Day 5 and 6: Faustus and London

So, I haven't posted recently because if you follow me on any social media, you probably already know that we finally made it to London! It's been a hectic past two days, so I'll attempt to summarize as best I can.

As a last hurrah in Statford, myself and a couple others decided to rent a rowboat and go down the small river that runs through the town. Now, I have kayaked and canoed before, but I have a new found appreciation for rowboats and their lack of steering capabilities. And going under things in a rowboat?? Forget it.

We saw Doctor Faustus as our final show at the Royal Shakespeare Company on Friday. I won't bore you with the details since I already explained the premise of the show in my last post, however, they do have an interesting tradition as to how they chose who plays which of the two leads. The two main actors walk on stage wearing the exact same outfit and stand in front of a respective box of matches that has been placed on the floor. Each actor strikes a match and waits for it to extinguish. Whichever match goes out first, that actor plays Doctor Faustus while the other plays Mephistopheles. As soon as it is determined which actor will play which part, the actor playing Mephistopheles walks off stage and Faustus begins his first monologue. I found this so interesting because up until the very moment that the play begins, these actors do not know which part they will be playing. However, according to the owner of our B&B in Stratford, we discovered that they do occasionally rig the match tradition. For example, if they know there are a lot of critics in the audience for a particular night, they'll rig it so a certain actors will play a specific part.

The next day was our last day in Stratford and we took a backstage tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company. We were also able to visit their tower and got a beautiful panoramic view of Stratford-upon-Avon. Once we left the RCS, we headed straight for the bus and began our 2-hour commute to London.

Once we arrived, we were divided into apartments of six and let up to explore our new homes for the next three weeks. Our flat is located on the fourth floor of the building and has the most amazing view. It has a television, two couches, and full dining table, and a complete kitchen. (Fun Fact: in Britain, the washing machine is kept in the kitchen.)

After about half an hour, we met up as a group and started to explore the city. Just to get a taste of where we were, we spent about half an hour in the British Museum and vowed to come back at some point because half an hour was most definitely not enough time. Once we left the museum, we had our first group meal in London at a French restaurant called Belgo. It was probably the most money I've ever spent on a meal, but Ohio State was fronting the bill, so it seemed okay to me. After dinner, we came back to our apartment, unpacked, and immediately passed out after the days events.