Students Abroad in Stratford Write Home

Greetings from Stratford!We’re all living together on a farm in Leamington Spa, about a twenty-minute drive from Stratford-upon-Avon. We live in three cottages, all right next to each other: Tinker’s Corner, Dairy Cottage and The Barn. We cook our own meals together (Julie makes killer mac and cheese if you care to know), and we’re one big family with the Simpsons and their hilarious boys, Blake and Will. Although we live on a farm, we don’t do any farm work—but every time we walk into town, we are greeted by huge pastures and friendly neighborhood sheep, cows and horses. The weather has also been surprisingly nice so far; on clear nights, we can walk out into the fields and see hundreds of bright stars. The relaxing farm has a pool, tennis court and a fabulous yard where Connor, Eliran and the Simpson boys play “rugby.” In the beginning the weather was warm enough to eat almost every meal outside, but all 13 of us now cram into one cottage to eat our cozy meals together.We are taking four classes here: Women, Gender and Religion in Film; Shakespeare in Stratford; Literature in Stratford; and Personal Reflection and Narrative. Most of our classes are taught by the wonderful Mr. Simpson, a world-class 17-passenger-stick-shift-van-driving religion instructor (driving on the wrong side of the road mind you). Our other teacher Professor Vivian Thomas is the best Shakespeare scholar ever and the stereotypical British gentleman. We can honestly say we ended class one day because it was tea time. He legitimately writes the dictionaries that you reference in English class, and needless to say we are absolutely blessed to be working with him.We have seen tons of plays, everything from Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson, to a rock/metal opera called “Dead Dog in a Suitcase.” For the main act, however, we have seen an all-star lineup of Shakespeare’s best works: “Henry V,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” an all-female production of “Othello,” “Richard II,” a screening of “Coriolanus” starring Tom Hiddleston and the new “Macbeth” movie starring Michael Fassbender. Other plays include: “Volpone,” “Jew of Malta,” “Marina Carr’s “Hecuba” and “Oresteia.” During our independent travel weekends, some of us saw “Les Miserables,” a modern retelling of “Dante’s Inferno,” “Nell Gwynn” and a new play called “Reckless.” For our religion class, we went to a panel called “Refusing the Veil” about female Muslims, featuring Mona Eltahawy, who gave an amazing Exeter assembly when we were preps.Apart from spending a lot of time at the farm and in Stratford, we have been able to explore a lot of England. In the beginning of September, we went to Kenilworth Castle (which we are going to again this Friday for a haunted Halloween horror night). We went to London for a couple days back in September and did all the things tourists do—we went on the London Eye, saw “Much Ado About Nothing” at the Globe, visited the Tate Modern, attended evensong at St. Paul’s and went to the British Library.We also traveled to a small town called Hereford for a few days afterwards and stayed with host families. We shadowed the students at their school, Hereford Cathedral School. We had a lot of fun connecting with students our age and finding out how similar all teenagers are, whether they are American or British. Our host stay culminated with a dinner in Cabalva (Wales) with Exeter alum Rob Albert ‘51. We all played a ridiculous game of charades and had a great time in his beautiful home.Last week, we got to stay in the Lake District for four days, mostly in Grasmere. We studied the works of poets like William Wordsworth with Mr. Simpson’s wonderfully intelligent father, Dr. Simpson, a professor of British romanticism. We went to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s home for over eight years and got to examine incredibly old books like Frankenstein. We hiked a lot on the trip and went to the top of Helms Crag, a peak that overlooked expansive fields and lakes. The place was full of fluffy Herdwick sheep which roamed all around us in green grazing fields. While driving back home from the Lake District, we stopped in Liverpool for a few hours to go to the International Slavery Museum.We have all been having such a fantastic time on this trip, immersing ourselves in the landscape, taking the time to reflect in our writings and delving into the minds of literary geniuses. After forming a new 13-member family and settling into our cozy cottages, we have truly found a new home in England.