England Post!
On Thursday morning, after an hour of sleep, I took the train down to the airport. I really didn't wanna be late and miss my flight due to our seriously unreliable public transportation system, but everything actually worked out and I got to the airport 3 hours before my flight left :D I am not kidding when I say that I looked up to check for falling pianos A LOT in these three hours. I was so excited and still couldn't believe it was happening.
I arrived in Birmingham and met up with my wonderful braintwin ladyalcamy. It took us a while to find our way out of the airport, we suspected to be in a Star Trek-esque timeloop for a bit since we kept ending up in the same place despite taking different routes and following different directions every time, but eventually we got out and into our train to Stratford.
As I mentioned before, our hotel was the Sunnydale Guest House, and it was a little tricky to find, since the house numbers went 57, 59, 61, 75, 77. The Sunnydale Inn, of course, was number 64. But after asking a disgruntled desk-clerk in another hotel, we found it and were greeted by the owner, an adorable little Asian lady called Helena. She told us that our room wouldn't be ready until 3 pm, so we left our suitcases there and went back into the city.
We decided River Cruise was Tom Cruise's illegitimate lovechild. Yes, we're that witty.
Shakespeare's (very overpriced) Birthplace
We went back to the hotel to get unpacked, change etc, and then it was time for Hamlet.
To say that we were excited is... kind of an understatement. To top off our fgshkjg-I-can't-believe-this-happening-hjfhjfjksdf-ness, Alcy saw Patrick Stewart walk by at the Stage Door while we were waiting for the play to begin, leading to a small mental breakdown from both of us.
Now, the play itself. I obviously can't be 100% objective about David's performance because, well, he's David. But he was so good. His Hamlet was so amazing, and while there was a bit of his flailiness, there was also an incredible amount of emotion and realness in it.
And because I can't not have a shallow moment here, good god the man is so sexy. I am not kidding, I literally got weak in the knees every time he even looked in our direction. This could have been a problem, since we didn't actually have seats but standing places, but luckily we could lean on the backs of the seats in front of us. Even though we were really high up, we could see perfectly, and all the actors kept looking up so we could see their faces a lot.
And just... I don't have words. He is so intense. And not only in the hyperactive way he gets on DW, just in EVERY scene. Whether it was funny, sad, solemn, whatever. I just stood there staring open-mouthed for minutes at a time.
Patrick, obviously, was just fantastic as well. It's hard to believe that I have admired this man since I was about 7 years old, which was when I started watching TNG with my mother. Actually seeing him live was so odd and wonderful and surreal.
The rest of the cast was just as great. Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius was SO hilarious and awesome, Laertes was pretty damned hot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were brilliant, so was pretty much everyone involved.
After the play we followed the masses to the Stage Door, but we were quickly informed that David wasn't coming out that night. We went back to the Hotel, and guys, I have never been that post-gig-high after anything. I kept wandering into oncoming traffic while grinning like a idiot. If it wasn't for Alcy, I probably wouldn't be alive now :D
On Friday got up early, had breakfast and then missed the hourly bus into Birmingham twice in a row :D We eventually caught it and drove into the city.
Braintwins.
Billie!
Alcy and Me
Readers World
We wandered around the city a bit, then went into Nostalgia Comics, where we had one geekgasm after the other over DW and Heroes merch, Templesmith comics etc etc etc. The guy who worked there was incredibly nice, looked all over the store for a Welcome to Hoxford #1 for Alcy (sadly he was ultimately unsuccessful) and in the end even came out with us to explain the way to the next store we wanted to hit, a second hand place called Readers World. We left too much money in both of those places, but it was hardly our fault, everything was on sale. ^^
After having some food we wandered down to The Electric, the UK's oldest cinema, to watch Hellboy 2. gfhjkhdfjk THIS MOVIE WAS SO GOOD! It was just as funny, touching, action-y and cool as I had thought/hoped it would be, but on top of that is was just unbelievably gorgeous. Almost every single frame was pretty enough to print out and hang on my wall, and some moments (e.g. the plant) just took my breath away.
After the movie we had to hurry back to the station to catch the last train back to Stratford. When we got back to the hotel, we spent the night doing what all twenty-something girls on a vacation would do on a Friday night - we played with our action figures and watched Star Trek on TV.
Alas, poor Yorick!
Saturday we spent the morning just lazing around, watching completely insane British kid's television (Captain Mack!, Supernormal, My goldfish is Evil!) and recovering from running around all day on Friday. We went into town again in the early afternoon to get some food and then met up with the awesome dontburnhot(Becca) and spike66(Sam). ♥♥♥
After we sat around and talked about killer bugs and the evil dog behind Becca, we quickly went back to the hotel to put away our shopping and then met up with the girls again at the Courtyard theater.
Alcy <3
Turn Left!
Then Becca suggested that we rent a boat, which we did. Sam, who apparently has super-strength, rowed the four of us across the lake and we only had a few near-collisions ;) Becca started playing the Omen theme as a soundtrack to Sam's rowing, which was obviously awesome.
Then we walked the girls over to the theater, and while were waiting outside Becca suddenly stage-whispered: "OMG THERE'S JACK DAVENPORT!!!". While I was still thinking "Riiiight, sure there is" and turning around, I suddenly heard his voice. And sure enough, JACK FUCKING DAVENPORT was standing right behind us. Sam tried to get Becca to say something but we weren't really able to open our mouths, so we just stared incredulously while he talked to a friend and then left. JACK DAVENPORT!
The girls then went off to see the play. We met them again after it was over, waiting at the Stage Door for David, where we met two lovely American Doctor Who fans. Sadly, some grumpy woman told us that both David and Patrick had already left and we should do so as well.
After looking all over town for a place that wasn't already closed (at 11pm wtf), Sam, Becca, Alcy and I settled into the last open pub and had an awesome time with booze, skanky co-customers and a drunk guy who told us that we sounded Canadian and then later proceeded to tell me I sounded "George-Bush-American". Wtf does that even mean?
Next morning we went to the theater again to try and get Tickets for Shakespeare & me. We arrived to see a huge queue and didn't think we'd still get any of the 80 tickets, but when we finally got to the register we got the LAST FOUR TICKETS THEY HAD, which was kind of unbelievably awesome.
So was the event itself. It consisted of David, Patrick and RSC Chief Director Gregory Doran getting asked questions first by some guy and then by the audience, which luckily went off without any fangirly embarrassments. I will make a separate post/Picspam about this because there may be people who want to look at it without this loong trip recap, so only two pics here:
After that we took the "last Ferry of it's kind" across the lake, got our suitcases out of Sam's car and said our goodbyes. *sniff* It was so wonderful to meet you girls, seriously. I really hope you do come to Amsterdam (or anywhere close to my home) so we can meet again. :]
Alcy and I took our bus to the airport, where we too said our goodbyes. *tear*
And then, somehow without crashing and falling into the sea, I went home.
I really don't think I can express how amazing this trip was. I saw two of my favorite actors, on stage and in the talk on sunday, I got to hang out with two of my favorite people on lj and met an awesome third one, and through all of this, no piano fell on my head.
Sorry if there's tons of spelling mistakes in this, I'm too lazy to properly check it now and have to leave to meet Kat. Anyway, the Shakespeare and Me spam is coming later tonight. Until then: bye lovelies, thanks for listening/reading. ♥