Shakespeare's Birthplace

Today, July 7, 2015, we started our day at 10:15am boarding the coaches with the theatre students to head on our 2 1/2 hour drive to Stratford-upon-Avon.  Once we arrived we split up and some of us went to a pub to get lunch. I got the chicken pie, it was delicious!  Then we headed toward the public library because Debbie needed to do some research.  Also, the public library is a Carnegie Library.  Then we saw Shakespeare's house and the gift shop next to it.  Then we walked to Trinity Church and saw Shakespeare's and Anne Hathaway's graves.  Then we found some dinner and ate in the green space in front of the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre.  Later that night we saw the RSC perform Merchant of Venice.

Till next time!

Feed the Birds (St. Paul's Catherdral and the Victoria and Albert Museum)

Today we met at 9:30am in the courtyard to catch the bus to St Paul's Cathedral.  The cathedral is very beautiful.  We met with the librarian who took us up stairs to the library.  The library is just a room in the upper floor of the cathedral.  However, he sang a few bars of Feed the Birds for us.

After the tour some of us had lunch in the cafe in the crypt.  It was delicious! Then we made our way to the Victoria and Albert museum to their National Art Library which is housed inside the museum.  The library is Victorian styled and beautiful.

We received a tour and a viewing of some of their rare items.  I got to touch a book from the 1500s!  Then we headed back to the dorms to eat some dinner to get ready for the London Eye.  The London Eye was great! It is similar to a Ferris wheel, but more stable and similar to a bubble.

Luckily no one got sick.  It was great being able to see so much of London.

Till next time!

National Art Library

             Today we went to the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The National Art Library is one of four art libraries in the world.  They have an estimate of 1 million books in their collection and have over 30,000 visitors from around the world a year.  Their strengths are holdings and documents of fine and decorative arts.

           

            The library first opened in 1837 at the Somerset House in conjunction with the school of design, in 1851 it was a part of the Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace, in 1852 the school of design moved and created a museum at the Marlborough House, then they moved to their current site in 1857 and was known as the South Kensington Museum, and in 1899 it became known as the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The library is a closed access library and is open five days a week. 

            Our tour there started with us being split in to two groups: one getting a tour of the library and the other viewing the items that they pulled for us to view.  I was in the first group so we stayed in the front of the library in the reading room where guests sign in.  Our tour guide gave us a history of the library and then brought us to the back of the house.  The back has stacks of books and workrooms.  Since the library is closed access, staff members have to retrieve books for patrons. 

            After our tour of the library, we switched with the other group and were shown special collections items.  Some of the items that we saw were a book about manufacturing pottery in Italian from 1556 – 1559, a tailor’s pattern book from Madrid from 1589, and a decorative book with the New Testament from 1594 – 1598. 

            I loved being able to visit this library to hear and see how it interacts with the museum because it is not a stand-alone specialized library, but a part of a bigger specialized organization.

Front door of the library

Reading Room

Another reading room

New Testament book from 1594-1598

Tailor's Book

Stonehenge and Winchester

Today we started off the day at 7:30am in the courtyard.  We boarded on to the coaches headed off to Stonehenge.  Once we got there, we got our audio guides and boarded on to another coach to take us to Stonehenge.

It was cold out there! The audio tour was great. It led us around Stonehenge and told us bits of information about Stonehenge and how it possibly came to be.  

Once we were done looking at Stonehenge, we boarded the coach and made our way to Winchester.  Winchester was very pretty, but hot compared to Stonehenge.  We made our way to Jane Austen's last house that she lived in for 6 weeks before she died.

It is a private residence, so this was as close as we could get.  After that we walked to Winchester Cathedral and looked around a bit.

Then we made our way back up he hill and went to King Arthur's knights of the round table.  

Currently the table is on the wall and not the ground.  After that we made it back to the coach and headed back to the dorms.

Till next time!

Canterbury and Dover

I spent the Fourth of July touring Dover castle and Canterbury.  We met in the courtyard for 7:45am to take a coach to Dover castle.  Dover castle is beautiful! However, it was freezing! They have a couple of outer walls before you get to the keep.  I went in to the keep and all the way to the top! That is a lot of stairs.

After we went to the top, we made our way down by stopping at the different floors of the keep to see what displays were on each floor.

After we toured around Dover castle, we boarded the coaches and made our way to Canterbury.  Once we got there, we had about a ten minute walk to get to the cathedral.  But before we got to the cathedral, we stopped at a restaurant to eat some lunch.  Once we finished we made the trek to the cathedral.  Wes had to pay to get in, but it was worth it! The cathedral was beautiful! 

We got to tour the inside before their services. It was beautiful on the inside.

After we toured the inside, we went outside and toured around the grounds.  We found a herb garden that was very nice to look at.

After we finished our tour, we made it back to the bus.  Since we got back for dinner time we decided to find some American food to celebrate the Fourth of July.  We decided to go to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen.  I had an avocado, bacon burger with fries and a chocolate milk shake.

How more American can you get?

Till next time!