Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon

A little late to post, but this past Wednesday I went on a guided tour of Coventry with the International Office. It was awesome because I got to meet some other Americans, two from California and one from South Carolina! Of course, everyone actually from Coventry jokes that there's nothing there, but it's really a nice city--at least during the day. Our tour guide was enthusiastic about it, at least (more on him later). We saw some good sights, like Coventry Cathedral (the ruins of it, bombed during World War II), the modern cathedral, an excavation site and museum of a church destoryed by Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and a statue of Lady Godiva. I love that myth: Lady Godiva cared so much for the people of Coventry that she repeatedly asked her husband to lower the taxes. Finally, to get her to stop bothering him, he told her he would if she rode naked through the streets of Coventry. She did, and no one looked at her except one man who was then struck blind by her beauty (we know him as Peeping Tom). And yes, she was in the nude in her statue. ;)

I went back to Coventry on Friday with Damon to look at the shops and get a phone (yay) and he showed me a park that has a map on the ground showing the timezones of all of Coventry's sister cities. Coventry actually started this practice, by becoming a sister city to Dresden (in a spirit of forgiveness). And guess what I saw on the map? None other than Coventry, CT! I can't seem to escape going to university near a Coventry...

Later that night I went back to Coventry with my floormates to celebrate a birthday. We ate dinner at Nando's a fantastic Portuguese chicken chain in the UK. Some of them went out to a club afterwards, but I didn't feel well so I just went back to the dorm to get some sleep before...

Stratford-upon-Avon! Lana and I went to the Bard's city yesterday, and it was wonderful! It was supposed to rain all day, but instead we got blue skies and sunshine...such a simple thing but it made me feel fantastic! It did end up raining, but the weather was (for once) kind enough to hold off until we got on the bus to go back. The city itself was cute, if a bit touristy. It had lots of shops and delicious food (I had a cheese and onion pasty for lunch and hearty lamb, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and mulled spiced wine at The Garrick Inn, the oldest Tudor pub in Stratford).

We visited four houses connected with Shakespeare, and all of them were lovely! Shakespeare's birthplace was the simplest of all the houses. His daughter and granddaughter lived in much larger and richer houses, and Anne Hathaway (his wife) grew up in a thatched roof cottage on the outskirts of town. We had to walk a mile to get there, practically through people's backyards. It was such a nice day that there were lots of people out walking their dogs, and Lana and I couldn't believe how old and pretty the neighborhoods are in the countryside. Stratford-upon-Avon is right on the edge of the Cotswolds, and I can't wait to visit that region again in the springtime.

Oh, and totally random: we saw the Coventry tour guide again leading another group! That guy gets around!

We learned a lot from the guides in each of the houses. Here are some random Shakespearean facts:

-Upper class men would "do their business" right into their fireplace, but the lower classes would use urine for clothing and in remedies and would leave buckets outside their doors for "donations" (!)

-The youngest son in the family had the jobs of turning the spit over the fire to cook meat and climbing up the chimney to get rid of soot (sounds right for Brian, ha ha)

-The Tudors weren't big on animal rights: They would often use dogs and chickens to do those same jobs!

-People never slept in their "best beds" but reserved it for guests

-Digging up bodies from graves and moving them for building projects was a common practice. Hence, Shakespeare's epitaph:

And, finally: Some of the churches over here have creepy, creepy statues:

So, all in all, I had a great time! Even better, I managed to resist buying a "Shakespearean insults mug" in the gift shops that they make you walk through to get out of the buildings. My favorite? "I was seeking for a fool when I found you."--As You Like It :D