Harry Potter, Shakespeare, and Rain

Hello everyone!

For starters: I'm not flooded or anything. A few people have asked, and no, I'm not in the flooded area. I am headed to Oxford this weekend, so I am going to find out if that is still happening. No flooding in Cambridge, though. It rained most of the weekend, which wouldn't have matter, if only I hadn't gone to the Globe to see "Othello." I was a groundling, so I was rained on. It never really poured or anything, though, just a steady drizzle, so it wasn't too bad. Plus, the Globe was amazing. I was *right there* at the front of the stage; I could have touched it during the second act if I wanted to. There were a few people in front of me for the first, but that didn't matter. The actors were amazing, and I just had an absolute blast. The rain didn't even bother me. I was with an IUPer, Rebecca Mir, on the ground, and I spent the morning in London with another IUPer, Elise Auvil, and one of her friends from her program. We went to Platform 9 and 3/4 before we went to othello, and that was pretty sweet too! (For those who aren't Harry Potter nerds, it's a place from the book). I got my picture there--wohoo!--and I was reading the final book most of the day. I got it Friday night, and stayed up until 5:00 AM reading it, because I'm silly like that. I had an amazing day though, and it's a great book!

So, that was Friday and Saturday. Rachel Jakab, a girl from Hampton, showed up on Saturday night, and we spent Sunday wandering around the Cambridge area. We went to this really neat little town about 2 miles away and ate at this tea place where Virginia Wolfe and Rupert Brooke wrote a lot of their stuff. I want to say "Chesterfield" but that sounds wrong. Whatever, though. It was a really nice walk, and a beautiful day, and the tea was great, and the atmosphere was so peaceful. They set up lounge chairs beneath willow trees, and little tables...it was so pretty. We spent Sunday night at The Eagle, a very famous pub that housed American Soldiers duruing WWII, and Rachel ran into two girls that she had just been with at Cyprus, so that was a really fun night.

On Monday, we grabbed *another* IUPer, Ginny, and bought wine and cheese and went to see Shakespeare in the Garden of St. John's College. We saw "the Taming of the Shrew." It was raining--drizzling again, all night--so the actors were thrilled when we showed up an hour early with our picnic. More people came as it got closer to the show, so that was good, and the show was absolutly amazing. Hilarious, and great. We had a wonderful time drinking our wine out of plastic wine cups, and watching Shakespeare in the PARK! I think Ginny and I are going to go again!