the theater we were going to be seeing Henry IV, Part One at. Located nearby is the town's Shakespeare statue, surrounded by a few statues of some of his characters (Lady Macbeth, Falstaff, Prince Hal, and Hamlet). I snagged a picture with Prince Hal that's up on my Facebook page. The MSU group took a group photo in front of Falstaff. And another group photo on a bridge overlooking the River Avon. Well, either the River Avon or one of the canals that leads into it.

Our tour guide walked us along the river/canal on the way to the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried. We saw a little fuzzy swanling. Nobody was dumb enough to try and go pet it. Thankfully.

 As we moved into the church yard, I had to snag some pictures for my mother, who is a cemetery enthusiast. I know she's already seen the burial grounds, but I got more pictures because it's just pretty.

 Inside the actual church, we saw the tomb of Shakespeare, his wife, and some other weirdos.

 When our tour guide turned us loose, I had a chuckle at the name of this Thai restaurant. Seemed interesting enough. We spent a little time walking over to a nearby secondhand/rare book store. They had so many great things; I wanted the copies of Thomas Malory's works and the Canterbury Tales, but they were 50 pounds a pop. I can wait. After that, we wandered back to the theater where I was able to catch a picture of the swan statue in front of the theater.

 After the theater statue shot, we went over to the Dirty Duck/Black Swan pub, where the actors of the plays go to grab a drink when they're finished acting for the night. I had a three course meal, starting off with garlic mushrooms, then a 5 oz steak (it needed an American touch for flavor), and ended with some clotted cream ice cream. I should have gotten the chocolate fudge cake, but oh well. It was still damn good ice cream. And, of course, I had a couple pints during the whole encounter.

 In the theater is a big fake bear. So, naturally, I had to get a picture with it.