Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the first thanksgiving i've ever spent away from home. Like my dad, thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays because its full of amazing food, hilariously good times and some rather fond memories.

The United Kingdom doesn't celebrate thanksgiving...although i do think they look at it as a cute little american holiday. I have seen some thanksgiving food signs (at wholefoods and tesco), but we've had classes and basically just had a normal thursday. It's strange thinking that college students all over the country are leaving school and heading home to see their families.

We are all homesick and wishing for yummy thanksgiving smells, so we've all decided to do a potluck thanksgiving! Sunday we're all coming together bringing different things and having a big dinner together! Sinead and I are signed  up for Stuffing...we shall see how that goes! :D

Tonight I'm going to see Cat On A Hot Tin Roof which i am so excited for! I've been waiting to see this show for ages and ages (as you will know if you've been reading for the last few months). I got the tickets in september!

I promise tomorrow i'll tell you all about the last two weeks! Ireland and Bath! This week has just been busy because we have our shakespeare showing tomorrow (So my group is presenting Taming of the Shrew!)

I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!

Full of family, love and lots of yummy warm food.

Especially potatoes!

And don't forget to think about everything you're thankful for <3

xx T

(As the British would sign off)

Bad Blogger.

I know, i know. BUT, it's been a crazy few weeks. Weddings, bath, Ireland, Movies...so much. I promise i'll update you bit by bit this week. And a lot is happening this week too. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Thanksgiving and our shakespeare showings! It's insanity!

I can't believe i just have three weeks left. It's going to fly by and snail along all at the same time. I'm excited to get home and see everyone, but i'm also so sad to leave this place. I think it's going to hit me harder than i expect. But we'll see.

Updates soon, i promise.

love, T

Getting Personal with Jane and Billy, Birthday Celebrations, Highgate Cemetery

Saturday i woke up early and decided to make my way to the British Library, which i had been waiting to visit for AGES! It was FANTASTIC! I saw so many breath-taking things! Sadly, i couldn't take any pictures but i'll give you a list of my favorite. Like a total nerd i took notes so i would remember everything i saw!

1. Original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which i read my freshman fall at trin trin. It was in the original hand, so beautiful
2. John Milton Commonplace book (Original hand written)
3. JANE AUSTEN: They had her original desk, and on it was a few of the last pages of Persuasion. So beautiful. I almost died, i think i stared at it for like 10 minutes. It even had her glasses sitting there.
4. Original Alice and Wonderland: Maybe one of the most beautiful things i saw. They have copies of the hand written (with his beautiful pictures) book in the shop. This ones one of my favorites, the drawings are so beautiful. I was SO CLOSE to buying one because, it is such a treasure. I might actually go back at some point and get one. It really was so beautiful, and it's so wonderful you can buy the entire book with his writting and drawings on every page.
5. Original Virginia Woolfe
6. They had a whole Beetles section with scribbles of lyrics, like Yellow Submarine and even some records
7. Also in the music section they had some original Mozart compositions.
8. They had the most important texts from basically every religion imaginable.
9. Bibles and Testiments and early manuscript of psalms from the 3rd century
10. THE MAGNA CARTA! Which was really beautiful and very very tiny print. They had it in it's own separate room. 
11. There was also a roll of arms dating to  1270 which i thought was really really neat!
12. SHAKESPEARE. I am not kidding you, i almost cried when i saw the first folio of Romeo and Juliet. It's so beautiful. I certainly stared at this for at least 10 minutes with my face pressed right up against the glass. I practically gasp when i saw the huge shakespeare section and ran straight to it from the Mozart section. They even have a sheet from this play that was written by a bunch of different playwrights and based on research they believe that this page is in Shakespeares OWN hand. That was glorious.

Basically it was the best time EVER and i need to go back again at some point. But i loved it. I got lots of wonderful postcards which some of you can expect in the mail someday. I hopefully will send them out tomorrow...we'll see depending on time ;)

Sagan, Me and Stephanie

That lovely saturday night the gang all got together to celebrate our (my and Kate's) birthday's! It was soooo much fun! It was great just to hang out with all (or most of) the LDA kids and just have fun--without worrying about classes, homework or anything. It was great. We even went dancing at a club! I had such a blast, and took lots of silly pictures! <3

Marlee, Caitlin, Me, Sagan

Sagan had the most beautiful white vintage dress! And Kate got us little pink buttons to wear that said "birthday girl" on them!

Steph and Me

Alright, i'm all caught up now :D So i head off for ROME tomorrow! I promise of course to let you know how those wonderful adventures go! I'm not bringing my laptop so i'm not sure if i'll update FROM rome but we shall see. <3

I love and miss you all so much!

I ALSO wanted to make a shout out to both my beautiful grandmothers: BURGA and GRANNY. I miss them so much and i send them all my love. xoxoxo I am so lucky because i have the most supportive and loving family.

My aunt Kathy recently sent me a picture of Burga on her wedding day and it is so beautiful. I love pictures so much, so many lovely memories!

Cheers all,

T

Ps. See post above for Highgate, i'm a dumb dumb and forgot to post about it. :P

A Real Friday?

I'm writing from school because i have half hour to kill. It's very strange to have an entire weekend looming ahead after my shakespeare class today. This is the first full weekend for us LDA kids and i think we're all pretty excited. I've got lots of very fun shows coming up. Next week Aylia, Sienna and I might go see this band, there are a few concerts Sinead and i want to see. Thats one of the great things about living in the city...there is so much going on. It's difficult to fit everything in because we are doing so much work, but we try. The one thing i miss is having a library so close at hand. At trin, i can just walk right over to the Library and have the entire researching world at my finger tips...but it isn't the same here. One of my goals this weekend is to find a good library where i can do some research. My obvious first stop is the British Library, i believe this is my best hope.

