A Malta Christmas and a Jerusalem New Year!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and that you all will have a safe New Year's Eve!

Let me just say that our pre-Christmas privately escorted tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London by the “Lay Canon” (the highest non-ordained official in the church) – from Nevada City, CA. Peter was gracious and incredibly knowledgeable and took us places that ordinary “tourists” never get to see. Then we got to sit in the choir loft for Evensong, with the boy’s choir singing right next to us. It was one of the most sublime experiences of Wally’s life, and Maria thought it was pretty cool, too.

My classes are done, except for a make-up class next week, and our papers –which are 100% of the grade in both courses – due in mid to late January.  I am excited to be doing so much exciting academic work, and it’s possible our project on an actor/director’s edition of Shakespeare’s works will find a publisher soon, too. Keep your fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I am examining a document at the British Library from the English Ambassador to Denmark with a list of Christmas dinner guests for December of 1585. The list includes the names Rosenkrantz and Guildensterne, and the name of Belonious is on it. This is significant because of the date (the Stratford man did not come to London before 1589 at the earliest), the fact that it was a private letter to the Queen and her ministers (and so never published), and the fact that these names with only slight variations pop up in Hamlet, a play which has no reliable composition date attached to it and was referred to as early as 1589, making the Stratford man an extremely unlikely author of the play. Still working out the details, but it may make an interesting article down the road.

Since mid-December, we have been busy! We found a deal on a time share from our company (Diamond Resorts International) in Malta and decided to spend Christmas there! We then found a (relatively) cheap airfare from London and took off on December 20, returning on December 27th.

Since we had always wanted to visit this Mediterranean island nation off the coast of Italy, we were excited. The weather is warm and semi-tropical, the languages are English and Maltese, and the Euro is the currency. It is a mixture of English, Italian, Arab and Spanish influences, both in its traditions and it architecture, and is striking in so many ways. The people are warm, friendly, and have a great sense of humor, too. We met many talented and helpful folks while we were there, and we made many new friends. We visited several theatres, including the magnificent Manoel National Theatre in Valletta and the Ta' Qali Amphitheatre in the national park, and are looking to arrange a cultural exchange or visit from our folks to do productions there.  

The churches were amazing. Maria is downloading the pictures on to our Facebook page now, and we’ll give you some websites at the end of this blog, too. The country is 90% Catholic, and there is still a very strong connection with the historic Knights of Malta, so you would expect the churches to be grand. They are. There’s no space to put another piece of art or gilding or a monument anywhere else in these places. In Valletta, St. John’s Co-Cathedral (no, that’s not a typo) is incredible, and so is St. Paul’s in Mdina.

Driving in Malta was an adventure, too. We do not have a car here in London, so it was our first real experience with driving on the left hand side.  No, no accidents...just an adventure. You know you're in trouble when the official guidebook says 1) "Cars are supposed to drive on the left hand side of the road, but many drivers do not follow this rule", and 2) "The many potholes are sometimes quite jarring". Both of these statements are true!

The best thing about Malta? The climate, the beaches, the history, the food – they’re all contenders, certainly, but our favorite thing in Malta was probably the people. They are so warm, so welcoming, so friendly. They come from a multitude of backgrounds, but they all were very charming and sincere. It’s truly a magical place, even with such oddities as “disco bowling” and the traffic “rules” and a street in Paceville (near our hotel, actually) that is basically all nightclubs and bars on s long set of stairs (I don’t know how many drunks fall down these wide, block-long stairs, but it must be dozens every summer). A memorable visit, and I hope we can return one day.

On New Year's Eve, we are going to see the amazing, talented and really nice Mark Rylance in "Jerusalem" at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue in the West End. Besides being a smart, honest, down-to-earth all-round good guy, he is "the best actor of his generation" (the critics agree with me) and won the Olivier and Tony Awards for this play in London and on Broadway. We have great seats and will hopefully be able to talk to Mark after the show, if he's not too tired. Then it's off to the Thames to watch  the fireworks and ring in 2012 in a way we have never done before! Should be fun! Happy New Year, everyone!

Here are some websites for you. Thanks for reading!!!!

Short history of St. John’s: 

http://www.maltawiki.com/wiki/St._John's_Co-Cathedral_in_Malta


Inside Photo, St. John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta:

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Malta/South/Malta/Valletta/photo1018560.htm

St. Paul’s Cathedral, Mdina: 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=st.paul's+cathedral+malta&hl=en&rlz=1R2ADRA_enGB458&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=CzX7Tq_lGI6n8gOI97GlAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=556

What a great two weeks! (Again!)

What a busy couple of weeks it’s been! We have seen wonders here in London, beginning with a stirring performance of Hamlet at the Young Vic Theatre in Southwark. (That’s pronounced “suth-ick” for those of you who may be wondering.) A brilliant performance by Michael Sheen as Hamlet, a great set – the show takes place in an insane asylum – with terrific scenes and a surprise ending that will literally make you gasp. Incredible stuff.

We also got back twice to the British Library, where Maria did her genealogy thing and I did the Shakespeare thing, enjoying every moment of it – including our foray into “Eat Street” behind the Kings Cross/St. Pancras Station for great street food, including NYC hot dogs and really good Mexican burritos. Yum.

Classes are going very well, although I am trying to make more time for my end-of-semester projects so they don’t bog me down at Christmas.(They are due mid-January and are 100% of my grade.) I have made a good start on all of them, fortunately, and have even begun some in-depth research on the subject of my MA Thesis, a proposed system for examining all the evidence in the Shakespeare authorship controversy. That is an exciting prospect, but I must do the coursework well too, so it is a motivation for me to complete that as soon as possible. My instructors seem pleased with my work so far, though, and that’s good.

This weekend was amazing. Saturday night we had a traditional British Christmas dinner with the BFI Group, Brunel international students, which was really fun and tasty too. We started with the traditional Christmas crackers (packages that blow up as you pull them apart, and have small gifts, jokes, and/or candy inside). Then we had turkey and dressing and vegetables for the meal, and Christmas pudding cake and mince pies for dessert. Lots of fun, and Maria and I sat next to students from China, Croatia, and Iran.  In fact, today (Tuesday), we are having Farzad, Elahe, and Masheed over to our apartment for a special meal. Spanish/Mexican cuisine, i.e., Maria’s famous chicken enchiladas and Spanish fried rice. Also her fabulous home-made salsa, although without the smoke flavoring, since they don’t have that here. Yumm –O!

The most amazing part of the last two weeks for me has been the first public showing of a new documentary film at The Globe called “Last Will. And Testament” last Sunday. Maria and I were privileged to be in the small (100 person) audience as Mark Rylance introduced the film-makers and the panel of experts. We saw the film in three ‘acts’ and at every break we discussed what we had seen with experts who had appeared in the film, including Diana Price, Roger Stritmatter, and my Professor, Bill Leahy, who is the head of the Programme here and a respected scholar in the authorship issue, too. It was really well done. The film, after disposing of the man from Stratford-Upon-Avon as a possible authorship candidate most convincingly, goes on to postulate that other candidates should be considered, choosing to focus on Edward DeVere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford as the leading candidate. There are powerful arguments here against the Stratford man and for DeVere, but I invite all of my readers to think for themselves and read all sides. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has been really nasty about this as the authorship issue is highlighted in the recent film Anonymous, so please read both sides before you decide. There is also a Statement of Reasonable Doubt available should you wish to sign it. I will include the links below. Be aware that David Kathman and James Shapiro are pretty nasty in their comments, and have been for some time. I am leaning to Oxford, but remain convinced that I am not informed enough to make a decision on the issue. Perhaps one day!

