Last Friday we went to Stratford upon Avon to visit Shakespeare's birthplace. It was about a 2 hour drive from London and then we spent the afternoon there and went to the Royal Shakespeare Company's performance of King Lear. First of all, Shakespeare's house was amazing. I think I was mostly astounded that a 500 year old house could look as new as it did. Also... isn't it amazing how similar their lives were to ours? I mean, the house was a LOT like something you would find today, just minus the technology stuff. We do basically the same things they were doing 500 years ago! We've progressed so much, but in a lot of ways we're exactly the same.
After visiting the house we walked up to see Shakespeare's grave at the local church. Just our luck, we got there at 4:43 and the gate had closed at 4:40. We still got to walk around the graveyard, but his actual tombstone was inside the church out of sight. So I can ALMOST say that I saw where Shakespeare is buried. I saw the building?
The performance of King Lear that night was amazing. Very long and very hard to understand, but very well done. King Lear and Edgar both go insane and the actors were SOOO good. If someone told me they were actually insane I wouldn't doubt them for a second. It might have been slightly awkward when they were practically naked running around stage, but such is Shakespeare. Most of the time I didn't know what was going on until the end of the scene.
Yesterday for Lit class we went to a graveyard. We read The Graveyard Book for class, so in its honor we held class in an old graveyard. I have some SWEET pictures. It was hands down the creepiest coolest graveyard ever.
Today Paige and I went to the Imperial War Museum. There are all sorts of displays dedicated to the World Wars, but we focused on WWII and the Holocaust. The Holocaust display was so moving. There was so much information about the horrors that went on that I found myself having to skip over sections because I couldn't handle it. In reading about one of the camps there was a section dedicated to how they burned the jews and took their clothing and I had to walk away. The Holocaust is such a horrible thing and seeing so much of the evidence was frightening. There were pictures of the victims everywhere, statistics of deaths and camps, newspaper articles, clothing gathered from the abandoned camps, and videos of survivors. One thing i read really moved me for some reason and I wrote it down:
"An SS Non-commissioned officer gave the order: "Men to the Left! Women to the Right!" Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. - Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz survivor
Accounts like this were everywhere. There was an entire wall dedicated to the words of actual soldiers who were the ones inflicting the pain. I couldn't believe what THEY even went through having to shoot, gas, and harm the Jews. Many of them didn't want to do what they were doing. It was so tragic to read.
As I went to the museum today I felt so strongly the importance of letting this history live on. The Holocaust and horrible things that went on just 70 years ago need to be remembered and prevented. It's the least we can do for those 6 million people who lost their lives.
Imperial War Museum
This was a list of all of the different cities and how many people were executed from each one. I was amazed at how many were killed before the concentration camps even began.
The entire first floor had huge tanks, bombs, missiles, and war jeeps on display. Oh and there were massive fighter planes hanging from the ceiling!
If it offends you to think that I sat in a throne that was actually somebody's tombstone, this was photoshopped. If not... that's exactly what I did.
Epitome of cool, creepy graveyard? Most definitely.
This is probably the portal into some freaky zombie land. So, naturally, I strike a pose.
This is in Trafalgar square. It's a countdown until the 2012 London Olympics. This picture was taken on Saturday when there were 489 days, 5 hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds left!
Basking in the glory of Shakespeare!
500 years and still goin' strong!
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