Hello Mates!
During our long four-day weekend, we explored three different English towns. The first was Stratford-Upon Avon (Shakespeare’s birthplace). We started off at Mary Arden’s farm (Shakespeare’s mother). The quaint farm is on the outskirts of Stratford and is home to many farm animals. Our favorites were Ellie the horse, the baby lambs, and Izzie the barn owl.
At the farm, the attendants helped to visually recreate the environment in which Shakespeare lived by dressing in 16th century clothes. Later that afternoon, we made our way to the heart of Stratford to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Comedy of Errors and King John. After our dinner of fish n’ chips, apple pie, and cider at the Dirty Duck, we held a mini birthday party for our friend Christina in our room at a local bed and breakfast.
The next morning we headed to Oxford to enjoy a guided tour of the collegiate town. Among many other beautiful buildings, we saw the building in which the hospital wing in Harry Potter is filmed. The Harry Potter nerds in our group were freaking out a little. We had delicious shakes and smoothies at Shakespeare’s, a local ice-cream parlor.
[photo: Katie (left) and Carmen]
We spent the next two days at Bournemouth beach with our two roommates, Krystal and Stephanie. We stayed at a beachfront hotel that slightly resembled a retirement home. We were by far the youngest guests. Despite the scene at our hotel, Bournemouth is actually a lively college town. As we looked for a place to eat Saturday night, we noticed that all the bars and pubs were completely full with rowdy college students. Another observation of the weekend: all the cute English boys live in Bournemouth.
We also shopped, dipped our toes in the freezing cold water, and went on carnival rides on the pier. Despite the temperamental weather, we still managed to spend some quality time lounging on the beach. In Bournemouth, we also had our first experience with a traditional English breakfast. We enjoyed eggs, toast, ham, sausage, baked beans, tomato, and black pudding (blood sausage). That should fill us up for a week!
Til’ next time, cheers!
Carmen and Katie
*Katie Caffrey is a junior psychology major with a linguistics concentration from Oak Park, IL. She is currently splitting her semester abroad between Florence and London where she is studying both art history and theatre.
*Carmen Stubblefield is studying abroad in Italy and England on the ACM Arts in Context Program. She is a junior psychology major from Oregon, her favorite foods are pizza and ice-cream.