We had a great Sunday Night Dinner at Wagamama’s – although I did not get the Toffee Ginger Cheesecake with the caramel chili sauce this time, it was still delicious! Another great time here in London!

Thanks for reading!

The Shakespeare Authorship Trust site:

http://www.shakespeareanauthorshiptrust.org.uk/

The Shakespeare Authorship site:

http://shakespeareauthorship.com/

The Shakespeare Oxford Society (U.S.)

http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/

The Mary Sidney home page, which features a book written by my friend and professor next semester, Robin Williams:

http://www.marysidneysociety.org/

The British Library and American Hot Dogs

Hello, everyone! It's been a busy two weeks here in London, and there are several highlights we'd like to share with you.

I have had a hectic two weeks of classes and research, but lots of fun and discovery. We both discovered the wonder of the British Library this past week, and have returned to find even more amazing things.

My instructor for the Research Methodologies Course, Dr. Elizabeth Evenden, was the chief bibliographer for the Holinshed Chronicles Project last year before an illness forced her to concede the honor to a colleague. She is a magnificent source for the British Library, and took us on a learning tour of the facility. Maria and I both secured our Reader's Passes, which enables us to enter and use all of the Rare Book Rooms in the library. Liz had already "reserved" the 1577 (original) edition of Holinshed's Chronicles, the enormous history source from which Shakespeare created plays such as Macbeth and King Lear, and we got to learn how to treat a rare text by handling it (carefully!) and reading it ourselves. We were also trained on how to discover the watermarks on ancient paper using a special light behind the page, and other amazing things as well, and are now "trained bibliographers" able to access all texts,available in the Britsih Library. Next month, we get to read from a First Folio.

I have now studied from original quartos of King Lear (1619), Titus Andronicus (1607), and many others, as well as the original copies of Palladis Tamia, Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. It feels incredible to hold history in your hands, my friends. When Maria and I walked into the rare Book Room, we both knew we had died and gone to heaven. We still feel that way after our second visit on Friday. Maria, while looking for extinct peerages in the Humanities Room, found a six-volume called Segar Baronagium Genealogicum, with every English peerage and full family history listed in it. Since she traces her family line back through several of these lines, it is truly a providential find for her personally. If anybody out there thinks they're related to royalty, or wants to trace their lineage (in any country), Maria is unquestionably the person to find that information for you! E-mail her at genealogy@wam-enterprises.com for more information. Her clients are astounded at the "finds" she makes: not only information, but records and pictures are out there of your relatives, so just let her know you're interested!

We wandered down King's Boulevard behind Kings Cross Station (Harry Potter's Hogwarts train left from Platform 9 and3/4 there!) also. Known as Eat Street on Wed-Thur-Fri, the vendors there have some amazing things to eat. We decided to go with the Big Apple Hotdogs...His sign said "If you find a better dog anywhere, I'll eat my cat!" OMG...amazing dogs, next week I'm going for the BBQ ribs. Saw the film Anonymous again last night too -- it's incredibly good the second time, too! Actually, even better the second time...!

Oh yes, our New Year's Eve plans are set. We're seeing Mark Rylance in Jerusalem that night, then (possibly) seeing him after the show! We will see Mark, Vanessa Redgrave, and several friends on Sunday November 28 at the Globe Theatre for a special screening of a new film Last Will and Testament, followed by a panel discussion with leading Shakespearean scholars, including my professor Bill Leahy, our friends Roger Stritmatter, and Charles Beauclerk, who we hosted in Sacramento during his CA visit many years ago. Wally is really looking forward to meeting Diana Price, since he is working on a model for evaluating evidence relating to the Shakespeare authorship question, and Diana is the authority on that subject! Should be fun!

Thanks for reading! More later!

Happy Halloween From London!

It's been an amazing two weeks here! The weather has remained beautiful -- it's 60 degrees here today -- and we have had a fantastic weekend we've got to tell you about!

On Friday, we decided to get an early start and go into central London, about a 45-minute Tube ride from Uxbridge. When we arrived, Maria and I went directly to Westminster Abbey, because one of Maria's great-grandfathers is buried there. I stayed outside because of the horrendous admission prices they charge (we had forgotten it was about $25.00 each), and Maria went in instead. She did the smart thing- she asked one of the attendants about finding her relative. He not only conducted up to their very beautiful private library, he copied their records for her and let her take photographs of the site (Westminster Abbey strictly forbids photography!) She was so excited! SHe's really getting into her family tree and those of her clients, too, so anybody who wants quality geneological research done, get it from the woman who can now trace her ancestry back directly to both William The Conqeuror and Malcom and Duncan of Scotland. (I've always said she was a royal pain sometimes...)
After that adventure, we went to a little Italian place near the Leicester Square TKTS booth and had some great, cheap, pasta for lunch, then walked up Charing Cross Road to the "cinema", as they call their movie theatres here in Great Britain. By the way, they take their Halloween seriously here: there was a 100-person line just to get into a trendy Halloween costume store, and it got longer as the day progressed. Arriving at the cinema, we got our tickets for the new movie Anonymous, which we have highly anticipated seeing, since it included a pretty radical theory on the Shakespeare Authorship Question, namely that Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, in fact wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare of Straford-upon-Avon. Having met the director, Roland Emmerich, the screenwriter, John Orloff, and the star, Rhys Ifans the previous Monday at an event in London, we were VERY anxious to see the film!

It was everything a good Shakespearean play should be: a fine ensemble cast, murder, comedy, royalty, and pathos, and I'm going to have to see it again just to get everything I missed the first time! The backgrounds are beautifully created, the scenes are staggeringly realistic, and the acting is uniformly brilliant. Please go see it, even if your old English teacher is doing somersaults in her tomb...! And join the revolution if you so desire: one site I like is http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/, which has numerous followers and a tremendously balanced FAQ about the authorship question.

And if you're looking for reviews of the film, let me just say that Rex Reed and Roger Ebert and huge number of good critics liked it, and that's pretty high praise. Also note that there is an enormous amount of nasty name-calling and other vituperative behavior coming from those fully invested in the Stratford legend: as you all know, when you don't have the facts on your side, you insult the other side. It's pretty sad behavior, actually, and I think they're going to lose the battle eventually if only because so many of them are so pompous, rude, and condescending. One "expert", author and professor James Shapiro, intimated that the director (who is German) was actually a Nazi at one event, then proceeded to actually lie about Shakespeare's will and the possible inventory associated with it, but never found. It's kind of sad. Anyway, on to brighter things!

After Anonymous, and after seeing Alfie Boe on a side street (he is the star of Les Miserables here and played the role to world-wide acclaim at the 25th anniversary show), we had a quick dinner and went to get house seats for a show we have never seen and which has been in London since before I was born. That's right, we saw The Mousetrap Friday night! Great fun, and still playing to packed houses after almost 60 years! We saw Performance Number 24,555. Amazing, funny, and Maria had it figured out -- at least down to 2 suspects, one of which did it -- by interval (intermission is called interval over here)! She must have been a cop in a previous life...! Definitely a full day, and another great one!

