Macbeth at the globe

We saw Macbeth tonight with the group. We took Heather, Laura, and Ryan too. Heather and Ryan liked it. Laura hates Shakespeare but liked parts of the play. She's only 13 and I didn't like it at that age either. scott describes it as "Lord of the rings meets Shakespeare. It was pretty bloody with body parts. Kind of too gory for me, but it was still fun to watch. the pictures are before the play started. We were "groundlings." That means our tickets were for standing only. I sat down for a minute and they didn't waste any time coming over and telling me I can go outside to sit, but need to stand in the theatre. My feet were aching!

St. Paul's Cathedral on our way to the Globe.

View from the Millennium bridge on our way.

The other side of the bridge

The Globe

Inside the globe. As part of the staging in this production

they had people put their heads through slits cut in the 

fabric. We opted to stand in the back against the wall.

Ryan couldn't reach the slits anyway!

Ross, Charlie, Emelyn, and Steven. They are students 

in our group. They play with our boys all the time.

Ross and Steven are twins. Ross is the one who plays

Pokemon with the boys.

One of the characters who came out before the play.

He "weed" in the bucket and then "accidentally" threw it 

on the crowd. Blood and guts got thrown out too

during the play.

Two of the three witches from the play came out

and "interacted" with the crowd. They snuck under

the black cloth and ticked and did whatever to

the audience. People were screaming.

Intermission

The Millennium after the play with St. Paul's

in the background.

Fun Evening!

Edinburgh

What a fun trip! We traveled by train instead of coach and we stayed in the same hostel both nights instead of moving around. Edinburgh was really cool. Though I think I'm a bit biased since I'm Scottish. One of the proud moments I had was in Edinburgh castle. There was a memorial/chapel dedicated to servicemen who have lost their lives defending Scotland. There was a big memorial to the Gordon Clan. We weren't allowed to take pictures so I can't post it, but it was neat to see from floor to ceiling this memorial, including a giant Gordon crest.

One fun thing we did on our second day here was take a ferry to the island, Inchcolm.  It was just our family having fun together. The kids loved the relaxing boat ride with ocean wildlife. They loved playing in, out, and around the ruined Augustinian Inchcolm Abbey. The Abbey was built because an ancient King was stranded on the island and an old hermit (monk) took care of him until he could get back to the mainland. He promised to build an Abbey but died before he could do it. His brother made sure it was built. We happened to be there during the sea gulls nesting time. Ugh! We took a walk and guess what? We walked right into the nesting grounds (we knew we would). The sea gulls were not happy! They are LOUD and one dive bombed me and touched my head. Since they have webbed feet I was more worried about a gross mess on my head! We turned around and left them alone.

Daniel With Stayley. She played eye-spy with him and 

kept him entertained for three of the four hour train trip.

Edinburgh Castle

view of Edinburgh from castle

castle guard inspection

castle

A bag piper we stopped to listen to on our

way to the bus stop to go to the ferry. I

had Jacob pay him some $$.

Edinburgh

Inchcolm Island

Abbey

Naval War ship passing by with tug boat behind 

(there were three tug boats)

This one has three eggs. She was squawking at us!

Looking for treasures

We found lots of sea glass, shells, rocks, and dead jelly fish

Scottish Countryside

Seals. We also saw puffins

Edinburgh

Playing Pool in the lounge of our hostel

Daniel being wild with Charlie and other students

on the train ride home. I finally gave Charlie

a picture book to read so Daniel would calm down!

Changing of the Guard

We finally got around to doing this. Why didn't we go in the Winter?? We probably would have been the only one's there in Janauary. It was hot and crowded last week when we did this. We didn't even actually see the changing because there were so many people. We saw and heard the band though and to me that's the fun part anyway. Then we went to St. James Park across the street and had ice-cream and fed pigeons. It was a fun day with the kids and just one of those things you do because it's London!

Waiting for the tube

We take this tube pretty often!

Buckingham Palace

Feeding these yucky birds!

They climb all over you! The squirrels are the same.

Just a random tube picture NOT going to see
the Changing of the Guard.

"West Trip"

Tuesday, May 11
Chauton (Jane Austin's House)
Winchester Cathedral and Great Hall
Bath

Wednesday, May 12
Glastonbury Abbey
Wells Cathedral
Devonshire Coast

Thursday, May 13
Tintagel ("King Aurthurs" Castle) Cornwall Coast
Exeter Cathedral

Beautiful, Fun, Challenging, Educating, and an overall great experience! Driving on a coach for hours and hours has it's challenges with a four year old boy, (he tossed his cookies)  but it was so neat to see the south west coast of England. I love London, but sometimes I feel claustrophobic. So it was really awesome to see the ocean again. Here are the highlights of our trip!

Jane Austin's Home in Chauton

Jane Austin's writing table. I "illegally" took this picture!

Daniel playing across the street from the house.

Winchester Cathedral (taken in the winter)

King Aurthur's Round table
If he existed, King Aurthur
was born in the 6th century.
Table built in the 11th century. Go figure!

Daniel listening to the kid's audio guide in Bath

Bath Abbey in the distance

BYU students (the three on the right are Cougarettes)

The Royal Crescent

Daniel LOVES mazes!

Glastonbury Abbey ruins

The kids playing in a weed mound at Glastonbury Abbey
while the students were on a tour.

The students were laughing because the kids looked like
prairie dogs poking their heads up and down.

Wells Cathedral

We arrived in Devonshire at the end of the day. We just
spent the night there before moving on the next day.
The water was FREEZING! Not like California in May.

Daniel collecting sea glass and rocks.

Tintagel in Cornwall

Laura on a cliff. Yes I was scared!

The main chapel at Tintagel. The castle in the
background is a hotel or something.

Exeter Cathedral

Whew! Time to go home to London. It was a four plus hour drive with a stop on the way. I'm glad to be home and we're not doing anything with the students next week! Just Scott. Heather will go on one day trip to Oxford University and Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare's home). I'm going to chill with the boys and try to catch up a little on their school.