Shakespeare Walk and Othello!

Hey! Today we went on a "Shakespeare walk" where we saw so many cool places! We saw the Globe Theatre, Temple Church, Middle Temple, and some other places whose names I can't remember right now. :) But it was really neat. Everything was so old, ornate and beautiful! We had a tour at Temple Church and I found out that Twelth Night was first performed there in the hall where we got to sit in. (We sat at the same table where Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare sat at! I also saw the original of the painting of Queen Elizabeth--pretty awesome! While we were waiting to get in, there was a fire drill. After everyone was outside, this man came out on the steps and very properly asked in an awesome British accent, "Ladies and gentlemen, Is everyone accounted for?" After confirming that everyone was there, he said loudly, "The fire alarm went off, which means that someone was in the mess room making toast... badly." Haha, we all laughed. Our fire drills were never like that in school! :) Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took there:

Pretty cool... A fancy crest on the ceiling!

They had complete walls FULL of these plaques. If I remember right, they are the crests of the speakers of a semi-annual conference they have here. They are still adding plaques!

This is the oldest one!

Long live the Queen! :) (Sorry it's a bad angle... it was hard to get the picture.)

Beautiful stained glass! This is James 1 and Queen Elizabeth. I can't believe how detailed it is!

This is the hall where Twelfth Night was performed and where really famous people have sat throughout the many years. We sat at the head table underneath the pictures! :)

Sorry that this is slanted... But it was a cool picture. Evidently, in WWII, a bomb destroyed part of the wall. People collected ALL of the pieces of that oak wall and painstakingly put it back together! The tour guide called it the hardest jigsaw puzzle! :)

Turns out that Robert Louis Stevenson came here and got inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from these paintings! :)

Here's Jekyll

And Hyde!

Later, we went to this church that had amazing architecture (along with other cool things)! 

This organ looks amazing!

This marks a knight, I think. 

This was the ceiling! I stood underneath and looked completely up when I took this picture. It was really tall, but so cool!

All around the arches, there were really weird faces... not exactly sure why, but they're amusing! Especially this one :)

I thought I'd join the weird faces queue. I think their faces are better. 

Imagine preaching there! I can just picture standing up there and spreading my arms out wide saying something awesome!

This is one of my teachers--Tim. He's a theatre professor.

And how can you have a Shakespeare walk without seeing this?!?

The Globe! I'll be seeing some shows here later!

This is at the original site of the theatre. Sorry that it's blurry!

Okay, sorry for all the pictures today. There were just so many cool things! After our walk, we went to the Borough Market, which was kind of like a really awesome farmer's market. (My aunt Tracy would LOVE it!) I got a delicious "toastie," an AMAZING brownie, some goat's milk ice cream, and I sampled a turkish delight. (By the way, for those who are familiar with Narnia, I don't think turkish delights are worth betraying your siblings. They're good, but not THAT good. Now that brownie on the other hand...) :) I forgot to take pictures of the things I bought. Sorry about that. But I promise they were great!

This is the stand where I got the brownie!

At that stand, there was this really funny French guy who was handing out samples. My roommate was thinking about trying macaroons and asked him if they were good. He animatedly explained that they were delicious! He said that "once you open the box (they came in packs of eight) they would disappear! You'll have to conduct an investigation!" She ended up buying them... Let's just say that he was exactly right! :)

After a long nap, we went to see my first play in London! We saw Othello at The Lion and the Unicorn Theatre. It was a tiny theatre above a pub... it looked like a garage! But the actors were amazing! :) Tomorrow my roommates are going to try and go to Les Mis! Let the theatre begin!!! :)