Day #4- Shakespeare's Globe

Our fourth day on the UK adventure started off with some free time to explore the city. Many people went out and had a full English breakfast, while others explored the city and even made a pit stop at Harry Potter's "Platform 9 and 3/4" at King's Cross train station, which was about a ten minute walk from where we were staying. 

Some of the girls enjoying breakfast!

The group met at the steps of our hostel at noon and we headed off to the Westminster tube station, which was one of the busiest parts of London we could be in that day because of a bike race going on. The atmosphere was so exciting and the streets were lined with people from all over the world. As we stepped out of the tube station, we were greeted with sights of telephone booths, British flags, and many people bike riding through the streets. It was here we decided to take our group picture to capture what we were all experiencing in that moment.

On the tube!

Our group picture in front of the iconic clock tower, Big Ben!

After we filled our eyes with all the center of London had to offer, we made our way across the River Thames for the unique experience of touring Shakespeare's globe theatre museum. There were over 900 exhibits in the museum and some students(and professors) even got the chance to practice scenes from some of Shakespeare's plays while being recorded. There were many other experiences available there such as a printing press demonstration, which showed how difficult and time consuming it was to create scripts back in the day, and a costume demonstration.

Shakespeare's Globe!

 For the next few hours, everyone explored the area and filled their stomachs with even more English food in preparation for our experience in the Globe Theatre. We were seeing The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe and stepping into the theatre, there was an atmosphere of being in a different era. The only lighting was natural lighting, half of the theatre consisted of 'groundlings', or people standing in the center rather than sitting in a seat, and all sound effects were created naturally. The acting was absolutely phenomenal and the actors were very interactive with the audience. It was in this moment that it hit many of us that we were in London, where so much history had happened and we were seeing The Tempest the way it might have been performed hundreds of years ago. There is really no way to describe that feeling. 

            Inside of the Globe Theatre!

After the play, we had the opportunity to meet one of the main characters, the man who played Ferdinand, at a restaurant and he actually sat down with the students and professors for about half an hour to answer any questions we had. It was an amazing experience and each person had so many questions to ask. It was an amazing learning experience and really gave insight to the world of professional acting. With our bellies full and our theatre experiences satisfied, we went off into the night to cuddle up in our hostel and enjoy the reflection of Big Ben and the London Eye at night over the River.