Saturday morning, we were up early again and headed into central London, this time on the south side of the Thames and the National Theatre. It's pretty ugly on the outside, 1976-era concrete and dark glass, but the inside is functional and beautiful, too. Thanks to our friend Robin, we got a fantastic tour of the 3 theatres in the complex, and even got to "meet" one of the puppets from their incredible hit show War Horse. It was truly amazing to see how a very large thrust-stage theatre (the Olivier), a traditional proscenium theatre (the Lyttleton) and a up-to400-seat "black-box" theatre (the Cottesloe) are all integrated together back stage and in the shops. We highly recommend that tour, and it will be getting on the 2013 London trip itinerary!

After a morning tour, we got to see a new play, The Veil, at the Lyttleton Theatte. The acting, the sets and the costumes were all excellent, but the play's ending disappointed us both. It seems that the script was not quite as fully fleshed out as it could have been, possibly because the playwright also directed the show. Those of you who know me well know that one of my "doing theatre rules" is that you never direct yourself on stage. After seeing this show, it seems that maybe you shouldn't direct your own play on stage either. In any case, it was a quite fabulous afternoon, complete with double-cream ice cream at interval (I had caramel-hazelnut, which was simply divine!) Another wonderful day of discovery in London!

Sunday was church in the morning, studying in the afternoon, and then Buster, Maria and I settled in to watch a show at our favorite theatre venue -- Lakeland! Through the magic of Skype and our friend Leslie Carver, we had seats for the last performance of Jekyll and Hyde. it was great to see the show, and very nice to see all of the wonderful people who are taking care of Lakeland while we're gone. Thank you, everyone!

But it's Monday and I have to do two major presentations for classes on Wednesday, plus I have a Tuesday morning appointment with my advisor on possible dissertation topics. Thanks for reading!

Lunch at Rules Restaurant With Our Delightful Cousins and The Tempest With Voldemort

Another beautiful week in London, and we actually got to go into the West End on Saturday for a wonderful lunch with our newly-found cousins, Martin and Cathy Hurst. Before leaving home, Maria sent an e-mail out to a second-cousin of Wally's letting him know we would be in London and like to meet him. Martin and his wife Cathy met us for a wonderful lunch a "Rules". For anyone who has not eaten there, "OMG". We had a reservation for 1:15, got there around 1:00 and stayed until 5:45. First of all "Rules" is the ultimate in English fare. Meeting cousins and bonding with them for several hours intensified the enjoyment. http://www.rules.co.uk/ is the website: visit it and you will be amazed at the menu, especially the wild game, most of which is raised and bred on Rule's own wildlife preserve.

At Wally's urging -- he is studying Shakespeare, after all -- we then went and got "house seats" for The Tempest, starring Ralph Fiennes, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, just down from Picadilly Circus. This recently refurbished theatre has a grand and glorious history and has hosted performers such as Ellen Terry, John Gielgud, and most recently Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in a production of Waiting For Godot last year. We seated ourselves in the seventh-row center seats -- one of the advantages of being a producer is that you really can get terrific seats to shows anywhere (paying full price, of course!) -- and prepared to see a great production of Shakespeare's last play, his "farewell to theatre", as it has been described.

 We were somewhat disappinted, then, when we saw a bunch of terrifc actors in a not-so-great production. The set was fine, actually it was the old Godot set (confirmed by the staff), and the lighting was well-done, but the "special effects" were not that special, some of the costumes were not very good, and the music was bad, bordering on awful. (There is a music composer listed, but not a music director.) Very surprising, especially from Trevor Nunn, the director of Les Mis, Cats, and a dozen other towering and succesful musicals.

Even the star, Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, the Harry Potter films), seemed to be off his game last Saturday night. Some of his longer speeches actually took on a "sing-song" delivery at times, and at other times, he grabbed his head like a crazy man trying to stop the really loud voices shouting inside it. The flying was okay, but not really special: the actors playing Ariel went side-to-side and up and down only, no big movements at all, all slow; not very exciting, especially for a spirit who runs a lot on stage when he is not flying. While the costumes for the shipwrecked royalty and Miranda were fine, (except for their white-soled slip-on deck shoes for the mariners) Caliban wasn't much of a monster with a half-turtle shell on his left shoulder and a glove extending two fingers of his left hand. And poor Prospero, when he is "restored to his dukedom" near the end, puts on what is obviously a woman's dress with at least two dozen buttons up the front -- that he never does get buttoned very far -- and blue velvet bedroom slippers from the modern era. I guess we were disappointed that the production values were not as good as that cast. Trinculo, Miranda, and all the royals were very, very good, and the comedy in the play was done to perfection, well-timed and easy to watch. The music was off-key and shrill and the flying was lackluster, so the "ethereal" scenes were a complete dud for us.

We do better flying at Lakeland than they did, and we actually have a music director when we sing, too. Needless to say, we were dispappointed that the tech didn't match the actors' talents on stage Saturday night. We are really looking forward to seeing mark Rylance in Jerusalem soon, though! Thanks for reading!

An Ode to Wagagama's

Wally here, taking a break from studies for a quick entry.

Ah, Wagamama’s. For those who have never been to this wonderful and ever-growing chain of “Asian-fusion noodle bars”, let me say that you have missed one of the most subtle and un-subtle dining experiences afforded to those of us here in the United Kingdom. As you arrive, often going downstairs to a basement room here in the London versions of this restaurant, you are greeted by a person who tucks you into a row of tables and communal benches next to your fellow diners. Okay, you say, I’m eating right next to other people and there’s a paper placemat on the table. Nothing fancy here. You’re quite right – and oh, so wrong.

The menu has enough exotic stuff on it that your head is swimming just trying to make sense of it all, so you pick out some items that you know most of the ingredients that are listed, and go from there. Maybe an appetizer, too, if you’re feeling adventurous, like our favorites, the goza, or pot stickers or fried dumplings, depending on where you’re from.  Your server takes your order on a PDA, writing your order # down on your paper placemat, and the order goes right to the kitchen, where fresh ingredients are combined to make your food ready. The food is served as soon as it is ready, by your server or whoever happens by the open kitchen, so not everybody gets served at once. This allows those not being served yet to drool and lust over the lucky person(s) who have been served, possibly asking for a taste of that wonderful-looking dish, or remarking how big that serving is. The servings are large here, another non-subtle feature.

So where’s the subtlety, you ask? It’s in the rich and beautifully blended flavor of the food you are served. For instance, my ginger chicken udon was gloriously complicated by the flavors of ginger, light  soy, shitake mushrooms, carrots, sesame seeds, spring onions, regular onions, spices and even cilantro in it. The combination was spectacular. These people are not afraid to mix it up, and Maria’s dish was just as complicated and the Yaki Soba was just as good. Did I mention the noodles are impossibly fresh and so flavorful you might be tempted just to order them plain? Ramen noodles out of the box( or cup) will forever have you remembering what REAL noodles are like, and remembering Wagamama’s fondly.

