So, six days and finally some internet later . . . I have lots of things I could write about, and maybe will in the future, but for now I’m just going to talk about Stratford and Shakespeare, where I’ve been the past three days.

Shakespeare in high school was not particularly understandable nor enjoyable for me. When I started college as an art major, I figured I’d given up Shakespeare, along with any sort of Algebra, for the rest of my natural life. But then I decided to devote everything I had to becoming a writer and for me that meant English, not Illustration, and so I switched my major and was suddenly required to take a Shakespeare credit. I put this off until I was accepted to my current study abroad program and then it was not only required, but required that semester, as preparation (the plays I read last semester are primarily the ones we’re seeing both now in Stratford and later in the Globe).

I went into it both blind and slightly terrified. Just let me get through it, I thought, without sounding like a total idiot or like a mimicking-parrot that says Shakespeare’s the greatest just because everyone else does. Firstly, I had a really great professor who was brilliant, self-deprecating and passionate about Shakespeare all at the same time. His lecture on Shakespearean jesters caused me to turn one of my main protagonists into a licensed fool (I’ll be sure to credit him in the acknowledgements when the book is a NYC bestseller, clearly…).

But secondly.

I’ve been seeing plays by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Statford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born and died. The whole little town is basically dedicated to him. Yesterday, when we toured his house, I was touring the tourism of Shakespeare. There were small artifacts of tourists like Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Henry Irving had signed their names as fellow pilgrims. There have been theatrical performances in Stratford-upon-Avon since at least Shakespeare’s day and that history is evident.

Shakespeare’s Birthplace

Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

When we left his birthplace, there were street actors waiting who said they would perform “sonnets and scenes” upon request. They asked if anyone had a favorite and I said, “Much Ado About Nothing!” before someone could sneak in with some lame Macbeth monologue (just kidding). And there on the spot they performed one of my very favorite scenes, the first verbal sparring match between Beatrice and Benedick (who, despite hating each other, will fall in love Pride-and-Prejudice style). It was so great.

They’re so talented. We’ve seen Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and As You Like It. 

To give you a little preview, here’s the trailers for all of them (be warned, the Titus one is pretty gruesome, don’t watch if you have a queasy stomach).

Anyway–to be brief, I’ve turned into the Shakespeare fan I never thought I would be. I bought a shirt that says Will Power. There’s no hope for me anymore.

I’m not even sure what to say in this post. A similar feeling happened hiking the Pennine Way. I don’t know, I keep thinking, if this is entirely real.

So. To be simple, the The Pennine Way is a National Trail in England that runs 268 miles (we only did 30 miles of it) along the Pennine hills, sometimes described as the “backbone of England.” Most of the Pennine Way is routed via public footpaths, rather than bridleways, and so isn’t accessible to travelers on horseback or bicycle.

We were continually hopping fences and walking through fields of livestock–and they weren’t shortcuts, this was the actual path. It baffled me, at first, to just meander through sheep and cows, but then I really started to enjoy it. There is no other way to describe it except to say we were wandering the English country side.

These pictures look like fake paintings, or at least over compensating postcards, but they’re not.

And this fantastic, sunny, idyllic weather lasted only for this bit of trail and then promptly stopped as we finished our portion of the Pennine Way at Malham Cove–where apparently they filmed a scene from the last Harry Potter movie, but I’ve never really watched those movies, so didn’t care much about its cinematic debut.

Ahem. Note the figure at the gate trying to navigate the flood and not soak her boots. The picture of grace.

Limestone cliff at Malham Cove.

Ah, yisssss–finally!

Haworth.

I love Jane Eyre. It’s the first romance I ever truly fell in love with, and because of that, it will always be very near and dear to my heart, in a way I’ll never fully grow out of.

So, Haworth is where the Bronte sisters lived. Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, among other novels, and her sister Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights. Anne Bronte (the “other” sister) is probably most famous for Agnes Grey, but she’s not as romantic, gothic or sensational as her sisters, and thus, not as popular.

Here’s the wicked Haworth hostel we stayed at:

Then we went to the Bronte’s parsonage where I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures, but I saw little tiny books written by Charlotte Bronte as a girl and her dress that she wore and that they mimicked almost perfectly in the 2006 BBC version of Jane Eyre.

I was geeking out the whole time. I bought another copy of Jane Eyre (my third) just so I could have one that I bought from the home where Charlotte used to live.

And then we hiked the mooooooors (read: The Moors) . . . for eighteen miles.

The moors are basically uncultivated hill land. To the English Romantic imagination, moorlands enhanced the emotional impact of their stories by placing them within a heightened and evocative landscape. Moors form the setting of various works of late Romantic English literature, ranging from the Yorkshire moorland in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (where we were) and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett to Dartmoor in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmesian mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The moors drive characters mad. Jane Eyre nearly dies on them after running away from Rochester. And we hiked it; it hailed on us, seriously, and we were navigating mud–and then other times it was perfectly sunny. Always windy. And I hurt so much at the end of it I had no idea how people run for 26 miles when they do a marathon.

