Happy Birthday!

Today is my 22nd birthday and I will be spending it London! The group starts off the day leaving Stratford and boards a train for London. I like riding the trains. We don’t have that opportunity back in the states. They move fast and I get a great opportunity to experience the beautiful scenery of the U.K. Along the way, everything is a vivid green here and there are fields and pastures with sheep and cattle everywhere. I have never seen so many sheep in my life and I’ve had my fair share seeing farm animals growing up on a farm, myself.

We arrive at London and it is a busy city. It reminds me of New York City. It still gets to me-- seeing people driving on the rights side of the car and driving on the opposite side of the road than we do back home. The cars here are mostly similar colors of black, grey, or dark blue. There aren’t many bright colored cars. The police cars here are neon yellow and easy to see unlike home. London is more modernized than the other places we have been to such as Chester and Stratford. The people here have been very polite to me.

We met up with Hiram alumni Judith and Kim who now live in London. Lunch was at Wagamama, a noodle place. The food was very good and it was nice talking to the alumni. After lunch I walked around with some friends to explore the city. We didn’t have much but got familiar with the area where our hostel is located.

We went to dinner as a group at the pub which is connected to the theater for the play, The Macbeth’s, that we were going to see. The Macbeth’s is a modern spin off of the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It was interesting! The setting was a dinner party and we, the audience, were part of the guests there. They served us wine and meat trays. They had karaoke and Macbeth was singing, then passed the mic to me so I old sing a verse. This play has not been my favorite that we have seen so far. It was very funny, but I feel it didn’t capture the full meaning to the original Macbeth.

This trip has been a wonderful experience so far and I am blessed to have been able to go on it. I have learned so much and have seen so many new things that I haven’t imagined I would actually see. I look forward to the rest of this trip and to continue to grow from this experience.

-Jess K.

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