Adventure #8: Stonehenge

I am incredibly fortunate to be so well traveled at my age, but the downside is that I sometimes think I take it for granted. While I find cathedrals to be beautiful, there are only so many you can see before they start to run together in your mind, and while I love being in historic places or renowned museums, the crowds can often be overwhelming and can overshadow the experience. Then, there are some places in this world that demand your attention. Stonehenge is one of them.

While I had been looking forward to this place since I booked the trip to London, upon arrival, I feared the crowds would make this experience uncomfortably sterile and rushed. The wait to get on the bus to go out to the site was daunting, and we had to adjust the timing of our travel plans to Bath that evening to accommodate the extra long wait. I was less than thrilled but tried to keep a good face for my students.

The wait was worth it.

While much of our travel in London had included sites like St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and Windsor Palace which are architectural wonders within their own rights, Stonehenge could be seen as much simpler, and maybe even lackluster given the natural state of things, but I find that's why I liked it so much more. It is so clearly designed in such an elegant way, and while it has SO much history to it (and so much that we don't even know) the lack of perfected sculpture seems welcoming, familiar, and humble. I often talk about feeling my most spiritual in nature, and while I can greatly appreciate the marvel of building immense cathedrals reaching towards the heavens, for me, this captured so much more of the wonder that human beings can create. Their will to overcome obstacles, and their strength and determination to succeed is evident in each massive stone. The breeze sweeping over wide grassy fields carries away the noises of other people leaving you to contemplate how short your own personal existence is (despite being surrounded by literally hundreds of other tourists). I very easily could have spent the rest of the afternoon learning about the history of these big rocks, wandering the fields in the sunshine, and even watching other people discover their own sense of amazement, but alas, there was more too see, and never enough time to do it.

Guess I'll just have to go back :)

The Heel Stone

The clouds were perfect that day

Selfie time!

Adventure #7: Shakespeare!

While this adventure happened over the course of a few days, they all have a common thread: Shakespeare in London.

As an English teacher, it's a prerequisite to have (at very minimum) a tolerance, if not a healthy appreciation, or even obsession with Shakespeare. My enjoyment of his works began at a relatively young age when my middle school English teacher gave a small group of us an assignment to write a biography, read summaries of ALL of his tragedies and comedies, and rewrite and stage our favorite over the course of a trimester. As an 8th grader, this was quite the undertaking.

The first play that I had the pleasure of acting in was an abridged version of The Tempest. It was produced in two weeks as part of an acting camp in Tacoma, and really introduced me to the world of performance. While I didn't recognize it at the time, that show was life changing.

It was a great joy to get to see Iris Theatre Company's production of this show on June 30th. Their production took place at St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden, and made use of the gardens, patio, entranceway, and main chapel as the show was presented in a "processional" form, meaning audience members would move to different locations for different acts. While this show did not have the large budget of a West-End production, it was captivating and entertaining all the same.

(P.S. I didn't take pictures of this part because it's rude to take pictures of performances, and I'm not going to post pictures of my students)

The next day, my students and I traveled to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Anne Hathaway's cottage (where she grew up, and where their married life began) and Shakespeare's birthplace. It was fascinating to me to think that these buildings have been around since before our country was founded, and we are still able to identify them as family homes, and they are structurally sound enough that hundreds of tourists are able to walk through them each day. They even know which room in the house Shakespeare was born in! The town of Stratford is much calmer than London proper, and we had a beautiful sunny afternoon to eat lunch, check out the shops, and I also took the opportunity to go visit the church where he and his family are buried. Quite impressive.

Shakespeare's chair (with initials and family emblem)

The Living Room at Anne Hathaway's Cottage

His final resting place

Shakespeare's Birthplace

Aspiring authors would carve their names on a window.

Our final Shakespearean stop was to The Globe Theatre. While I have pictures of the outside from my first trip to London, I wasn't able to go in, so getting to see the reconstruction of the theatre from the inside was a real treat. The stage was being transitioned into The Twelfth Night set while we were there, so we got to see the space as a functioning theatre, even though we weren't able to see a performance (another thing to put on the list for next time). My students also got to participate in a workshop exploring themes of Romeo and Juliet, and the use of iambic pentameter in storytelling.

This building is a recreation close to where the original Globe Theatre was. 

Whether you love him, hate him, or just don't understand him, it's hard to argue against the significance of this guy's stories!

Adventure #6: Harry Potter Studio Tour

I recently returned from a trip to London, so I've separated some of my favorite moments out into a few adventures. While this was not my first trip to London, each thing highlighted will be a new experience--something I didn't get to see or do my first time around.

There are two authors who I feel have had a profound impact on my adolescence: J.K. Rowling and Tamora Pierce. I routinely return to their worlds and stories to reexamine the characters who helped me grow into the woman I am today, and often find comfort in times of stress or strife. While many people turn to a religious text for these feelings, I find that the realms of Tortall and Hogwarts often help me to set my moral compass true, inspire me to push through my trying times, and give perspective on current world events (despite them both being fictional lands).

One of the things I was looking forward to most on this trip was the opportunity to visit Leavesden Studios, where all eight Harry Potter movies were filmed. They've taken two full sound stages and packed them full of sets, props, costumes, and more that were all used during the filming process. Despite my near encyclopedic knowledge of the stories and characters, I still learned a TON about how they achieved certain visual effects (how is Hagrid so big?), materials they used (the floor in the Great Hall is actually stone!), and greatly enjoyed seeing the creative process behind some truly incredible world building. They also had a "passport" (designed for children, but let's be honest; we all know I'm a child) that encouraged visitors to ask questions about certain locations, and provided a place to get a 3D stamp for each location. I collected ALL of the stamps, and spotted all 19 hidden snitches.

The Invisibility Cloak would have been worn with the "green screen" fabric on the outside. 

A small collection of the MANY hats created in the millinery shop.  

Models and illustrations from the Art Department. Not used for filming, but just for creation and communication of what the details of this world looks like. 

One of the biggest surprises to me was seeing how small everything seemed. The set for the Gryffindor boys dormitory is barely larger than my own bedroom, and #4 Privet Drive (while built as a full scale house) felt positively cramped. I struggled to imagine filming in locations like that, knowing that many actors, creatives, and their equipment would have to fit in a rather small living room or office setting.

The interior of #4 Privet Drive

My favorite displays were the final two rooms. One held the scale model of Hogwarts used to film all the exterior shots of the castle. I may have started crying when I saw it because of its spectacular detail and intense beauty. This model is ENORMOUS, and took 7-8 months to build. After the initial build, they discovered that when a train would pass by under the studio, it would shake the model ever so slightly, and it would register on camera, so they then had to move the model to a new location away from public transportation. This moving process took 40 days! When it was winter at Hogwarts, they would cover the model in salt "snow" and then spend several days vacuuming up all traces of winter for other seasonal shots. Nowadays, in December, the model is decorated for the exhibition using a synthetic snow that is less realistic looking, but also less corrosive.

The final room was decorated like the back room at Olivanders, and contained 4,219 "wand" boxes. Each box bore the name of a person credited with working on the films. The staff working in this room could direct people to any box requested, despite the fact that the boxes were not organized by category (writer, actor, composers, etc).

Can you see any familiar names? I can! 

When it was time to go, I was sorely tempted to leave them with a job application, but given my distaste for change, I decided that moving out of the country to live in a fantasy world would upset my status quo a bit. I could have easily spent another 8 hours enjoying more details, talking with the employees, and sitting in the sunshine enjoying a cold glass of Butterbeer, but all good things must come to an end. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that I'll get to return there some day soon!