"Thou smellest of mountain goat"

For our Wednesday trip this week we traveled to Stratford Upon Avon which, some of you may know, is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The title of this post is an example of how you might insult someone... Shakespeare style. Janna and I read some insults and some love lines during bus fun so all of the girls could be up on the local speak while we were in Stratford. The trip started out pretty early on Wednesday morning like usual and made our way to Stratford. The first day of our trip, Wednesday, consisted of seeing Mary Arden's home (Shakespeare's mother) and Anne Hathaway's Home (Shakespeare's wife who, I learned, was eight years older than Shakespeare and pregnant when they got married). We then went to see Shakespeare's birthplace and the house that he bought upon returning to Stratford from London. The last site we saw was Shakespeare's daughter's house. By this point we were pretty hungry so Melissa, Maddie, Hillary and I made ourselves a little picnic in the garden of Susanna Shakespeare's home- it was pretty picturesque.This is outside of Anne Hathaway's cottage.

This is after our picnic in the garden of Shakespeare's daughter's house.

We were given the rest of the afternoon to just explore Stratford. Our first stop was the river Avon. Avon would be the river which Stratford is set upon (hence Stratford Upon Avon). Upon reaching the river we decided that feeding the birds would be a nice and quiet activity. How wrong we were! The birds were crazy! It was like feeding the five thousand- I got bit by a goose, it was quite an experience.This is me and not the goose that bit me on the finger, this goose was nice!

After exploring the town we went to the hostile to settle ourselves in a little bit. This hostile was so so so much nicer than the one we stayed at in Wales. I felt a lot less dirty in this hostile than I did at the one in Wales and I appreciated that a lot! After getting settled into the hostile we baorded the coach and headed back to Stratford to have dinner and see The Tempest preformed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Dinner was ok but the play was so so so good!!! Well I think a big reason why I liked it so much was because the actor who played Ferdinand was really really attractive and there was part where he acted without a shirt on. I think most of the reason why this excited me so much was because I have been boy deprieved for about two months- pretty sure that is the problem. The night at the hostile was not bad, not bad at all. The worst part of the stay was that it was freesing in our room but other than that it was wonderful! I even got to go for a half an hour run in the morning which was a wonderful blessing!!

We took this at the play before they told us we weren't allowed to take pictures... whoops!

Thursday was a pretty good day! We went to a beautiful Palace called Blenhem Palace and I loved it! This palace is the birthplace of Winston Churchill and where he proposed to his wife. It was such a beautiful place. The inside of the palace was grand and beautiful, it is still the home of the Duke of Marlborough so it was fun to think that people still live there. I had my "living in a fancy palace" fantasy again- I just couldn't help it. The coolest part of the palace was the grounds, the grounds were INCREDIBLE! I don't really have the wrokds to describe them so I will just show some pictures instead!This is the outside of the Palace, it looked like it belonged somewhere in Jane Austen's novels to me.This picture was taken in the "secret garden"This is the secret garden's gazeboThis is the secret garden's treeThis is the view from the bridge over then lake that is in front of the palace.This is the back of the Palace, it had beautiful water terraces!

On the way home from Blenhem Palace we stopped in two little towns in the Cotswalds. One was called Chipping Camden and the other called Bourton on the Water. They were quaint little towns that I am glad I got to see but they were not all that special so, they were nice stops on the way back to our home in London. The London Centre is starting to feel more and more like home every time I go away and come back so it was nice to get back here on Thursday night and sleep in "my own bed".

This is a telephone boothe in Chipping CamdenThis is the water referred to in the town name of Bourton on the Water