En-ga-land! En-ga-land!

Wow, lots of comments on the last entry (most of them from Chelsea, ha!). I responded to everyone in the comments section on the last entry, so read that for your personalized messages.

Alright, now that that business is out of the way I can tell you that last night Liz, Alex, Alex and I went to watch the England game, and it was so much fun! We watched it at "Shakespearience". I have no idea what the heck Shakespearience actually is during normal business hours. From what I can tell it's some sort of virtual reality Shakespeare exhibit where they show 3D movies about Shakespeare's life or something. I don't know, it's right on the river in the tourist-y part of town and it's probably for people with kids who don't want to sit through an actual production of one of Shakespeare's plays so they do that instead. At any rate, last night they'd converted it into a sort of pub and for £5 you could get a seat, a pint, and watch the game on a big movie screen. It was so much fun! I've never watched an entire soccer game in my life, ever. I don't think I've ever watched more than ten consecutive minutes of a soccer game until I got here earlier this week (well, maybe when I was in London last time since Jorge was always dragging me to various pubs to watch the EFC games, but I didn't really pay much attention then). But lately I've actually been paying attention to entire games and it turns out soccer is pretty interesting to watch. I don't know what the hell Dad and Shane are talking about when they say it's boring. For one thing, each game is 90 minutes long and it actually lasts 90 minutes. They don't ever stop the clock. They may add a bit of injury time on at the end of the game, but never more than about five minutes so when the clock says 75:00 you know there are actually just fifteen minutes left. Not like in American football where 2 minutes easily becomes 20. That alone is a major benefit to soccer. The added benefits are that it's a very fast-paced game and the ball changes hands (feet) a lot so it's exciting, the rules are easy for a sports idiot like me to understand, and there are a lot of very hot soccer players. I guess it would never be this much fun to watch in the states just 'cause you wouldn't get the same atmosphere because nobody cares about it there, but here it's pretty exciting.
The pub was packed full of English guys (and some girls) and they were all chanting and cheering and bitching when over and over and over again England almost scored and then screwed up. But then they won and everyone went wild! After the game people were skipping down the street singing celebratory songs and blowing airhorns and stuff. And this is only the first round, I can't imagine what it's like to be in a soccer country when their team wins a major game. They have a whole long cheer that everyone kept singing, and the first time around I asked Liz, "Were there words to that song?" and she just shook her head and said, "I have no idea WHAT that was." Then they did it again and Liz goes, "I'm pretty sure the only word is 'England'." And it was. Remember that song from Wee Sing when you were a kid "Be kind to your web-footed friends, for that duck may be somebody's mother..."? Maybe nobody in the world remembers this except for Chelsea, but I'm sure she'll at least know what I'm talking about. Anyway, it's that song, but instead of actual words they just say "En-ga-land, En-ga-land, En-ga-land..." England pronounced with three syllables is my new favorite thing. They also love, love, love a player named Rooney, and whenever he comes onto the field or does anything impressive or even if the camera shot just flashes to him for a second the entire pub cheers, "Rooooooo-ney! Rooooooo-ney!" (only it sounds like Roo-nay since they're British and all). It's very entertaining.
After they won the game the whole town was keyed up. We went to a different pub that was still serving food so we could have dinner, and the whole night people were still singing and blowing their airhorns. I met a nice guy named Jamie who told Alex and I that he loved our accents (how weird, to be the one with an accent) and invited us to student night at a club called the Bureau. We didn't go last night 'cause we'd already had a really busy day, but we may go next week. He was funny because when he told us his name Alex said, "What is it?" and he just sighed and said, "It's a girl's name over there in the states, isn't it?" Ha. As we were leaving the pub later he and all his friends called out from their table, "We love Texas!" and we called back, "We love England!" and everybody cheered. I love when stupid stuff like that happens.

This morning we took the train out to Wilmcote (it's only four miles, so not very far at all) to visit Mary Arden's family farm. Mary Arden is Shakespeare's mother, so this house is the place where she was raised. It was a fun day in the country. We got to see the farm and they have all sorts of animals out there that you can interact with: sheep, pigs, the biggest chickens I've ever seen, goats, owls, falcons. Some of the owls and falcons were HUGE. Really pretty and cool. We had lunch there before taking the train back and I was able to have clotted cream and scones for the first time this trip. I love clotted cream. It's a good thing it's kinda tricky to find it back home 'cause I'd gorge myself on it all the time and I'm sure there's nothing remotely healthy about it. It's like the best things about whipped cream and butter combined in one perfect spread. I just wish it had a different name, 'cause when you really think about it being "clotted" that kind of ruins it.

Anyway, I need to post this 'cause I'm almost out of library time and I need to do some actual research real quick because I'm actually here to study, apparently. Tonight we're going to a cocktail reception for the launch of a new Shakespeare handbook that Paul worked on. Fancy, fancy. I probably won't update tomorrow because we have a stage combat workshop that goes all day long, but I'll try to catch up again on Sunday. Bye for now!