But I was like, “I may die out here! . . . like Jane Eyre. Tee-hee!” I was in bliss, in other words.

This was posted on the abandoned ruins of Top Withens, where we all yelled, “Heathcliffffff!” into the wind.

Curse this blasted rain.

Understand, I love this kind of weather. I’d take it twenty times over the heat and the wetness actually doesn’t bother me at all. But this is the second time a big hike has been cancelled (Helvellyn) due to bad weather conditions. Striding Edge–a part of Helvellyn–looks like this:

. . . and is ill-advised if it’s wet or raining–or for anyone who is scared of heights. It was a nice icy-rainy-windy combo, so needless to say, we didn’t go. But we did go on this . . . poor man’s substitute hike? It was a three hour roundabout hike through the hills, which is fine, except is was bloody freezing. We’ve suffered rain before, but only because we had to get somewhere–if we didn’t hike then we wouldn’t arrive.

But this was just hiking in a general circle of cold misery. Nobody exactly wants to complain when you’re in the beautiful landscape of England (it’s beautiful, at least, so so b-b-beautiful!) but we were all kind of eyeing each other beneath our sopping hoods, like, “What is going on? Why are we doing this?!?!”

Anyway. Whatever–that was our last hurrah in Keswick and now we’re in Grasmere!

If you think you don’t know who Williams Wordsworth is, or S.T. Coleridge, you probably do but don’t know. As a Mormon, the president of our church is always quoting Wordworth’s line about “trailing clouds of glory” behind us when we come to earth. I wandered lonely as a cloud? Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart? The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly? The best portion of a good man’s life / His little, nameless, unremembered acts /
Of kindness and of love? That’s Wordsworth.

We visited Rydal Mount, where he lived the last thirty years of his life and died, and also Dove’s Cottage, where he only lived nine years, but where he wrote his best work (his golden decade).

When Ralph Waldo Emerson came to England, in part to visit these great Romantic poets, he went to Rydal Mount and was introduced to a white-haired, plain old man, who took him into the gardens which Wordsworth himself had landscaped (and they are so, so beautiful), upon which Wordsworth recited a few of his poems. Wordsworth was a little full of himself–obviously, he sort of assumed Emerson would want to hear, and at first Emerson nearly laughed at the situation of Wordsworth reciting like a dutiful schoolboy, but then realized he’d come to pay his respects to this great poet and “gladly gave himself up to listening.”

This was my feeling visiting these places. To Wordsworth, I am not a specific fan (though I like his work as well as anyone), but his poetry has influenced writers and literature in general, who have influenced more writers and further literature, which has in turn influenced me. For his role in the literary world, and for whatever modicum he had in inadvertently affecting my own style, I was there to pay my respects. So, with bowed head I thought, thanks for being a writer, Will. Like the cute tour guide at Rydal Mount. She was this short, older woman who referred to him lovingly as William, like she’d just finished tea with him that morning and positively adored him. The professor who teaches the poetry part of our trip is really amazing and he describes the poets in a way that makes them seem human, real, and journeying right beside us.

Dove’s Cottage

The steps leading into his personally landscaped garden at Rydal Mount

Rydal Mount

His grave — not creepy!

I don’t think this is going to be a very literate or in-depth post.

We just got back to our hostel in Keswick after hiking Scafell Pike–the tallest mountain in England. The climb up was basically non-stop incline and then the climb down was a 1940′s artillery gun on joints and soles of feet. We had to backtrack once or twice and then race down the mountain to catch the last bus going into Keswick. And so, the reason this won’t be literate or in-depth is because I’m so tired, physically and mentally, that I’m only 30% aware of my current surroundings and am mostly auto-blogging at this point.

But I feel very self-satisfied and proud for having done something hard. And, of course, it was beautiful. Everywhere I go is beautiful–or cool or historic or otherwise great. At any point you can ask yourself, “I wonder if McKelle is in someplace scenic and awesome?” and the answer will be “yes.”

Here, for example, is the hostel we left behind in the morning:

On the way down, not everyone could make the bus (the rest would come in taxis), but a bus was far cheaper, so our professor asked if there was anyone who could book it down as a “fast group” and try and make it. I started the rush with the intent of catching the bus but soon fell behind because it was a steep decline with a lot of big stones to navigate and my knees were hurting to the point of near tears.

But I was no longer with the back group either, with the front group pulling ever ahead. I was the tail end of the fast group–which is a pretty decent metaphor for my life. The tail end of the fast group. Soon, I was walking entirely alone, asking English hikers as I passed if they were similarly passed by a larger group of backpacked look-a-likes to be sure I was going in the right direction.

When I got to flatter ground, I periodically ran, my bag pouncing on my lower back, to catch the bus I knew would be there at six o’clock. I made it with five minutes to spare, good enough to get there, but only with last minute effort and definitely not at the head of the pack.

