So... quick run through

In my last post I mentioned the first castle we went to, and one of the first cathedrals we visted. We have visited many more since, and I will mention all of them, and if anything stood out, but I'm going to try and get through them a little quicker. Cover more ground quicker, if you will.

Thursday (June 28) brought about another field trip. The first stop was to Rochester! This was our first castle RUIN, as Dover was still pretty much in tact. I divided my time between wandering around, admiring the scenery, and wandering around bemoaning the fact I did not have my camera. There was a very exciting moment when I tripped going down a flight of stairs, and grabbed the handle before I wiped out. I happened to do this right in front of my friend Lorraine, who proceeded to FREAK OUT about the fact I could be rolling down the steep flight of stairs. I assured her that despite the fact I am not at all coordinated, I have quick reflexes, and good aim, the combination resulting in my tripping A LOT, but not often actually falling. There were a couple of Dickens related sites here, but as I'm not in the Romantic Literature class and have read very little Dickens, this didn't interest me as much. I also only did a quick tour of the cathedral there. The reason being this: second hand bookstores. There were three that I saw in this town. I sadly only made it to one, but it was a very good stop for me. I got an early edition of The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis for 2 pounds and a copy of Ben Hur for 1.50 pounds. We were a little late getting back to the bus, but I AM UNREPENTANT! Dr. Ryken handled our tardiness with his characteristic maturity.

Next stop was Penshurst. This was a beautiful manor that Dr. Ryken called the archetypal English country house. The house was pretty cool, but the gardens here were amazing! There was a different garden around every corner. There were fountains, and ponds, and trees woven together to make a natural fence. I wanted to be there with my mother. The English REALLY know how to garden. I was excited to head back to London because I was planning on meeting up with my Uncle Harry and Aunty Donna, who were in England for both academic purposes and pleasure purposes, mostly likely with some overlap between those two categories. I don't get to see them very often, so I was excited to catch up with them! So naturally, there was a lot of traffic and we got back over an hour later than I was hoping. Thankfully this was only tenish minutes after I said I would meet up with Aunty Donna and Uncle Harry. They were sitting outside of our hotel when we pulled up. They had eaten dinner, but offered to take me somewhere as I had not. As college professors, they are obviously aware of importance that the majority of college students place on food, due perhaps to a general shortage of funds and time for food preparation. They bought me dinner. I was very grateful for this, and greatly enjoyed their company and catching up a little with them.

Aunty Donna and I. Photo cred goes to Uncle Harry. :)

Friday we began the day pretty early with an excursion to Westminster Abbey. We managed to be the first group inside! Despite this, there were still some transit difficulties. It happened to be around the time when many Londoners were heading to work. The first train pulls up and it already looks filled to the brim. Despite this, most of the group managed to squeeze on. There were probably about 6 of us that didn't quite fit on, and we waited for the next train. It soon arrived, looking equally full as the last one. We soon found the proper technique was just jump on and pray you can fit everything inside when the doors close. I found myself squeezed next to Ian Campbell (again, not my boyfriend, but my boyfriends roommate.) It had been slightly awkward between the two of us since he had forgotten me for the show on Wednesday night. At this point however, he does the equivalent of leaning over (there really wasn't much room to ACTUALLY lean) and says, "Elizabeth, I've always wanted us to be closer." I laughingly replied that I wasn't sure Ian (Ian my boyfriend Ian) would agree with him, at least in this manner. That pretty effectively broke the ice. When we got to the abbey, it was a pretty impressive to say the least. It was especially nice because it was still relatively quiet inside. Everyone got excited when we got to the poets corner. It was pretty cool to see but what I got excited about was the grave of George Frideric Handel. Of course I will be the first to admit that poetry isn't really my thing. After that we visited the Tower of London. It wasn't the longest or most thorough trip through, as it was raining outside and crowded inside. We did walk through the crown jewels section though. Wow. There are some BIG gemstones in there. Not to mention a golden punch bowl I could probably take a bath in. It was rather dazzling. After a quick romp through the gift shop where I found some gifts for my family, we departed. I couldn't find tickets to any shows that I wished to attend so once again, while the vast majority of my classmates went off to see something, I remained behind at our hotel.

Saturday we made a trip out to Hampton Court. I would say this was one of my favorite stops so far. The inside displays were very well put together regarding the various monarchs they depicted. There were several on Henry VIII, there was also a really interesting display of paintings entitles, "The Wild, The Beautiful, and the Damned" that I really enjoyed. The gardens here were absolutely spectacular as well. I am also pretty sure Henry VIII walked past me when I was exploring the gardens. I have decided at this point my favorite style of English garden is the enclosed sunken gardens, of which Hampton Court had two. I took a panoramic picture of a similar style of garden from Kensington Park, which is in a previous blog post. I also grabbed lunch there and made friends with a dog who was only too willing to let me lavish attention on her.

