I'm super glad my dad put the Jenny Oakes Baker cd on his iPad, I really do love waking up every morning to the first measure of the Ashokan Farewell. Honestly, thats a really beautiful way to have started every day of this trip so far!
Up, dress, the usual routine, and in the van by 8. Breakfast this morning; TWO croissants....one filled with chocolate. Honestly, if that's not a truly joyous start to a Wednesday, I want to know what is. Bless you Tescos and the People Upstairs.
As we started off in the van, Miya decided to show me what her name looked like in Ancient Ogham script, a cool vertical style rune system. I had seen something similar to it when I studied a bunch of Norse stuff as a wee lass, but this was indeed different. She handed me her phone with the phonetic cipher that she had taken a picture of, which I then jotted down what my name would be in my little notebook I often update.
I also spent a little bit of time during this drive thinking about the crazy dream I had last night. I don't remember a lot of it, but I do remember that I was in a hurry to get to the dress rehearsal of a concert I would be guest soloing in that night, so I borrowed some guys green bullet bike to get there. When I got in, the conductor told me that there were some complications and that I wouldn't need to be there for another 45 minutes, so I took the bike back and decided to walk up. But when I got back, there was some crazy thing about an old creepy guy who was trying to take something from me, so I was working on escaping him too. But I don't remember anything else.
Our first stop was Glauchester Cathedral; my new favorite cathedral so far. Honestly, its gonna take a lot to dethrone this spot from my top five favorite places I've been here so far. There was so much fine detail work, in everything! The closer you looked at something, the more fine caving lines and embellishments you saw!
Also, it may or may not be important, but Tom told me to lead/read the WHOLE tour for the Cathedral for our entire group! I was nervous about messing up, but I had a ball! This cathedral houses the tombs of many monks, martyrs, and even King Edward II. It was also used as a filming site of the Harry Potter movies! The Stained glass windows were immense and breathtaking, the courtyard exquisite, the carvings amazingly intact, and the ancient flags blew me away. You'll just have to wait to see my photos, gentle reader, for my words are just not doing this place the justice I want them to.
After we left, we went to a special darling shop, the only real one in the whole world, and I'm excited to say that I found the perfect little treasure for my mom there! :)
Our next stop: Kennilworth castle. This was the first Royal Castle we had been to so far. It was the home of Lord Dudley, Queen Elizabeth I's favorite, though he was married. It wasn't my favorite castle, as it was in severe disrepair and hard to get a feel for what the place really was, but I had a couple cool moments there.
The first was down a few levels of a very intact tiny spiral staircase (which is very rare, its almost always the spiral staircases that go first, though you can see where they used to be in the walls) to the bottom floor. I found a large room, that connected to another room. Both had been used for food storage. I loved that every room had a window, so that natural light was always coming through, even in these lower rooms. As I looked around, I saw one small passage leading off from the corner, much smaller than they usually are. As I went through it, it opened into one final room. I don't know what it was about this small empty stone room, but it was special. It wasn't big enough to hold much, and the hallway wasn't wide enough to bring much through, but it was still big enough to hold some sort of secret. I know it sounds weird, but I'm serious; this room just, just felt wonderful. I felt so fantastic in this cozy little space that I actually picked up a small pebble from that space and packed it in my backpack.
The second really cool experience I had was in what used to be the Great Hall. As I stood in that ruined space, I somehow suddenly had a large sense of what this place once looked like in all its glory. The six bare stones in the middle of what was now a small field grew octogonal pillars; the missing stone window panes grew back into their bare slots. Yellowed glass filled them. The small dark holes along the walls bore torch slots, and a tapestry hung along one. The roof was filled with big timbers, and the grass became stone. Two long tables lined the long walls, and a throne sat at the end opposite me. It was weird, but all the sudden, I kind of felt like what this place must have been like when it was alive. There were people who celebrated here, who had dinner here with their family, who lived a day in, day out, humdrum life on these rocks, and who probably died here. Because this is my blog and I don't fear putting what I really felt down on these pages, I also report that while I was soaking all this in, a tune I have never heard filled my thoughts. As I looked about the place, almost seeing these aforementioned changes, this song got louder and louder in my head. I have never once heard it before, and I dont think I'll ever hear it again; even now as I write this, not more than ten hours later, I can't remember a single note of that old fashioned Celtic tune. That was a really special moment.
After we left Kennilworth, we drove to Stratford-upon-Avon: the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Tom took us on what he called 'another forced march' through the biggest sights of the city, at our usual city pace. It was on this march that I actually stood before the final resting place of Shakespeares and his wifes graves. As long as my camera makes it, I have pictures to prove it. The town was full of the renovated, but old fashioned homes, many of which are now shops. I got a super cool book today for my fhe brother, Joe, who adopted me last year as his little sister, as it is absolutely perfect for him and his wife! I really can't wait to see their faces when I give it to them!
The town was really cool, but it was ridiculously packed with people. My little group, 'the minions' as Miya now calls us, spent a lot of time by the river Avon, updating our journals, especially since Tom and Katie have made that a part of our grade. When we were in town, we mostly just looked at a bunch of the cool shops and talked with the people who lived there in Stratford. They are a lot of fun! All of the stuff there, as well as all over the UK, is pretty expensive, so I didn't get much more there than my book.
Honestly, I feel a little bit bad, because I never grew up being in love with the works of Shakespeare, so while I will always value today's experiences, I wish more Shakespeare enthusiasts could have taken my spot. Nevertheless, I did my best to soak all I could in. I saw the home in which he was born, I read his birth and death certificates, I saw a ton of his writings and relics....
...and I also saw Hamlet performed by the Royal Shakespearean Troupe. No joke, THAT was cool! We had nosebleed seats, the highest up in the third floor, but the play was amazing, and I don't even love that play! See, I had seen some movies of that production and had read it before, but I had always come away with just a really dark feeling. It was like monitoring the declining progression of a psychosis patient, but without sufficient restraining jackets.
But this, this was different. See, it was all the exact script (I've read it enough to know that much), but the costumes, set, and actions were all like the 1920's. This was a really cool turn of things I thought, because you are telling the same story, but thinking of those lines in a non-mideaval setting made it somehow very new.
The other really great thing was that even though all the same words were being said, the man playing Hamlet was so good about expressing them in a brand new way for me. He was still acting like a madman, but he made you understand that it was for understandable reasons; he made the audience see that what he was doing was, dare I say it, almost justifiable and heroic? This was a tragedy, but it wasn't a Hamlet literally staggering and becoming progressively more limp with whiney self-absorption (as all of my past experiences caused me to believe). This was a man who was incredibly sad, but also incredibly still in control of his faculties, and convinced the audience that his purpose was truly great.
On the other hand, I had forgotten to prepare myself for the lack of promiscuity that Europe titles 'funny.' Inuendos alone would have been a pleasant trade for the 'humor' that was added where it could be. Those moments did hack my overall rating down a bit, but overall, the play was honestly a lot better than I planned on. Well done, chaps.
Now it's 12:42am and I'm officially caught up on my journal entries. We're still driving home for the night and Tom has announced many new sites to see tomorrow with van orders at 8:30am.
Basically, it's gonna be a party. Bring it on! :)
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