Not Minding the Gap/The Bard

And by not minding the gap, we left London and went to the birthplace of William Shakespeare, which is in Stratford-Upon-Avon. This was particularly exciting, because I study Shakespeare.

When we went to the birthplace, we were taken to the backyard where there was a garden and a sidewalk leading to the back door.

There were a lot of replicas of what the house would've looked like inside. At the time, I was in the middle of getting materials for Shakespeare's genealogy.

John Shakespeare (William's father) was a glover and sold gloves from out of the house window. There are references to this in some of the Bard's plays, so naturally they had them in the house.

When I got to what I think was William and Gilbert's bedroom, a crew from BBC came in and were going to start filming, so I had to get the hell out of there. Which was fine, because there were was an actor out back performing Puck's monologue from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I've heard that a lot of people who visit Stratford-Upon-Avon don't always visit the Holy Trinity Church. I think it's safe to say that I was nearly running there.

There are a lot of graves out front that are so old that reading some of them is impossible. William's parents and some of his sibling are buried here. 

The graves in the front of the Church were Anne Hathaway (William's wife), The Bard himself, Susanna (his daughter), and Dr. John Hall (Susanna's husband).

There is a bust of the Bard that is just above Anne Hathaway's grave that carries an inscription that reads:

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratum, arte Moronem

Terra tegit, populus moeret, Olympus habet.

Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?

Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed

Within this monument: Shakespeare, with whom

Quick nature doed; whose name doth deck his tomb

Far more than cost; sith all that he had writ

Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.

Obiit ano doi [anno domini] 1616 Aetatis 53. Die 23 Ap.

The epitaph on his grave has a more sinister message, which warns against people who dig people back up;

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

We also paid a visit to Susanna and Dr. John Hall's house.

I imagine Susanna to be the perfect child out of the three children that Anne and William had. 

Mind the Gap #1

On the 8th of April, I took a train to London and met up with my parents. The week consisted of going straight from living and integrating myself into the culture to being an American tourist with German-American medical professional parents, and I needed a lot of coffee in order to keep up with them.

The tube was interesting. I'm starting to wish I kept a tally sheet for every time we've heard or seen the phrase "Mind the Gap".

On the 10th, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral early that morning. It's located on Ludgate Hill, which is the highest point in London. 

I wasn't allowed to take pictures while inside. My parents were extremely interested in the Crypt, but we weren't allowed in that day.

Later we went to Buckingham Palace and we were lucky enough to watch the changing of the guards.

I really liked the Tower of London despite the lack of pictures. I did get a picture of Henry VIII's armor and the reason why speaks for itself.

I particularly liked the story of the Bloody Tower, which was about the deaths of Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury. 

The Crown Jewels were pretty cool too. It was interesting to read about which hand the monarchs held the sceptres and The Sovereign's Orb, but as soon as I saw the actual things behind the glass, all I could think about was this:

The end of the day was eventful and pretty self-explanatory.

Crossing the London Eye off my bucket list wasn't the entirety if the eventful part. I was laughing the entire time we were up there and when we got off, I wouldn't shut up about how I farted on the London Eye.

I took the most pictures from there.

The Fair that Came out of Nowhere

My American friends and I randomly found a fair. 

It was completely out of the blue, but it was a pound to ride a ride, so the rides I chose was the Ferris Wheel and the Ferris Wheel on steroids.

Which led me and my friend who is afraid of heights to ponder what brought us into making this decision.

What is Too Important to Ignore

Our assessment for the end of our second module was a production that we had to put together ourselves. Our prompt was to answer the question "What is too important to ignore?"

It took us two weeks to put together a fourty five minute production and I heard that we received high marks for it. 

I think that it's safe to say that we each had our own answer to the question and therefore had to act as ourselves in this production.

Several of us had monologues that we wrote ourselves (one was mine and another was told in British Sign Language).

The production covered sexism, mental illnesses, money, college life, homesickness, communication, and the legal system (not in that order). 

Everyone else took very lovely pictures of it, but alas I did not.

Sweeney Todd

The University is doing a production of Sweeney Todd and I offered to help out with wardrobe backstage. I was called in over the weekend and I expected to have a tech run. Instead it was set building. I do have some experience in both wardrobe crew and set building. I had to do both for the production of the first part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America two years ago, which was everything but forgettable.

I mean a play about a closeted gay republican Mormon lawyer who works for Roy Cohn and is married to a valium addicted wife and his lover's ex-lover is dying of AIDS isn't exactly something I'd consider forgettable.

Sweeney Todd was different. I agreed to help paint the set and once the red paint came out, I was pleaded guilty for killing Mufasa.

Alas I do not have a picture of the set.

I think I helped more in building the set than working backstage. The job description for me was basically "Follow Luke around and do what ever he tells you", which was mostly opening and closing the oven door. At some point, there was a scene where realistic plastic body parts being thrown around on stage and I damn near got hit by a leg.

All in all, I've heard good things about the performance. I had the privilege of hearing the songs and seeing some scenes on the higher part of the stage.

It was all good fun.

Elizabethan Gardens

An American friend named Allison and I decided to visit the Elizabethan Gardens over the weekend. I knew they were around, but I didn't know exactly where they were. It didn't really help that in order to get to them would require going through a narrow street way where you wouldn't expect to find a historic garden.

It consisted of four gardens that were apparently constructed on the ruins of backland cottages. However, it's early March and most of the plants aren't in bloom yet. I'll probably come back after the break in April.

New Book

A while back I introduced myself to Sherlock and I think it's safe to say that the family and I are quite hooked.

A little while later, I got introduced to Broadchurch.

Since then, I've become a sucker for murder mysteries. One thing that really upped my experience is when I found a book called Treachery by S.J. Parris, which is a murder mystery I found at Drake Circus.

It is a book about Sir Francais Drake (who was a real person)

who is sailing the Elizabeth Bonadventure to Spain (which was a real ship)

but there was a murder in his crew, so an Italian (and Catholic) scholar named Giordano Bruno is going to find out who did it (Giordano Bruno was also a real person)

Did I mention that it takes place IN Plymouth? It's nice to read something that has a familiar setting. I just need to imagine Plymouth in 1585 (which in retrospect is not that hard to do). So now it's a fun little project to read the book, write down any locations in Plymouth that are mentioned, and then go looking for them.

One of them was extremely simple, which was Drake's Island.

"'And what is that island?' I ask, pointing to a mound of rock at the summit, a stone tower peeps above the treeline.
'St Nicholas Island,' Knolly says, shading his eyes, 'though the locals call it Drake's Island. (S. J. Parris, Treachery, page 33)'"