Stratford-upon-Avon

There ain't a whole lot to see in Stratford-upon-Avon. Anne Hathaway's cottage has a shovel exhibit. I did not purchase a small plastic keychain effigy of Shakespeare, despite not knowing when I'll next have the opportunity to obtain pocket-sized bard figurinos.

But the Royal Shakespeare Company's As You Like It was super duper.

I feel the need to quote myself. Not because I'm just so super duper , and I'm not saying that I am not super duper, but... I don't have an end to this sentence. Using quotation marks allows me to leave context at the door.

On bears in Alaska versus bears in San Diego:
"We don't have bears in San Diego. But we have immigrants. If they're illegal, you're just supposed to back away slowly, don't make eye contact."
(And hide your pic-a-nic basket!)

On my pocketsized leatherbound Hamlet:
"This is literary porn. 'To be or not to be'... there are no other phrases in the the English language."
(...minutes later... "Did you just refer to it as porn?")
Stop looking at me weird. I don't know, I just mean it's some sort of written indulgence.

On vegetarianism:
"Do vegetarians eat jello? I think it's made of hooves and things."
"Do vegetarians eat Gummi bears? Because, you know, they're animals."

And you know, that really gives rise to the whole debate about, I don't know, fashioning food in the image of cute forest creatures, thus making them more fun to mash between your teeth. That whole debate. Which reminds me that they don't sell Lucky Charms here, that the cereal aisle is far too sparse, and that there are almost no halloween-themed kid snacks. I really needed a cereal with fun shapes, preferably with a halloween theme, and there just aren't any soul-satiating products that fit the bill. Sure, Marks and Spencer offers a few overpriced ghoulie candies, but I just don't know how I can live with myself without having marshmallow spiders and bats and ghosts in my cereal. Frosted Mini Wheats? They only have the technology to frost one side of the goddamn chunks! (But I'll also mention that they dropped 'mini' from the name here, realizing that "full-sized" wheats have gone the way of the dodo. By which I might be suggesting that they are mummified in the university museum. But I'm not suggesting that).

So, yes. I'm turning this in to my tutor.