And when you have finished or almost finished that giant plate of happiness, you might think your dining experience is complete. Not so, noodle-breath – there is dessert yet to come! How can dessert be different, you ask? How about a chocolate layer cake with a hint of wasabi in the frosting? How about my favorite, the white chocolate ginger cheesecake with a caramel/chili sauce on the side? That’ll liven up your dessert course, trust me. And again, the flavors work so remarkably well together you’re  enchanted by the amazing combinations.

Have I made you drool yet? Well, get a drool bucket and get over here. We’ll take you to Wagamama’s!

Loving It here in Uxbridge!

October 7, 2011

We are settling in now, at home and at school. Wally’s second week of classes is now over, and he has mountains of reading and two significant projects to do. Our instructor Elizabeth (Liz) Evenden kindly permitted Maria to sit in on a class this week, where we were deciphering ancient text together: everyone enjoyed it immensely, including Maria, of course!

Then Thursday Maria and I had our first German class, about 28 students learning together. One of the first exercises was learning where we were all from: two were from England, 4 from the US, and the rest were from Bangladesh, Uganda, Thailand, Iran, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Mauritus, Norway, China, India, Spain, Chechnia, Taiwan, France, and Turkey. Wow! It was a great class, and it felt like the two hours passed in about 10 minutes. Looking forward to next week!

I had an entry written up for you last week, but my computer evidently didn’t like it. The highlights were Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the quad at school, the fact that they do have Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and Subway here – although Subway’s best- selling sandwich here is Chicken Tandoori – and the fact that we haven’t gone in any of these establishments will not be surprising to any of you who know us well.  The pubs here have better food and better names – The Queen’s Head, The Three Tuns (a “tun” being a about a pony keg of beer or ale or cider), and The Slug and Lettuce. We still have to explore about 8 more here in Uxbridge and surrounding towns, too.

The good news about the library: it is ultra-modern, including a device that lets  you stack all your books that you want to borrow in an opening/shelf in a machine – it’s enough space to hold 5-6 textbooks – and it reads  the books and checks them out to you in about 3 seconds. The other good news is that we grad students have our own study area just off to the side of the library that is available to us 24/7, reachable only by a postgraduate ID card. The other good news is that they are building/refurbishing the 3^rd floor (the 4^th floor in America) as another grad-student-only section inside the library, which includes the special Shakespeare Authorship Collection.

The only bad news is that it isn’t quite ready up there yet, so I have to avoid workers there during the day if I want to get into that section. (At night, it’s no problem. I just walk in like I own the place.) The best news is that, unlike the other three floors of the library, this is a completely quiet zone. On the bottom three floors, this place is quite abuzz with conversations, some quite loud at times. And they’re not small snippets of conversation, either – they’re lengthy epics that drive you nuts if you’re trying to concentrate. Before the top floor was accessible, I actually asked a librarian if they had a special “would you shut-the-h@ll-up” zone anywhere in this library? She laughed and said it was bad, but that it usually settles down after the first few weeks. Liz says she sometimes walks around and looks at the most blatant offenders and says, “exactly what are you doing here anyway?” She’s really mean, too – I like her a lot! Maria also talked to the assistant director of the library last night and she may soon be helping catalogue and shelve the new section!

In household news, we got a mattress topper and it seems to have done the trick for Maria’s back. We also bought a TV table and set our large dining-table-size coffee table on top of it, making it a nice work table and eating table, too. We have a friendly black cat who visits us regularly, jumping up into the window or through the back balcony railing to be petted for a while before he goes out again. Our apartment is really nice – we’ll try and post pictures soon – but our view out the back balcony is not much right now as they try and sort out an endangered species of newt that may or may not be living there. (Insert Monty Python reference here, all of you!)The weather is now changing after a month of warmth and sunshine, and we’re looking forward to a great autumn season here! More later, and thanks for reading!

Settling In

We have a new address in London: Wally and Maria Hurst, 2 Itea Court, Lindie Gardens, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8, 1GR, United Kingdom. The post codes are amazing here: All you do for service or delivery is give them your post code, and they know your street immediately. They just ask what number. It's especially helpful when you're getting groceries or a pizza delivered!

I have begun my Masters Level classes at Brunel. On Wednesday from 2-5 PM, I take Research Methodologies, where I am to learn the secrets of scholarly research, how to read Elizabethan script and printing, and innumerable other great things I can use in writing my papers and my dissertation. Our professor is quite famous, has published several books on the topic, and has studied and taught at Cambridge and Harvard, among many other places. She also has top access to the British Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC, so I am a little bit envious!

My other class is The Making of Shakespeare, and it's about how the author and the plays went from relative obscurity in the 1600's to what they are today. We watched a clip form Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country to illustrate just how far into the world's collective consciousness Shakespeare has travelled. It's an amazing class, too. I am also looking forward to beginning my German class next Thursday!

We are almost completely settled in. Still learning about Uxbridge and Brunel, but very comfortable now. The weather has been great since we've been here,and we're enjoying it to the fullest. Thanks for reading, and if we have time this weekend, we'll add another post!

Closer to Being Home in Uxbridge

Well, it's been another great week in London. We bid a very fond goodbye to Nigel, our wonderful friend who put us up for over a week. Thank you Nigel!!! Friday, we moved to temporary digs at a hotel in Hillingdon, the tube stop just before Uxbridge. Not exactly luxury accomodations, but at least we're not spending a fortune on trains and tubes every day or making the 2-hour-plus journey each way between Bromley South and Uxbridge.

We continue to be enthralled by the city of Uxbridge. The downtown is both modern and quaint, and has two shopping centres and at least 10 pubs, all within 5 minutes walk -- unless you've been drinking, of course! And the people are very nice and welcoming. Once they hear our American accents, they are anxious to help us, or tell us how much they like Americans, or how much they enjoyed their visit to America, or like today, when one older gentleman regaled us with tales and how he loves Yanks because "they spent a lot of lives defending us" in  World War II. Wonderful place to people-watch.

I am anxious to get to my first real classes Wednesday: Research Methodologies from 2 until 5 PM, then"The Making Of Shakespeare" from 6 to 9 PM. I got to meet my classmates and also my research professor Thursday, and everyone was really nice. It should be an intense and exciting next few months, and I'm looking forward to it!

Brunel is such an interesting campus, too, with all the international students speaking so many different languages. It's really fun listening to so many forms of communication, then going to the library and listening to the same conversations at different volumes!

Speaking of the library, it's pretty high tech. There are over 500 computers there, and connections for that many more. The Postgraduate Room is open 24 hours a day by special ID-card only, and you check out a book by swiping your ID card over a reader, then putting each book in a space below the reader, where it reads the title, checks it out for you, and asks if you're finished - all in about a microsecond. Amazing!

My reading list is considerable, but what really will take the work will be the projects that arise from class discussion. This is really going to be a challenge, because the research begins, in Renaissance scholarship, with the paper itself, and also covers how it was printed, who printed it, and why one edition may differ from another edition. The details really matter in this type of research, and it's going to be different from anything I have ever done before.

Looking forward to getting into our apartment next week (hopefully Wednesday), and getting our budget set, so we can see some West End shows next weekend. Did you know that Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort) is playing Prospero in The Tempest? We'll try and see that one, and maybe one or two at the Globe before it closes on October 2. Lots to see, and lots to do!