Tonight i'm going to finally see Sarah! She's starting classes here next week and it's so nice a.) knowing i have someone i know from home so close by & B.) that it's sarah because i love her terribly and i'm so excited to see and catch-up with her. So hopefully we'll get some coffee and do a bit of chatting which would be fantastic. <3

I've just got tickets to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in November with James Earl Jones. I can't wait, i just think it's going to be brillaint. I LOVE Tennessee Williams and i've never seen this play so...i'm very excited.

I'm also hopefully going to see Inherit the Wind with Kevin Spacey. Now, i did Inherit in my Sophomore year of High School and i'm very interested in finally seeing it. ALthough Miles and Anthony were fantastic, i'm just interested in getting the audience perspective. And, of course, getting to see Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic...well thats just awesome. I think we're going to try to get the tickets on Saturday (aka tomorrow) so i guess we'll see how it goes. Yesterday when Sienna and i attempted to find the Old Vic, it failed terribly. SO...we shall see.

Alright, i should head off to Shakespeare. Sorry this wasn't terribly exciting, and i've still got to finish up on last weekend. But sadly i've used up ALL my alotted badnwith for this week (posting all those pictures!) so i've got to wait until tomorrow.

Cheers,
T

Getting to Know Shakespeare (Part III.)

We woke up saturday morning bright and early to meet the bus outside our flats at 8:30AM. It took us until 11 to get to Stratford (or rather almost stratford). Michael gave us a little chat about Stratford and about Shakespeare's upbringing. It was really interesting, and our first stop was Mary Arden's house. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother. (The picture above is Aylia dancing around the May Pole!)

We were warned not to play with all the animals because apparently little kids had been getting Ecoli because of petting zoos. Great.

But isn't he so cute!!

The upstairs of the house had tiny little doors!

One of the childrens room...i assume.

(Aylia and Sinead)

Sinead and Owl. They had a whole bunch of Owls! :)

Inside Mary Arden's house which was under normal living until the 70's i believe. neat huh?

HOW CUTE?! I love piggies.

Some of the gang (Stephanine, Haley, Jeff, Vanessa and Eddie)

We also got to see a falcon demonstration and a bunch of kids got to hold it.

Then we got back into the bus and drove to Ann Hathaways house. We just drove by it but we wanted to see Shakespeare's wife's house :D

(Ann's house)

And then we drove to Stratford-Upon-Avon. We were allowed to roam around for a bit, along the street that Shakespeare was born. It was FULL of tourists and the street is also full of "shakespeare" shops. All the cafes have clever shakespeare names, such as the "as you like it cafe." And of course there is a fantastic bookshop all of shakespeare, where i got a tiny pocket romeo and juliet (so now i can always have it on hand :D). And i got some lovely postcards (which some of you can expect when i finally get around to writing postcards.) There were a lot of nice little shops, the gift shop was a little tacky...but what can you expect. I like the Globe gift shop better so i'm going to get more stuff there. But i really loved it. It's strange to think you're walking the same streets shakespeare did, seeing the place he was born, grew up and died.

(Haley, Kate, Stephanie, Sienna)

Sinead and i stopped at a nice cafe. But we had only a few minutes to chow down!

Lute playing jester :)

Steph outside Shakespeare's birthplace! :)

Then we all met up and Michael began to give us a little tour of Stratford! We went to the Church of Stratford-Upon -Avon. it's interesting because it was first a catholic church, and then when the Protestants took over they had the church officials white wash all the Catholic symbols, and as you can see in the second picture, some of them have been carefully recovered. It was beautiful :)

Then we went to the place where Shakespeare bought his last house. At the end of his life he had lots of money so he bough a bigger property (actually right near this church). Sadly the house was knocked down, but we did get to walk around in his back yard.

Shakespeare's Backyard.

Then we walked down to the water where the Royal Shakespeare Company. Because the RSC's production was deemed not up to snuff, we didn't see a show...but we did walk around. The theatre is under construction, so we didn't get to see shakespeare's theatre, but we walked around and it was packed with people. :)

Then we headed to the graveyard to see where shakespeare was buried.

Candid of Sinead :)

Group shot! <3

Now we travel inside the church shakespeare is buried. Because he's got a well off family he gets to buried inside the church. Interesting fact for those of you who care, if you look very closely at the stained  glass (particularly Jesus), you might notice something odd. That something odd is that his face is not faced in the Left direction, but rather the right. Which is not ususally how he is depicted. We learned that (Thanks Michael Winter!) but i'm not sure they know why. Strange, eh?

Hey Billy Shakes! Of course wrote some verse to go on his grave, making sure no one dug him up and moved his bones. Nice Job Will.

Shakespeare's actual birth/death certificates!

After this we headed back to the bus for our final stop. I wish i could tell you the last little town we visited but i can't remember it's name. We went to the Church there which was so beautiful! :)

Countryside from the Bus

A beautiful house in the town.

Then we got back in the bus and headed home. Holy crap that was long, and took me most of the day. I hope you enjoy all the pics. Saturday adventures continue with Aylia and Sinead but i'll post that later...i think this is enough photographs for now :D

Cheers loves,
T