Here it is: the end of the road. It’s our last day in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Tomorrow morning we’ll be packing all of our things onto a bus and heading back to Heathrow. It doesn’t feel real. I don’t know when it will. That seems overdramatic, but this trip has genuinely been one of the best things to happen to me. The number of new experiences, new determinations I have, and the new friends I’ve made or at least become closer with… it’s overwhelming to think that all of that has been in the span of a month.
We aren’t here to reminisce yet, though, so I’ll pull myself together. Today I’m going to talk about Stratford, and what I think of being here.
My first impression is that it’s very small. While we were driving away from London, I got the pressing feeling that everything I’d done in the past month was so small; it was so confined. Within fifteen minutes of being in the bus, I couldn’t see anything I recognized, even though I’ve spent the past month exploring the city. I saw the names of overground stations I’d never visited before, but had seen at the end of lines. I understood for the first time since being here how truly small London itself was in the grand scheme of things. It can seem so vast when you’re in the middle of it, but leaving it, you realize your life was confined to ten square blocks or less in any given direction.
What I didn’t anticipate is precisely how much smaller Stratford is. If not for the tourism Shakespeare brings in, it truly is just another rural town. Everything in town closes before seven if it isn’t a theatre, a pub, or McDonald’s. Nothing opens before ten. It’s utterly quiet.
I’m not used to leaving our lodgings so late. In London, we were able to leave between 8:30 and 10 at latest. Everything was always open. Here, we’ve departed to do things at 10 at the earliest, and today we left at 11:30. It’s started to feel like noon is already the end of the day in London, but in Stratford the day is only starting. I enjoy being able to get up at 6 and have the city be awake; I don’t know what to do with myself here. There’s only so far I can walk before I go in a circle or leave the town–in London I can walk for miles.
I don’t know that I’m ready to go back to living out of London. Even Stratford, while I’m still across the ocean, feels just like home, and not in a way that I’m enjoying fully. The buildings are different, and much older. The shops are English, not American. The feeling is the same, though. I like to hear the birds again. I miss real, sprawling parks that go for more than a block. I miss the tube. I miss Oliver’s Falafel. I miss getting coffee at Bloomsbury Coffee from the man who doesn’t know that we won’t be coming back on Monday. I miss the little life I made for myself there, in the time between activities.
I’ve found it difficult to be excited about being here when the end is so near. We’ve seen Shakespeare’s birthplace, and the place where he and his family lie in Trinity Church. We’ve seen the New Place, where he lived. We went to see Anne Hathaway’s cottage today, and tonight is dinner at the Windmill Pub. With all of these things being such appealing attractions, I thought I would be excited, but with no London on the other side, it all feels slightly lackluster.
I’m not entirely put out about being here; I really have found it interesting. I am just a person who needs things to do. And we have done things: we went to a cat cafe yesterday, and had afternoon tea there; we did all of the aforementioned Shakespeare tourism; we have learned the inside of the Stratford-Upon-Avon McDonald’s very well. I just miss the rush of the city. I think I will forever, even if I do come back, because it won’t be the same. Places that move this quickly never are.
CW
Theatre in London U of A 