Cleaver title, huh? I used it to honour William Shakespeare and his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. My class took an overnight trip to the once quaint town. This small village has attracted tourists for hundreds of years. I thought everything about the place was great. A sleepy little place, containing sheep, thatched-roofed houses, and little streams swaddled within forests, similar to a scene one might find on their way to visit grandma and little read riding hood.

I had dinner with one of the program professors, Anita, and she told me (rather disappointedly) that about 15 years ago, this town was much smaller, had less traffic, and lacked the symbolic logos of a green mermaids or golden arches. Despite the plague of shameless American globalization, I think we still had a blast. The weather was a typical gray overcast and stinging winds. On our only night in the town, we got to attend 'The Merchant of Venice' preformed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I have never read the play and pretty much went in blind, but I quickly picked up the plot and enjoyed myself. On our last day, we toured Shakespeare's birthplace and Ann Hathaway's (his wife) family cottage.

I am not a HUGE Shakespeare fan, but I do respect his work. I learned a few tid bits about the man too, like there are no more direct descendants of William Shakespeare. His granddaughter died childless, therefore killing off the bloodline. By the end of the trip, I was EXHAUSTED. But I mist say, for not being the biggest Shakespeare expert or even fan, in the world, I throughly enjoyed myself.