Bath and the Roman Bath House

This place was straight out of my imagination complete with humid spa rooms, grand columns, surviving Roman sculptures, and ancient drains leading out to the river. I could easily imagine an impressive group of soldiers and scholars gathered for healing, relaxation, and social interaction! The town of Bath itself was amazing! It was larger than I thought but still had the wonderful cobblestone roads and beautiful parks. I'm living there some day. I even picked out the street of my future house as we drove away on the Coach.

Stonehenge and Stourhead

Stonehenge greatly exceeded my expectations! I kept hearing that it was smaller than people expected and not to get my hopes up. With these thoughts running through my head, I was greatly surprised and happy with what I saw! As we walked around, we were challenged to think of some of the possible ways in which the stones got there and to what purpose. Thousands ideas ran through my head, some crazier than others, but I came to the conclusion that I like the mystery behind it. The mystery makes it even more appealing.
Stourhead was absolutely beautiful. I was rather upset, along with about 40 other girls, that the "Darcy Proposal building" was closed for construction, but I quickly got over that as I looked out over the beautiful lake! This site competed with Fountains Abbey for the most beautiful places I've been in England. The manicured gardens looked so natural and in place. I especially loved the changing color of all the trees!

Stratford-upon-Avon

Saturday we ventured out to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. The actual town was really neat! It had cobblestone streets, ample pasty shops, the cutest little public library, and an awesome statue resembling our friend Touchstone from As You Like It. Just outside of town, we visited the farm of Mary Arden. Besides the thrill of milking a fake cow, I learned about a traditional meal that Mary Arden may have had while she lived there. Next, we visited to home of Anne Hathaway who was William Shakespeare's wife. I learned that the two families, the Ardens and Shakespeares, knew eachother prior to this marriage and the men of the family actually worked closely with one another. Finally, we entered the town and visited William's birthplace. The introductory video was great because it showed the expanse of Shakespeare's genius and made me realize just how much of my vocabulary i owe to him! In our free time, I walked around by the river and ended up avoiding a little rain by getting some hot chocolate in the Dirty Duck (classic pub name). To end the trip, we saw a great performance of A Winter's Tale!

Les Miserables

My parents were here visiting this weekend and it was so much fun being their tour guide around London! The highlight of our adventures was definitely a night out at Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre. This show was the best production I have EVER seen! I went in expecting it to be great, yet I was still blown away! A cast of 25 performed the most powerful and touching musical, mostly through their amazing singing and dynamic stage presence. The male lead covered the highest and lowest notes in the musical theatre community as well as played a character ranging from 20-something years old to 80-something years old. Talk about versatile! Even the set was cool! The round stage turned throughout almsot the entire production, which allowed quick changes between scenes and a really good sense of passing time. I wanted to see it again the minute it was over, and I'm pretty sure that my conversations only consisted of "wow" for about three hours after the performance.