After we finally move in, I am going to get myself a button that says, "I am NOT a Sodding Tourist!" and wear it around town! Cheers!

Ready For Week Number Two!!!

Sunday has arrived! Taking a day off to catch our breaths and wait for news of our apartment search. Looks like we will be able to secure a nice 2-bedroom flat about 10 minutes' walk from Uxbridge town centre and about 12 minutes' walk from Brunel University. It's furnished and very nice, but the landlord orginally did not want to rent it to us because I was a student. Sent over my academic/career CV and theatrical resume to the estate agent along with my last paycheck direct-deposit advice from Lakeland to let him know that I was not a typical student, and I think he got the message. The estate agent seemed genuinely embarassed that we had been hassled as much as we had been, and told us that he did not think there would be any problem in renting the flat. (When Maria offered to send him her resume, he held up his hands in an unmistakeable gesture of total surrender and said that this was more than enough information to take to the landlord, thank you very much!)

While we do love Bromley South and Nigel, we do not want to impose on his hospitality too long, so we are anxious  to conclude negotiations and move in -- preferably on Monday or Tuesday. My first class meeting in Graduate School starts Thursday afternoon at Brunel, and I'd like to be settled in at Uxbridge long before then. We'll see.

Brunel is quite an extraordinary university, I have found. They have something they call an Open Day, in which prospective students are invited for a tour of the campus and other activities. They had one Thursday, and over 2,000 students showed up -- and I was told that they had an even larger crowd the week before! I find that amazing!

Brunel is also the only university I have ever heard of that offers free foreigh language courses to all its students. For instance, I am taking a Masters in Shakespeare Authorship Studies: no foreign language there, right? I am also signing up for Italian on Wednesday evenings, and will get a proficiency certificate upon completion of the course. ( I am signing up for Italian because it is obvious to me that whoever wrote the works of Shakespeare traveled extensively in Italy, and I want to be able to read any travelogues or diaries of their travels in the native language if they exist. It'll help me brush up my Latin, too!) I may be able to brush up my woeful high school French too, if it doesn't interfere with my Grad school classes. The point is, all this language instruction is free. Why does Brunel do this? The explanation from the head of the department is simple and brilliant: they want Brunel stuents and graduates to have every competitive advantage available to them when it comes to getting a job in the real world, and they know that an employer, faced with two more or less equally qualified candidates, will choose the one with "just one more foreign language" on their resume, especially if it is one relevant to the job skills or communication abilities that they want. If the firm you're appling to has an office in Shanghai and the Brunel graduate has competency in Mandarin, that's a big plus when you apply to an engineering or financial services company. Smart, simple, and brilliant. It's amazing how forward-thinking that is, and it's typical of how much Brunel has impressed Maria and me since we've been here. Although every major building on campus seems to completely and utterly unlike any other building, which is weird to me (coming from a campus that was largely the same type of architecture), each building houses caring and highly competent people who seem to care about the students both while they are here and after they leave.

 I am looking forward to seeing Bill Leahy again and meeting my new classmates next week. I hope they are all as eager as I am to begin the new school year! Love to all from London! Have a warm and wonderful Sunday, everyone!

Whew....We made it...so far so good!

OK...A week before we were due to fly to London, Wally's visa arrived along with a "Refusal of Entrance Clearance" for Me!!! We had 28 days to appeal the refusal but only 6 days until our flight! We decided to just go based on my staying for only six months as allowed by my passport! When we got to the RDU Airport the ticket agent, Carol, advised me that I could not use my ticket as purchased because it had a return date six months and 27 days out and that was not allowed because a passport only allows you to travel for six months. We paid the additional fee to have my return ticket changed to March 10, 2012. All is well....or is it?

We had a great flight on Delta to Boston and on to London's Heathrow Airport. On the flight to London we paid for an upgrade to Economy Comfort. We highly recommend this inexpensive upgrade which gave us 4 inches more leg room, 50% more reclining, and free alcohol to boot!!!

Once in London, Wally got in the student visa line and I went on my way to the regular visitor's line. When I got to the custom agent he said, "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Hurst, but your entrance has been denied due to a refused visa." I explained to him why the visa had been denied and told him I had the letter with me. He asked for the letter which I gave him. He told me that it could take a while to sort this out and he would take me to an area where I could set and wait.

My thoughts: "OK Wally, you little skunk, have you snuck through on your student visa and left me to rot in a tiny cell with a lousy deck of London playing cards??"

My lucky day...as the agent led me away, we walked past the student visa line and there was Wally just at the front of the line, I identified him as my partner in crime and the agent led us both away to our detention box and took Wally's visa as well.

It only took about ten minutes before he came back and told me that they could refuse my entry. I told him "Of course you can...? He continued, but we won't because we trust that you will leave on March 10, 2012 as your ticket indicates and we have put a flag on that flight to be sure you are on it. Oh, and by-the-way, don't try to take a side trip to France or elsewhere and expect it to change anything. You WILL be on that March 10, flight!" Sounds tough, but, he was actually a very nice man and I was impressed that they only detained us for ten minutes.

On to Bromley South where our friend Nigel Hake lives. Nigel has kindly agreed to put us up for a bit while we find an apartment or flat in Uxbridge. Nigel met us at the train station and took us to his place where he fixed us a full English breakfast. Then he left for work, he is a blue badge tour guide: those of you who traveled to London with us in March 2011 should remember Nigel, as he was our tour guide. Wally and I made our way back to the train station and took the one and a half hour trek to Uxbridge. We went to six Estate Agents looking for a 2 bedroom apartment and only found one available in our price range. We made an appointment to see it the next day, Tuesday, 9-13-2011. We walked all over Uxbridge, what a wonderful place! We are really looking forward to spending our time there.

Back on the train, off to Bromley South, short visit with Nigel and then to bed. Tuesday morning, up at 7:00 ready to head back to Uxbridge. Quick breakfast with Nigel and off we go. Our appointment to see the apartment was not until 3:45 so we had all morning to explore. As we were walking along, I noticed a street sign that read Hinton Road. We had seen a 2 bedroom on line on Hinton road so thought we would walk down and see if there was a sign on any of the buildings. We met two very nice people out in their yards but no luck with a rental. One of the people we met was a letting agent and he suggested we go over one street to Myddleton he thought there may be an apartment there to let. As we started down Myddleton there was a gentleman in his front yard, we asked him if he knew of an apartment and he said "You are on the friendliest street in Uxbridge, unfortunately, some Americans have just let the apartment." I told him their boat must have been faster than ours!  He and his wife invited us in and we had a nice visit. They make baked goods and jellies for one of the local cafes and she was wrapping the newly baked goods. We bought two jars of her fresh jellies and went on our way.