Here’s some cool pics of Scafell Pike:

At the top!

Cheers! Onto Grasmere, where Wordsworth’s home is . . .

Our study abroad began in Scotland, but I first had a plane layover in London. My preferred and chosen window seat offered me a sweeping view of this great city not long after the sun had risen on it; with my nose nearly squished on the glass like an eager three-year-old, I could see the dirty Thames twisting through the compacted streets and aged-but-modern buildings. After weeks of deadlines and finals, work and moving, it finally sank in where I was going and what I was doing. I’ve read about you for year, I thought to the river. And now it was actual, fleshing out before me the closer we sank to the earth.

Then it was straight to Edinburgh—the home of many fine writers, but I suppose known to my generation most as the place where J.K. Rowling wrote the bulk of Harry Potter. From our (quite nice) hostel we strode through the streets, relatively obvious as students with our backpacks hitched to our shoulders; as hikers with our rainbow-array of windbreakers; as Americans by the way we writhed and nearly skipped with just-concealed excitement that would inevitably gain enough momentum, passed between us like a current of electricity, to spring out one of our heads in the gushing release: “Guys—we’re in Scotland!” Everyone, myself included, reinstated our location with wonder at least twice. We were so happy to be there you could have stuck us in a mud hole and we would’ve squatted, grinning at each other, in utter content.

One of our professors is far past six foot and a few of the girls are equally model-like in proportion and stride, leading our group at such a hurried, brisk pace I was afraid to stop and tie my shoe in fear of being left behind (an expected speed that would continue for the hikes). So in this flurry of giddiness, we visited Edinburgh castle . . .

. . . hiked Arthur’s Seat (and left our mark) . . .

. . . and attended a Scottish play where the heavy Scot-brogue was occasionally indecipherable—even with posted subtitles, written and spelled unhelpfully in accent. Though there were a few times when the Scottish audience chuckled and our American spot stayed blank and quiet, the play (The Sash) was filled with history, beautiful folk songs, and a compacted but full taste of Scottish culture.

Friday morning, when we got off our coach to hike to our next hostel near Loch Lomond, it was raining. We had yet to really see the sun, and we’d already braved and smiled away cold wind, but this was the first time it was decidedly wet. However, we were neither deterred nor worried. We’d been told it would probably rain while we were there. We were prepared with waterproof pants, jackets and shoes, umbrellas, backpack covers, and above all, Mormon optimism. But as someone remarked three fourths of the way through the hike (spoken lightly through gritted teeth): Nothing is truly waterproof.

After a seven mile hike that took four hours navigating mud puddles and slick rock, I was wet everywhere but my right foot—and the only reason that was dry was because my shoes were doing a pretty good job of staying waterproof (my left foot had sank into some slimy water deep enough to spill over my ankle and marinate my foot in a newly soaked thick wool sock).

Even so, for the first half I stayed warm through exertion and enjoyed the lovely forest landscape around the south coastline of the lake. The day before we’d made a side trip to St. Andrews and walked the Scottish seaside with essayist Christ Arthur, seashells crunching beneath our boots. If nothing else we were certainly seeing some of the best of Scotland.

After four hours, wet and shivering (I’m pretty sure my bones were wet), we arrived at a hostel I can only describe as quaint. Isolated, right on the bank of Loch Lomond, it looked like Frodo or maybe Jim Hawkins was inside cutting vegetables, waiting for adventures.

We were scheduled to hike to the top of Ben Lomond the next morning—but also scheduled was snow for the top third of the of hike and winds up to seventy kilometers. Add to that our shoes and jackets—in our muggy rooms that smelled like a dank pirate cabin—which had yet to dry, and the hike was cancelled, the day turned over to reading and writing and singing on the bonnie, bonnie shores of Loch Lomond.

[**I have a video of us singing this which I'll post at some point, but right now it's too much of a beast to load to this precarious WiFi]

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes

When the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond

Where and me and my true love were ever wont to gae

On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond

Chorus: Oh, ye’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road

And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond

‘Twas there that we parted in yon shady glen

On the steep, steep sides of Ben Lomond

Where deep in purple hue the highland hills we view

And the moon coming out in the gloamin’

Chorus

The wee birdies sing and the wildflower spring

And in sunshine the waters are sleeping

But the broken heart, it kens nae second spring again

Though the world knows not how we are weeping

Chorus

Of course, when we got tired of prettily singing on the banks of Loch Lomond, we decided to jump into the icy waters of Loch Lomond. [**I also have a video of this, but suffice it to say . . . it was freezing and I only stayed in about ten seconds. It isn't, if you're wondering, where the Loch Ness monster resides, but we're pretty sure we saw his little brother Lyle].

So that’s Scotland—highly condensed. Already we feel like a small family—we’re together all of the time, conquering difficult things and beautiful things alike, all the things that create bonds, experienced at exhausting but wonderful speeds.

More to come as we enter . . . the Lake District!