I just can’t imagine what Shakespeare would think about Stratford-upon-Avon’s celebrations for him, but I like to think he would have had as much fun as I did. It has been fun being surrounded by people who love Shakespeare and today’s celebration only emphasized that.
Some of us were worried about missing any of the celebrations and so we left the hotel at around 8:20 because we wanted to be well placed as possible. This led to us wandering around the town looking at the preparations for the procession and the rest of the day. It’s amazing how unconcerned everyone seemed about the day, especially in comparison to our response. The schedule said that flags were going to be handed out at 9:30, and that was on of the main reasons we were in the town so early. We asked one of the workers and she told us that they may have already run out of flags, but the best place to look was along Bridge Street. As we walked down the street we saw a trio of boys handing out the flags, and when they asked if we wanted some my response was an enthusiastic “Yes!” which they laughed at.
The next item that we hoped to earn were cupcakes, we had already noticed the characters in the windows, but were unsure about how to earn them. We ventured into the store “Old Guys Rule” to ask and the woman gave us the activity sheets. I think we managed to fill out ten characters in almost 20 minutes. The man in the store that we turned out sheets into was surprised when four of us walked in at 10:00 and took four of his five cupcakes.
Finally it was getting close to the time when the procession started. This procession was different from what I was expecting when I heard about it. I was expecting something similar to a Macy’s parade, but it was instead different groups of people. I think this was closer to something Shakespeare would have done because he made a life by bringing different kinds of people together to a single place. The part I found most inspiring was when they unfurled the flags of all of the nations that have Shakespeare’s plays. We followed the procession to Holy Trinity Church to lay flowers on his grave, and then we felt cut loose for the day.
Since we had received cupcakes, flags, and balloons it was decided to return to the hotel and rest for a bit. We left the hotel to go to the Shakespeare speech marathon and greatly enjoyed listening to the actors perform. The plan had been to go and listen to the sonnets at the river, but instead it rained and we returned to the hotel to rest and work on blogs and performance analyses.
Happy Birthday Shakespeare! Thank you for the legacy you left behind!