A couple of streets over we saw a sign to let and called the agent. He told us that the unit we were in front of was a four bedroom set up to rent each room seperately but he had two 2 bedrooms he could show us. He picked us up and took us to a brand new unit with two apartments available, one on the ground floor and one three flights up. I thought the third floor was nicer but don't like the idea of lugging groceries up three flights of stairs. Moot point as both were out of our price range. Back to town center to meet with the agent for our 3:45 showing. Nice, I think it is strange that in all 3 apartments we saw you enter into a hallway with the bedrooms and bathroom off on either side and the lounge and kitchen are the furthest rooms from the entry. I like this apartment but it is not ideally where we wanted to live. It is a little further walking distance to both town center and to Brunel University. We did put in an application to rent and made our journey back to the train to head back to Bromley South. No sooner had the train departed that the renting agent called to say the landlord wanted more monthly and 6 months paid in full up front. We told him that was not acceptable, we would pay three months up front and 4 months in January. Again he called, this time to say the landlord had agreed to 3 months up front and 2 months security deposit!! Wally told him we did not have the funds to pay 5 or 6 months up front and that we would call tomorrow after we had time to think on a solution. They probably feel like they're trying to "negotiate a better deal", but we think they're being pretty petty and stupid about the whole thing, and we're not completely in love with the location, although it is equidistant from town and Brunel. We'll see what happens Wednesday!

So, here we are, only in the UK for 2 days and already homeless!!! That's not exactly true, adn we have high hopes for the search going well. Nigel has been the perfect host, and hasn't kicked us out yet. Well, off tomorrow back to Uxbridge and hopefully better luck on the apartment front. We'll write more soon!!!

Three weeks to go, and It's falling into place!

Well, three weeks from today we’ll be on a plane headed to London. I can hardly believe it. After all the challenges, roadblocks, obstacles and bureaucracy, the only thing remaining is our visas. They should be here shortly, so now we’re concentrating on what to take, what to leave, and the paperwork involved in paying our bills automatically so we have a functioning house and credit rating to return to.  With the help of our many friends and our credit union, I think we’ll be ready by September 11^th. If our visas get here on time, we’ll have two very heavy suitcases, two heavy carry-on pieces of luggage, and two heavy “personal items” - a backpack for me, a computer case for Maria, and probably wearing our heavy winter coats so we don’t have to pay extra money for overweight luggage on the plane.

Our yard sales the last three weekends have netted us enough funds to” set up house” in our new flat in Uxbridge, perhaps, if we don’t go too crazy and find some stuff on sale. Let’s see: sheets and blankets, pillows, food, towels, and maybe cookware and eating utensils to boot. We are really planning to stick to our “peanut butter” budget, unless we sell the two vehicles, the piano, and some art and/or get some serious “walking around” money from somebody between now and September 11th.

I’m looking forward to learning and the projects I will be involved in, and hoping that I can get some London actors to participate in at least one of these projects, as it involves the objective and subjective analysis of the impact of intimate knowledge of a playwright’s biography on his or her performance. I am also planning to suggest a system by which we can analyze the conflicting pieces of evidence in the “search for Shakespeare” and give objective values to these vastly different sources. (Sorry if that sounds a bit complicated – I guess I’m already starting to think like a true academic again.)

We do plan to see London, of course, and spend quality time at the many museums, galleries, and libraries – most of them free – that London has to offer. It is truly an amazing place, and we’re looking forward to exploring it. We’ll start with Uxbridge, of course, and that promises to be an enjoyable English village from what we’ve already seen in our previous visit in March. From Uxbridge, it’s a short trip into London – 35-50 minutes on the Tube, and we will definitely be taking advantage of the great transport system often!

 Back home, we have made arrangements for the cats, the house will probably be rented, and Lakeland is in good hands with Kathey and the gang taking care of the theatre and its patrons while we’re gone. Thanks again to all those who encouraged us, helped us, prayed for us, and given us much-needed advice on the preparations we had to make. You are the best!

We’re not fully ready yet, but we can see “ready” from where we are now.  We’ll probably re-pack a couple of more times each, and find another obstacle or two to overcome. Keep those good thoughts and prayers coming, and thanks for reading.

Less Than A Month To Go!

We're getting excited about leaving with less than a month to go before we depart for London, but many, many things remain to be accomplished prior to September 11. Sometimes the preparations seem overwhelming, but every day it seems that we get something else done that prepares us for the trip, and that's progress! Even if it's just getting our eyes examined yesterday and making sure we have great glasses and contact lenses for the copius amount of reading that we'll both be doing, we know that it's "one more thing" checked off our list, and we can go on to the next task at hand. Much of it, like the banking stuff and just paying our US obligations while we're gone, involves setting up automatic transfers amd withdrawals from our local credit unions and banks. It's routine paperwork but it takes time and effort.

And there are twists and turns in the road to departure that we have not anticipated that need to be negotiated. So far, we have encountered challenges with getting our visas, which we think we have now straightened out; we have debated with ourselves whether or not we can or should rent out our house while we're gone, a situation that we still have not resolved; we have had to pull out of our plan to ship several boxes to ourselves, due to the exorbitant costs of doing so, and we're now determined to pack it all up and take it in two large suitcases and two carry-ons; and we have decided to work out our financial concerns with a supplemental loan, in addition to the student loans we will get, so that we will not stress over money the entire time we're there, and be able to consentrate on enjoying the experience of the journey itself. Many more hurdles, expected and unexpected, remian in our way, we are sure, but we remian upbeat and positive that we can overcome them in time to take off on Sunday, September 11th.

Finally, we know that we do not go alone. Many, many good wishes accompany us, we know, and we thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts. Our own home becomes the site of an estate/yard sale this Saturday, August 20, from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, where we will hopefully sell some of our art collection ( we have too much anyway), the piano, and two vehicles as well as miscellanous stuff that deserves a good home, too. 

Cheers!

Now The REAL Preparation Begins....

We sent our visa applications off Monday, with yet another wretched passport-sized photograph from Wal-Mart, and they should be back here shortly. Now the really tough jobs need to be focused on: what do we sell at the yard sales? What do we pack for seven months of super-changeable weather in London? What do we mail to our friend Nigel ahead of time? (We already have two small but full boxes ready to go, and probably will mail 2-3 more in the next couple of weeks.)

Maybe it’s more positive to see what we have done. We have all of our prescriptions filled through April 2012 and our medical records – still have to get our eyes checked and possibly new glasses for both of us before we go. We have partially filled our friend Rosalie’s spare room in Henderson with stuff to sell at the yard sale next Saturday, although a great deal remains to be done before we’re ready for those events, too. We have a storage space paid for through next April and we have started taking stuff over to it too. More work is needed there as well.

We also have to get the house “renter-ready”, which is no easy task. We’ll probably pack all our junk into the back storage room and lock the door when we leave: that way, the new tenant(s) will be free to actually move about the house! On the positive side, we are reducing the amount of food we have in the freezer compartments, and not spending any more money on food than we have to right now. We are also beginning to set aside clothes in a “definitely-taking-this-to-London” pile: my dress shirts, ties, and socks are already picked out, with at least 5 pairs of my trademark black pants going with me for sure, and 8 t-shirts are in a box to be mailed next week. Maria is having a tougher time deciding than I am, but then again she has more clothes than I do.

And I have to finish reading the entire canon of the writer known as William Shakespeare again before I get there. On the positive side, I know six plays well enough to recite them verbatim, and I’m really familiar with a dozen more. That’s only half the plays, though, to say nothing of the Sonnets and the long narrative poems. I will be ready, though – even if I have to read on the plane! Amidst all this practical preparation and packing and logistical stuff, I have to also prepare to study and to excel once I get there. I don’t think focus will be a problem once classes start, but from now until then there will be plenty of things to distract me, that’s for sure! 

