We saw "Two Gentlemen of Verona' in this theatre, the Swan. It was an amazing place; it only held probably about 500 people, and the stage jutted out into the audience.

Even HSBC takes advantage of the Shakespeare thing!

Here is Jessica and I outside the house. It was crawling with German or Dutch tourists, which was kinda funny. I guess Shakespeare works with all languages.

Stratford-upon-Avon was the town Shakespeare was born in, and where he lived before he moved to London. This is his family's house, and where he was born. They had a nice museum attached to it, with lots of shakespeare info, and then you could walk around the house. We found out that in 1790something, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited the house together, which I found more interesting then much of the other information.

On Thursday (24th), we went on an overnight class trip to Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick Castle. Stratford was a very quaint little town, but very touristy. Although, in America, it would be like 10X worse.

Here is one picture from the night before of the women in our flat; Anna, Lizzie, and Jessica.

Here is a picture from that same night of Jessica and our flatmate Lizzie. We need a good picture of the 5 of us before we leave!

The next day (Tues 22) we went to see the Pekinel Sisters, a classical piano playing sister duo. It was good, but I'm very happy we are seeing more plays then musical performances. We got dressed up to go see it, and this is me with my flatmate Sean, and Ian, who lives in the flat above ours.

That day Jessica took this picture outside the window of our flat. It's actually been snowing a good deal here lately, although it's never enough to stick. I thought we left this home in Binghamton.

Here is a picture of him with Jessica and Anna (one of my flatmates). Unfortunately it came out kinda fuzzy, but it's better then nothing.

The women were very excited to see Joshua Jackson (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005045/), known best for his role in the TV show Dawson's Creek. He was very nice, joking around with the crowd and signing autographs for almost everyone.

Patrick Stewart (Star Trek) was very good. It was essentially a play about acting, and it was interesting seeing him poke fun at his profession.

On Monday (21st), we got seats for the play we wanted to see on Saturday, a Life in the Theatre. We called the box office that day, and apparently students could reserve seats in the first two rows the day of the show for only 17pounds. The play was short, only 90mins, but very funny, and we were literally 2 feet from the stage. A lot of the action took place towards the front of the stage, especially near a phone on the extreme right, and Jessica and I were first row, in the two seats furthest to the right. Being so close we actually missed some of the scenes that were towards the back of the stage, but it was worth the experience being within arms lengths of the actors. Afterwards we went to the stage door.

Last Sunday (the 20th), we went to Camden Town Markets, this Market thing northwest of Central London that is apparently London's fourth largest tourist attraction. They had a lot of stuff for fairly good prices, I got some souvenirs, and Jessica got some clothes.

Afterwards we went backstage to meet her. She was very nice, signing autographs for everyone, and even taking pictures. Here she is with Jessica, and Jamie, one of the students in the Binghamton London program.

The show was here, at the Comedy Theatre. It was an interesting play, Kim Cattrall (one of the four women from Sex and the City), plays a woman who has become paralyzed. So the entire play she can only talk and move her head.

One of the foutains in Trafalgar Square with a double decker bus in the background.

That Saturday (the 19th), we attempted to go see the play 'A Life in the Theatre', with Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson, but there were 4 of us, only 3 seats left, and they weren't that great. We ended up seeing the Kim Cattrall play, whose Life is It Anyway?. We had some time to kill before the show, so we went to Trafalgar Square. This is Jessica and I in front of one of the fountains.

Jessica's program, with Kevin Spacey and Steven Weber's autographs. We also saw a great show the night before called Losing Louis, but I have no pictures of that night.

...Kevin Spacey, who was not nearly as nice. He apparently said when he first came out not to take pictures, but I didn't hear him, so i took a few pictures, wondering why noone else did, and then felt kinda stupid. He signed a good number of programs though, and signed Jessicas' before he got in his car. He was fantastic in the show though, without him it would've been not so great.

...Steven Weber, who will forever be known as 'that guy from Wings.' He was actually very, very nice, signing everyone's program, including mine, and taking pictures with two people from our group. Even more exciting, was the star of the show...

That night we went to see 'National Anthems' at the Old Vic Theatre in Southwark. It was a so-so play, but there the acting was unbelieveable. There were only three people in it, Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes, and....

This is some church that is important for some reason, I forgot why, but i thought it was a nice picture.

A cool picture taken near the Clink Museum, a prison museum we went past on our walk.

This is the Globe Theatre, a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Theater. We are seeing the Tempest there just before we go back. It is actually open at the top, so performances are only on during good weather. You can either get tickets for actual seats around the perimeter, or the center is all standing room, where you can actually lean against the stage.

A picture of St Paul's from the other side of the Thames.

This is the Tate Modern, the Art Museum I described a few weeks ago that we went inside of, but I didn't have a good picture of it. It used to be a power generating plant.

This picture was taken inside the OXO building looking southwestish. You can see the London Eye.

We walked east along the river, with our professor pointing out random things although the way. This is looking east up the Thames, and you can make out the dome of St. Pauls, as well as the Swiss Re Building. We then went inside the OXO builiding on the right side of the picture, which has some great views of the city.

From left to right, Big Ben (obviously), the Tube station for Westminster (a very nice building), and Scotland Yard.

Big Ben from across the river. Hey, it's London's icon, I have to post a few pictures of it!

Big Ben again.

Across the Thames is the London Eye a giant ferris wheel that allows great views of the city. Hopefully in the next few weeks Jessica and I will get tickets to go up on it.

A picture of Big Ben with the Houses of Parliament.

On Wednesday we went for a walk along the south bank for my Architecture class, and I finally got to see Big Ben.

We've been getting used to riding the Tube, a very fast way to get around the city. Last weekend they were working on one of the lines, which led to some confusion and waaayyy too much walking.

Just outside is Tower Bridge, an icon of the City of London. Unfortunately, we did not get to go on its tour, but hopefully we will before we leave.

This is traitor's gate, where all important prisoners entered the tower. It faces the River Thames.

Still inside the tower :o)

Another picture inside the castle. There is are concentric walls around the White Tower, built every couple of hundred years when a King was feeling insecure.

This is Jessica's picture of the tower ravens. There are 7 ravens at the tower, and a myth says that if they leave the tower, the Kingdom of England will fall.

Inside the tower.

The most important prisoners were executed on this spot inside the Tower. They included Anne Boleyn (second wife of Henry VIII), Katherine Howard (5th wife of Henry VIII), and Lady Jane Grey, a 17yr old girl who claimed the crown during some confusion in the 16th century.

I just liked this shot a lot, with Tower Bridge in the background.

The Crown Jewels were kept in this building, unfortunatly no photography was allowed. They were very shiny though.

The tour of the Tower of London was given by this guy, a 'Beefeater.'

The White Tower. It's hard to believe that this building is over a millennia old.

The moat of the tower was drained to create parade grounds for the military. You can see the Swiss Re Building in the background.

Inside one wall of the tower.

Another picture. The 'Tower of London' is not really one continous castle but a few different parts, each built a few hundred years apart from one another. The initial castle, called the "White Tower" was started right after William the Conqueror..well...conquered the area. Its main function was not to protect the city, but to awe its residents so that they respected their new king.