The Nicest Drunk I've Ever Met

Yesterday we went to Stratford Upon Avon - Shakespeare's hometown. Honestly, I'm glad I went because now I can say that I've been there. However, I was much too angry to fully enjoy it. (I'm a bit stressed with papers, poems, reports, finals, kitchen duty, a severe lack of sleep, and being in a townhouse with 35 girls...)


Back to yesterdays events. First we went to Shakespeare's mother's house. That was fun. Becca and I had an epic fencing match (above). If only we had baguettes it would be prime material for the next Mary Kate and Ashley movie. The house had a farm as well and we had fun looking at pigs that were bigger than my bed here and nearly kissing goats.

My favorite part was that I got to hold a Bengali Owl (above). That was really awesome! Next we went to Anne Hathaway's house. Now don't get too excited people. Anne Hathaway may be a major movie star, but she was also Shakespeare's wife. We went to THAT Anne Hathaway's house. We learned all about their patched-up marriage that happened when she was 3-months pregnant.

The mini-globe theatre and the dress-ups were the best part of the Anne Hathaway experience. I fit into a purple faerie costume meant for a five-year-old. That lovely picture can be seen above. It was hilarious. I was able to put it on easily, but it took 2 people to get me out of it.

Then, the big event of the day was visiting Shakespeare's birthplace. Woo hoo! But really, I'm glad I went. I was just grumpy. It was cool. The floors were original, so I've walked where Shakespeare walked - he and 12,340,935,234,509,826,098,350,298,520,698 people. (That's just an estimate of course)

Our trip to Stratford was planned so well, let me tell you. The program director insisted that we leave London at 10am and we arrived at noon. We were done with all our tours at three and had FOUR HOURS to wander around Stratford where there is NOTHING to do until we went to a play that night. We had FOUR HOURS of free time in a small English village that doesn't have much to do when we had a poem, report, paper, finals, and reading due within the next four days. Wonderful planning people. By the time the play started half of us had trouble staying awake through it while the other half debated writing their poems during the play. Great experience. Oh, and did I mention that we didn't make it back to London until after 1am!? AND we had classes early this morning. Yep, I LOVED the trip yesterday.

HOWEVER, during those 4 wonderful hours, I did meet the nicest drunk ever. After dinner, Becca, Diana, Koryl, and I were walking down the road to find some ice cream. A guy was running down the sidewalk shouting something. Out of the blue, Koryl decided to wave to him. He asked Koryl her name and it took 3 tries to get it right. He then asked if she was Irish... she said no, she was American. It was at that point that he excitedly ran across the street to where we were standing. It turned out that he LOVES Americans. He told us so every 10 seconds for the next 10 minutes. He and his friends who were with him just loved Americans. He loved our accents, he loved everything about the "land of opportunity". He also appologized every few minutes for being "pissed" or drunk. Our new friend was 20, like us, and from Birmingham. He high-fived us at least 3 times and I got an extra high-five for being from D.C. because of D.C. United.

It was really funny talking to our new friend. He may have been a bit "smashed" but he was quite friendly. I really wish I had thought to take a picture with him. He would've gladly done so, since he loved American's so much. I've never heard a Brit say they loved our accents. They usually call them ugly.

Anyway, today was a low-key day with tons of studying and such. I feel so much less stressed and angry now because Becca, Diana, and I went for a run in Kensington Gardens and did an abs workout. I feel great. I have some history reading to do before bed. Tomorrow should be fun, after I write my paper that is. Tomorrow night Diana, Koryl, and I are going to the London Eye. I'm pretty excited. I can't wait.