Maria already has an additional genealogy client already, and although she can’t work for UK pay, she can do a lot of research for anybody who wants to know their sordid personal past history! Let her know! It’s simple to get started, and you will probably be surprised at what she finds!

 Once we arrive, a lot of things will happen very fast, I’m sure. We will need to find a place to lay our heads at night, set up a bank account, make sure our London phones work, and visit Brunel so that we can take care of the financial stuff quickly. WE hope to be fully ready soon!

International Finance Comes Through!

The folks at International Finance at Brunel have “certified me” as being eligible for loans sufficient for Maria and me to go to London this fall! Woo Hoo! Although we still need to raise approximately $20,000.00 to pay the bills back home, with luck -- and if we can rent the house – we are definitely going!

Needless to say, we are very excited. We are probably going to wait until we get there to find a place to live, because we will rely on our friend Nigel, a retired London police officer and now a Blue Badge tour guide for advice. If anybody knows the good neighborhoods of London – and the bad ones! – it’s Nigel! We’re very lucky to know this generous and knowledgeable gentleman, indeed!

For those of you in the area, we are having two yard sales: On Saturday, August 6, at 848 Dabney Drive in Henderson, and on August 20, at 114 Wilcox Street in Warrenton. We are also contemplating a private art sale for liquidating some of our 50-piece art collection: if anybody is interested in any art, please contact us immediately. This collection includes mostly signed, numbered lithographs and serigraphs, many by our favorite artist, Phillipe Noyer.  Most are professionally framed, double-matted, and quite beautiful. We also have an original Winslow Homer woodcut and works from many other artists, including Terry Redlin, Carlos Impaglia, and Michael Ward. For you history buffs, we have a beautifully framed scarf and (an unframed) catalogue from the 1876 Philadelphia World Exposition. And if you’re into music, we have a beautiful Carl Dorr (Austrian) baby grand piano (early 1900’s) that has the most beautiful low tones I have ever heard, a museum piece valued at over $40,000.00 that can be yours for a lot less than that.

Still waiting for our visas, but I am told that’s a formality now that we have had our biometrics done. We fly out September 11, arriving at Heathrow September 12 ready to start our new adventure! Classes begin for me on September 23, so we’ll have time to get acclimated before the real work starts for me. Speaking of work, Maria cannot have a UK job, but she is an accomplished genealogist, and has several clients she will be working with while we’re in London, using the resources of the British Library and various other sources readily available to her there. Anybody want to know more about their family tree? Her rates are cheaper than subscribing to all the family history sites, and she does all the work for you! Contact her on Facebook at Maria Hurst if you’re interested!

Anybody have any old Oyster cards left over? Donations are always welcome! Thanks to all our friends and former “London trippers” who have already donated their left-over British Pounds and Oyster Cards. We really appreciate it! More later, and cheers!

Biometrics, Visas, and Government Waste

Today we gave our biometric information for our visa applications: fingerprints and a digital photograph at the US Citizenship and Immigration Office near RDU. I knew it was a government office as soon as we opened the door, though: there was a line. We also had to go through a full airport style security check, which surprised us. Is it this way for all government buildings now? This is a “paperwork building”, not a courthouse or a major outpost of any kind, just a single-purpose visa office: I am not sure that all that extra expense is really necessary, nor was the two-receptionist system: they had you report to the main receptionist (after standing in line), who looked at your paperwork and told you where to go. There was a choice of two places to go – and one of those places was an information station. And you wonder why we’re in a deficit situation? That place needed at least 8 less employees/contractors in it…!

On the plus side, the folks were very pleasant and helpful, and even with the security check and the lines we had to stand in, we were out of there in about 30 minutes or so. Not bad for a government office! Still waiting to hear from Brunel University’s Financial Aid Office to see if I can actually use the visas we have applied for -- and paid almost $1,000 for the privilege to do so. The situation should be resolved – or “sorted” as the British say – pretty soon. We'll see!

A Round Peg In A Square Hole: (Or, How I learned to love and hate the financial aid system!)

Well, here I am, sitting around waiting for the Brunel University Financial Aid Office to tell me whether or not I can go to school this fall. You ask why this is so. The answer is as perplexing as it is complicated.

To begin with, I have already secured a direct (Stafford) educational loan to pay my tuition at Brunel, and this leaves a small amount for books and supplies: the total amount after tuition is paid is a little over $4,000.00 total. And here’s where the complicated stuff starts.

You see, although I have a separate $35,000.00 in guaranteed pre-approved “direct-plus” (indirect) loans from Sallie Mae that would let me pay for a place to live and be able to eat while we’re in London (while also paying bills here at home), it is not up to me or Sallie Mae to determine if I actually receive the money. That decision rests with the folks in Brunel’s Financial Aid Office, who have a system and a formula I must fit into, because all students are evidently the same to them.

Instead of being who I am, a 50-something man with a wife (who is forbidden to work while in the UK because of immigration law changes), a mortgage and bills at a house back home to pay while I pursue my life-long dream of finding “the real Shakespeare”, I am forced into becoming a 20-something student with no worries, no cares, and no bills at home to worry about as I blithely sail over to the UK and put off the real world for another year or so and study for some useless degree or other that I may never use.

So there you are. I have absolutely no idea what will happen next, but I believe that all of us are trying in good faith to resolve the situation, including the folks at Brunel. We'll see how it turns out, but at this point I am not very hopeful, to be honest.

That siad, we are still going to try and go, no matter what. We are still planning to sell my vintage Firebird and see if we can get rid of some art and our museum-quality piano if we don’t get the money. That and a really all-out yard sale on August 6 should make a difference. How much of a difference? We still don’t know how much we’ll need at this point, so for now we play the waiting game. Thanks for reading!

Visas, and Records and Money, Oh My!

This past week was very frustrating, but it may be getting resolved soon.

For those who may not know, Great Britain changed its immigration laws regarding student visas and spouses. In effect, Maria and I both had to apply by July 4 -- me as a student, she as my dependent -- or she would not have been able to accompany me unless she somehow got a work permit prior to September 9 -- unlikely given the economic situation in England at present.

So, this week was a blur of activity as we secured a CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies) number from Brunel and applied for our visas on line Saturday.

The UK wanted to know about my two speeding tickets, so that was exciting as we tried to figure out how to get those records on a holiday weekend. Thanks to our fabulous and ingenious daughteer-in-law Aimee, who is even now keeping us safe at Homeland Security. we found the records and finished off both applications, paying almost $900.00 for the privilege of staying in England 27 days longer than we could have stayed on a regular passport (6-month maximum stay).

Next up is finance. I have been approved for student loans direct and indirect in an amount actually sufficient to live on in London for 7 months, but my loan amount is evidently subject to the Britsh Council guidelines for students, and Brunel's finance office may be bound by these guidelines, which do not allow us sufficient funds to find a place and eat while we're there. I simply do not understand how a college in the UK can tell a private loan foundation how much they can lend me for school. Are they going to pay the loan back? They acknowledge the guidelines are totally unrealistic, but their hands may be tied. I even called Sallie Mae to ask them -- they said they were bound by what Brunel told them.

