Kelsey Comes

I've never been much of a city person. However, London maintains this intriguing balance between the historic and the modern which has me captivated.

I see it in the traditional brick exterior of our hotel building, contrasted with the sleek, posh purple carpet and white marble of the interior. It's in the contrast between an elaborate, organized public transportation network, and the uneven, cobblestone streets closed to vehicular traffic. It's the 10-pound note featuring an image of the Queen on one side, and Charles Darwin on the other.

I've always imagined (and probably romanticized as well, but who doesn't do that?) the settings of the classic English works I love — books by Austen, Dickens, and clearly, Shakespeare's dramas as well — and many feature London integrally in their stories. For me, this city combines the history of those books with my imagination of them, and brings in the modern, progressive aspects of today's society as well. The mix is unbelievable.

I, like many others on the program, have found myself adopting a "British accent." I am aware that it is complete rubbish (look how British I am, using a word like "rubbish"!), yet it is so fun to pretend I can sound as sophisticated and cool as the British do. I also really want to start saying "Cheers!" instead of "thank you" but I feel like they might hate me if I start to adopt their fun phrases like an American tourist, so I've been restraining myself. But that's beside the point.

Tuesday night, I went to see a production of Jersey Boys, a musical about the '60s band the Four Seasons. The four actors of the quartet of the Four Seasons affected pretty impressive Jersey accents, and I was wondering through the first bit of the performance whether they were American actors.

Read on: Are they or aren't they? (Brits, that is.)

Never in my life did I think that I would stand in the pouring London rain, stationary in two inches of water, for an hour and a half ... and love it.

Let me back up. Last night, we went to the Globe Theatre (I love British spelling!), which is set up in the same outdoor-amphitheater style as it was originally built in Shakespeare's time. People who could afford to would sit in the covered bench seats in three levels around the outside edge of the amphitheater. Poorer people, or "groundlings," would stand in the open, uncovered center of the theater, right in front of the stage. These standing tickets were, and still are, considerably cheaper than the sitting seats — £5 (about $8) versus £33 (about $55) today.

Translation: after I walked to the Globe, getting wet along the way because I didn't bring my umbrella (it wasn't raining when I left, OK?), I stood in the groundling position and got even wetter. I bought a poncho before the performance started, but I was already wet by the time I put it on, and standing in the puddle that was the groundling area made water wick up my pants to my mid-thigh.

Read on: And it was totally worth it.

London is a wonderful city, and England is a great country, but there are some things they get wrong.

For instance, to turn a light off, you hit the light switch up, instead of down. That's just counterintuitive. They also call crackers "biscuits for cheese" to differentiate them from the biscuit cookie things they have with tea. Wouldn't it just be easier to call them "crackers"? They also have a hard time placing trash cans in convenient areas ... as in, I can never find one when I want one. Surprisingly, the streets are spotless, but I suspect that everyone is carrying around lots of garbage in their purses all the time since there's nowhere to throw things away. I know I am.

However, London does many things right, such as public transportation, preserving history, and ... shoes. Now before you judge me for being shallow and writing a blog post about heels, let me defend myself. I have been filtering all of my purchases here by asking the question, "Is this something unique to London — something I can only get here?" And for the amazing black heels I bought, the answer is a resounding YES.

Read on: The magical things these shoes can do.

Shakespeare often looks at the difference between the "civilized" city people and the less formal countryside society. In the interest of keeping with the academic nature of this program, here are the differences I've noted between London and Stratford:

1) The geriatric crowd — you can see them emerging from Bibby's tour buses and walking through the shops picking up gifts for the grandchildren. They literally don't exist in London.

2) Tourist sites — usually consist of things named after Shakespeare and/or his characters. I know they are tourist traps, but I love them anyway. I've already suckered myself into renting a rowboat named Beatrice and buying a grossly overpriced vanilla-with-chocolate-sauce ice-cream sundae just because it was named a "Hamlet." Some London sites are even more grossly overpriced, but most don't have the fun and nerdy Shakespeare qualities to redeem them.

3) Food — is for the most part, already paid for! We get breakfast and dinner at the hotel instead of just breakfast. In London, we'd stuff ourselves at breakfast and try to hold off eating again until dinner to save money. My metabolism hated me, especially when I would try to only feed it a Pepperoni Pizza Toastie from the snack menu at Subway. At only 99 pence (about $1.65), it was a great deal, but my stomach would yell at me later, "That was NOT dinner!" Needless to say, I'm glad we get two whole meals now.

Read on: Have we mentioned the rain yet?

1) Swans — are really awkward on land. They would sit on the lawn in front of the hotel and we would go on "swan stalking" missions to get pictures close to them. They would run away from us on their black feet in a most ungraceful and unbecoming fashion.

2) Peacocks — are actually as vain as the saying suggests. At Warwick Castle, we saw one attacking its own reflection by repeatedly hurling itself at a mirror.

3) Goats — stick their tongues out when they say "baaahhh!" It's absolutely hilarious. Also, loud.

4) Rabbits — apparently are a pest in parts of the countryside and are shot to keep their numbers down. The reason I know this? During the RSC's performance of As You Like It, the shepherd character skins one of said rabbits onstage. One of the actresses came to visit our class after the performance and stopped our "real-or-not?" debate, confirming that it was real. Ew.

There is a "Pet Kingdom" in the fantastical retail world of Harrods. Yes, that's exactly what you think it is — an entire section of the store devoted entirely to pets. They actually sell cats, bunnies, gerbils, etc., as well as a wide selection of leashes, collars, and toys, most of which are ghastly, overpriced couture items. You can even take your pet into the "dressing grooms" to make sure that these items fit your furry friend before purchasing. You can go so far as to invest in a £400 cat bed (about $670) complete with a finished wood headboard/frame and fuzzy leopard-print comforter. Now, I love my cat, and I treat my dog like she's practically human, but a cat bed that's almost as expensive as my plane ticket for this trip? That's crazy over-the-top.

However, "Christmas World," located on the second floor? The place where Christmas joy, sparkles and cheer lives all year round? Where you can pay £100 (about $170) for a giant, glittering fake lollipop decoration? That's just awesome.

I am a hoarder of all things written. I even have a shoebox under my bed of notes from friends from 5th grade until the present. Naturally, one of my life goals is to have a personal library in my house full of beautiful, old books that fill floor-to-ceiling shelves. Therefore, I basically had a heart attack when I went to the British Library in London to see their Treasures of the British Library exhibit yesterday evening.

There were original handwritten copies of Jane Austen's Persuasion, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (complete with his own illustrations!). There were notebooks and journals from Milton, da Vinci, Woolf, and Plath.

"Too hot, too hot!"
From the play The Winter's Tale, spoken by the king, Leontes, when he (wrongly) suspects that his wife is having an affair. Used multiple times a day in reference to a variety of things, including the temperature on the Tube, as well as a euphemism for possibly awkward conversations during class about Shakespeare's romantic plot lines. Our everyday conversations became increasingly peppered with what we called "nerdy but great" Shakespeare references. Other popular ones: "kissing with inside lip" (also from The Winter's Tale), "Go to! Go to!" (from Romeo and Juliet and others, used in the sense of "let's go!") and, "Look, it's the pastoral space!" (a classroom term, used in reference to sheep and the pastoral countryside that Shakespeare wrote about).

Read on: Rick Steves and "Will power!"