Stratford-Upon-Avon

Stratford-Upon-Avon .. Excuse me? No worries, about 12 hours earlier, this was me as well. Basically, it's a town in central England (close to where I was last weekend, Leicester) and is about 20 minutes south of Birmingham. The only thing I knew about Stratford-Upon-Avon was that Shakespeare was born here.. Brennah, from Arkansas, that I went with is the total package of an English Literature major. So, needless to say, she was a little more excited for the day than I anticipated. Turned out to be a wonderful, gorgeous, and best of all, relaxing day out...

Starting the day as a "Typical Tourist"

Straighteners in the bathroom.. This is new..

Welcome to Stratford-Upon Avon: Hello Shakespeare's ghost!

These are the 200+ flavors (not including the combinations) at Moo Moo's.
It was a milk-shake/hot-chocolate shop where you picked what you wanted mixed in.
Sorry Mom, this was lunch.

The beginning of a wonderful day. Sitting outside being serenaded by an Italian guitar player in England

To be completed by a White-Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake-flavored Milkshake.
Do it again? Yes please!

The real reason why we came (not just for the milkshakes, though those alone are worth returning for!)
Top left window is where Shakespeare was born

1st published version of all of the works of Shakespeare
(I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to take pictures in here, oh well, they didn't arrest me...)

Romeo & Juliet with Leo. =]

The backyard had a beauuuutiful garden of flowers!

The Jester statue at the end of the City Centre

The inside of this Sweet Shoppe looked EXACTLY like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Facory.
You can kind of see in the window on the right they had a whole display of rainbow-swirly lollipops!

This is Holy Trinity, the church where Shakespeare was baptized and is buried

Whoever trimmed these shrubs needs to go back to school or be re-trained or something. Because they just looked awful!

Legit statue. In a church. Not of a saint. Way to go, Bill!

And now for the gorgeous part of the day, along the River Avon

We had a little time to kill, so we went to the Riverside Restaurant and Bar. This is Brennah with her super expensive Salmon-Mushroom-and-a-lot-of-other-things-that-neither-of-us-could-pronounce Salad

And I got Pinot .. (Mom, Grandma, Jean, Barb - you trained me well!)

 Haley, this next section is dedicated solely to you. These were all of the creeper-ish dog pictures that I took throughout the day. We came to the conclusion that this was a very Upper-Middle Class/Posh area. Basically everyone had their dog with them. They all had a set of two and they were always the same breed. It was like they only had the choice to buy them in pairs. According to my very (very) limited dog knowledge, they were all pure-breds as well. You didn't really see any mutts/ugly dogs haha. You're Welcome.

This is where I started to get sad. When we were sitting at the Riverside, a lot of kids were running around and kicking footballs. It really made me miss my kids. Both at Katie's Kids as well as just being with kids observing in the classroom or babysitting. I never really recognized how much time I really get to spend with them and how much that time really means to me. Seeing all of these kids and not being able to laugh with them or even just play with them, was a little more emotion than I was ready for on the day. I know you're all totally judging me right now, but I really do miss my kids!

How cute is she dressed?

And this little redhead was literally the cutest ginger baby I have ever seen. Ever.



Once we were back in Preston, we saw this big rainbow light. It's coming from St. Walburge's (the church where I go to) since they are the highest point in Preston. It signifies the Preston Guild that is coming (which only happens once every ten years) as well as the Olympics that are coming to London in 2012!

 Obviously, a wonderful day. It was very chill, which was nice. Brennah and I really had a good time just exploring the unknown of the city. This was the last of the school-trips (already), and now it's all on me. Which is super weird. One week from today, I will have reached my halfway point. Not there yet though, so I don't have to think about it yet. Next weekend Brennah and I are planning to go to Edinburgh, the weekend after that Mom and Dad will be here and we're headed over to Ireland, the next week I'm headed down to London, and the week after that is our big Spring Break trip to Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome in seven days. Does time ever slow down??

 I have to admit that I keep getting jealous seeing that everyone is at Disney or in Florida for Spring Break, but then I just remember, I'm living a 4-month long Spring Break. I think I'll take that trade ;-]