Monday, October 5, 2015

Stratford Shakespeare Festival

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. I went once four years ago and I was so excited to be able to go back. We left early on Friday morning and arrived between 1:30-2 in the afternoon. We spent a couple of hours wandering around Stratford and going in various shops and walking beside the river. We also ran into an older man who asked us why the chicken crossed the road. He said it was because the chicken wanted to get away from Colonel Sanders! It totally made our night.

 After dinner we went to a showing of "Love's Labour's Lost" at the theater. It was a great production though from watching I could tell some of the actors were a bit off that particular night. There were some missed cues and lines as well as just a general air of being distracted from the actors. We all decided we were so tired after the show we all went back to the hotel and right to sleep.

The next day we went to a farmer's market which was really cool. Not only did they have to fresh fruits and vegetables there was also a deli with fresh meats and cheeses, people selling breads and pies as well as jewelry and handmade crafts. Afterwards we drove around some of the local neighborhoods. The houses around Stratford are absolutely gorgeous and I loved getting to see all the different styles.

While on this trip I also tried poutine for the first time. I had never heard of it before this weekend but I found out that it's probably one of my new favorite things. The basic poutine is just french fries covered in cheese curds and gravy then you can add other toppings and create variations as wanted. I had a meatball and marinara one as well as one that had cheddar cheese along with the cheese curds and gravy. Both were excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

We also went into a store and found out there was a cat sitting on the counter. We all took turns petting the cat while the others browsed around the store. Another really fun thing that happened is we went into a cafe for coffee when it started raining, I found a framed and signed program from one of the shows I went to the first time I went to Stratford.

The show we saw Saturday night was "The Taming of the Shrew," which I really enjoyed. After the show we decided to check out the Stratford night life and hit a few bars before heading back to the hotel and going to bed.

Sunday morning we got to take a backstage tour of the theater, which was the second time I have gotten to go backstage at that theater. It's a lot of fun because I learned different things both times and I never get tired of seeing the behind the scenes of how things work at a theater. It's really fascinating.

Before we started the drive home we stopped at this amazing bookstore. There were stacks and shelves of books everywhere. I told my friends when we went in that I hoped my house looked like that one day because I absolutely love books and hope I can have as many as was in this store some day.

I'm so glad I got to go back to Stratford. It's an absolutely beautiful town and the theater there is phenomenal. Hopefully I'll be able to go back more often, maybe even next year if I'm lucky.

1 comment:

  1. Rachel,

    It sounds like you had en eventful weekend! One of my friends just recently visited Stratford and she loved it! I think it is so cool that you found a framed and signed program from the first show you wen tot Stratford!

    ReplyDelete