Amazing. We'll work this out in the coming weeks, I think. In the meantime, we will be looking forward to handing over our biometric data in Durham on Monday, July 25th at 11:00 AM. I need to look up what biometric data is, and then I'll decide whether I should be frightened or not...!

In the meantime, we're packing up our first package of stuff to ship to ourselves in late August. We'll have more later. Thanks for reading!

Pitching A Tent In Hyde Park?

We have put our house up on a house exchange site this week, and got our international driver's licenses, just in case we get a chance to drive in England or in Europe whjile we're there. (Also, it's another good international ID for us!) We are really hoping to be able to exchange homes, because that will ease our financial burden considerably. Hopefully, we won't have to pitch that tent in Hyde Park...!

Looking forward to a web chat on Wednesday with Bill Leahy, the head of the School of the Arts at Brunel University and my lead professor for the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Program this fall. I already have a project to work on, and I'm looking forward throwing myself into the program and the research.

Grandkids Mollie and Gwen are here for the Summer Workshop, so we'll be pretty busy with "other stuff" for a few weeks here! If any news breaks, we'll post it here! Thanks for reading! Cheers!!!!

Less Than 3 Months To Go!

Today passes the three-month mark for the date on which we arrive in London. I feel so unprepared, both practically and academically.

I am reacquainting myself with the Shakespeare Canon (too slowly for me), working on my project in fits and starts, and trying to sell enough of our excess "stuff" to feel comfortable about leaving home. There's a great big "to do" list before we take off on September 11. But with both of us working together, we'll get it done.

We're now applying for a student visa for me and working on a work permit for Maria. We have to jump through some hoops for both, but hopefully the paperwork will be taken care of before we leave. Unless we have a house exchange arrangement worked out, the plan is to seek temporary lodging with friends when we arrive and to start looking for a place that we can actually see the flat and the area it's in. Trying to rent long-distance is just insane, and the horror stories we hear about deposits and rip-offs make the decision easy. Something a short walk away from the Tube, preferably the Victoria Line, and a good neighborhood, and at a reasonable price. Doesn't sound like it should be so hard, does it? I have a feeling it will be tougher than it sounds....

In the meantime, the Shakespeare Authorship Controversy is beginning to heat up. The new movie Anonymous is getting a lot of buzz, and while it takes a part of the story to a realm of fantasy that I'm not altogether sure I ascribe to, I think they may have gotten the gist of the theory right. But who knows? I'm looking forward to being part of the scholarship and perhaps part of the solution. Here's the latest from the British press:

http://www.essexcountystandard.co.uk/news/9078306.Was_Shakespeare_really_Essex_earl_/

More later! Cheers to all!

Big Week

Hello, All!

We got our annual physicals and tests this week, and our prescriptions renewed for a year, too, so we can stay on track while we're in London this fall. We will certainly be walking a great deal, so we plan on being pretty fit by the time we return!

Last spring, while we were there, during the day we noticed that there appeared to be very, very few overweight people on the streets of London -- disproportionately so, we thought. Then we realized everybody walks everywhere they go, and it shows.

And when we went to the theatre at night, "they came out"...! Wow, the things we learn from close observation...

We also got our plane tickets! We leave on Sunday, September 11 and fly through Boston on our way across the pond, landing at 6:30 AM at Heathrow on September 12. Delta Airline had a very sweet deal, and we're paying less than $1400 for both of us for the round trip tickets. (Most every other airline's minimum price was $1100 round trip for each of us.)

We're flying on September 11, because 1) it is more convenient for whoever takes us to the airport, and 2) because it's the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and we need to be defiant of those who wish us harm. We can't let the bastards win, in other words. I urge all of you to travel somewhere on September 11, just to show them that they have not stopped us or crushed our spirit or our resolve. (Just for you cynics out there, it was the same price for all the days on either side of September 11, too.)

Off my soapbox now. If I had two brain cells that actually talked to each other, I would have asked everybody with SkyMiles from Delta to contribute a few towards our flights, but they're already bought and paid for now, so we're going! Anybody with frequent flyer miles who wants to contribute some, though, let us know, because we might be able to get away during a weekend somewhere in Europe while we're there.

Thanks agin for reading along. I hope I'll be able to devote enough time to keep these interesting once we get there!

Wally's First Blog

Hello, everyone! I have now navigated the website and am prepared to blog away now and after we get to London this fall. For those who want to know where I'm going and what I'm studying, here's the website:

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/shakespeare-authorship-studies-ma

Just negotiated past another federal loan/grant application for school after some great advice by my freind Dan at Brunel's Finance Office. I figured out most of the acronyms but may need help on some others: it's a whole new world for me out there in educational finances...!

I also finished pulling monlogues from Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and tragedies to use in my project this fall -- about 85-90 -- with a test run here this summer, if I'm ready by then. Will work on poems, sonnets, and non-Shakespearean plays and poems next, then put together contexts, author biographies, and tips for "speaking the speech trippingly on the tongue" for my actors. I'm excited about getting this together and working with folks at Brunel and in London this fall.

Still looking for buyers for our fine art pieces and our fabulous Carl Dorr Viennese Piano: anybody out there got any suggestions, please let me know!

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Remember our troops in your thoughts and prayers: their sacrifices past and present are the reason we enjoy the freedom we have today!

And Happy Birthday to my fabulous wife Maria on the 28th!

More later,


Wally

Get ready...Get set...

As some of you may already know, Maria and I have grown to love the works of William Shakespeare on the stage, and we have participated in numerous Shakespearean productions in California, North Carolina and Virginia. Back home in Elk Grove, California, we joined the Shakespeare Oxford Society, dedicated to finding the true author of the works, and began our own research into the question of the authorship.

Ever since 1995, we have wondered why no alleged institution of higher learning has ever formulated a graduate-level program dedicated to a scholarly, reasoned, research-based approach to this grand 'mystery of history'. We love Shakespeare's works, but cannot match the work with the glover's son from Stratford, who evidently knew court etiquette, law, falconry, Italy and France, and translated numerous works from other languages to use in his plays before they were translated into English, among other things.

Well, Brunell University in west London has finally acquired the guts to begin such a program, and I am going to start my work there as a graduate student in September 2011. After two courses per semester, I will be done with my coursework on March 30, 2012, and will come home to write my final papers and my thesis and we go back to work at Lakeland Theatre Company.

Of course, Maria is going too, and we are now saving up as much money as we can to be able to eat while we are there! I can, as a student, get a part-time job up to 20 hours a week, and Maria will be applying for a work permit, but we don't know how that process will turn out, so she will keep busy with her genealogy work for her private clients (what better place to do that research?) and we'll get by, we hope.

We will keep the house here and are looking into several possible ways of not having to pay two house payments at the same time. Whether that involves a house-swap or renting the house here in Warrenton, we don't know yet, but we'll figure it out before we go in September.

We are looking to sell a number of our pieces of art and our museum quality baby grand piano so that we can live comfortably over the next several months: if you know of anybody who may be interested, please let us know ASAP! In the meantime, I have applied for scholarships, etc., and am waiting to hear from them, but have a loan from Sallie Mae in reserve that we will probably have to use also. If you hear of anybody giving scholarships to old white guys, please let me know!

We'll probably have a ride-it-to hell rummage sale in August, but in the meantime keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we begin a new adventure in our lives together