I had heard of a group who wanted to go to a play version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, so I decided to join them. Possibly half an hour after we got back, we started RUNNING to the Tube station to try and make the matinee. We RAN through several Tube stations, and made the fatal mistake of getting off a stop too early, so we then had to RUN through all of Kensington Park. Kensington Park is HUGE!!! We made it five minutes after the show had started.  So we ordered our tickets for the evening show. Four row seats for 25 pounds thanks to our student status is pretty awesome. Especially if you are getting a 15 pound rebate after that. In the meantime, some of us grabbed ice cream, and myself and two of the other girls made a stop at the Sherlock Holmes museum. The three of us took turns taking pictures with the policeman outside while we each work the Sherlock hat and held a pipe. It was seriously fun. The inside was set up as it might have been for the "real" Sherlock and Watson, including props from some of their various adventures from the books. The house being very crowded, I explored quickly and once again wished I had had my camera. We headed back to the Park for the show. It was great! The technical quality of the show alone was fantastic. And it's C.S. Lewis. I have always been more of a Lewis fan over Tolkien.

Photo cred to Emily Lorraine Richardson

I had finally made it to a show! With a group of three girls that I love, and Ian (not boyfriend). It was really great. While my time in London was not over, it began to draw to a close. Only one day remained.  However, you shall have to wait to hear about that day another time.

Getting caught up to Oxford (Tuesday, June 26 - Wednesday, June 27)

As I write this I am sitting in the window seat of my room at St. Anne's College in Oxford England. I am woefully behind on keeping this blog updated. So much has happened and so quickly that I have not had the time. When I left off we were heading to a performance or A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was.... not what we were expecting. For those who are familiar with the play, the relationship between Theseus and Hippolyta was a clearly abusive one, and the society they and the four lovers inhabited we decided was supposed to imitate a gypsy or traveler culture. The fairies were much darker than I had imagined them as well. There were a couple scenes that... well, let's just say it shocked a large group of Wheaton students. We were NOT expecting them. So that caused much discussion in our group.

Then on Tuesday (June 26), we had our first outing. It was to Canterbury and Dover. After our English breakfast at the hotel (scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and tea for me!), we piled onto the bus, and off we went. Our first stop was Canterbury. We gathered in the square outside of the beautiful cathedral. I noticed across the way a small ceramics store. Naturally, I immediately yearned to go inside. However, it was time to go into Canterbury Cathedral. We filtered in, and split into several groups for our tours. The first thing I noticed was the beautiful large stained glass window at the back of the cathedral. It was one of the few in the entire church that had been spared when the iconoclasm of the Puritans swept through England. Much of what we heard about was the murder of Thomas Becket which took place in the cathedral. His tomb was displayed prominently until again it was destroyed by the Puritans. Now there is simply a candle burning where it used to be.

After we departed from the cathedral, I convinced my lovely friend Irene to accompany me into the ceramics store. There were two floors filled with beautiful vessels. I also chatted with the man who had made all of it. He said he had ELEVEN electric kilns. I was in awe! I bought myself a mug that had the Canterbury cross on it, and promised Irene I would make her a goblet once we were back at Wheaton.

 Next stop was Dover Castle. As Caterbury Cathedral was our first cathedral, Dover was our first castle. It was beautiful. As you can possibly guess, as a huge group of English enthusiasts, this place really inspired our imagination. At least, it inspired MY imagination. I explored every inch of the place, spending a long time up on the roof, taking many pictures. I also wandered around outside the walls, admiring the gorgeous color of the sea, and gazing across The Chanel, in hopes of many catching a glimpse of France. Despite the beautiful weather, I don't think I quite managed. We soon headed back to the hotel after this.

Depending on how tired I am after relating the happenings of Wednesday, this might be it for this particular post. Wednesday, June 27 has been the low point of my trip so far. There were good parts, and horrible parts. The morning began with a relatively quick visit to Southwark Cathedral. It is decidedly one of the oldest cathedrals in England, and parts of it are VERY old. I don't have any pictures from inside the church, as it was a couple pounds to do this, and I wasn't really willing to fork over money just to take pictures.

After that we were free to wander around, and grab lunch before we were to attend a play at the Globe Theatre. We were going to see Henry V specifically, but more on that later. A pretty large group of us decided to go to see if we could find relatively inexpensive theater tickets for later in the evening. Now at least for me, this was much easier said than done. There were SO MANY shows I wanted to attend that were currently playing in London. I divided them into three groups: musicals I had seen (Jersey Boys, We Will Rock You, Phantom, and Wicked), musicals I have not seen and wanted too (Le Miserables, The Lion King, Singing in the Rain, Sweeny Todd, and a very new production of one of my favorite childhood books Matilda), and musicals I would not be going to (Shrek the Musical, The Wizard of Oz, etc.) I decided to try and see Le Mis, cause I've heard great things about it, and had not viewed it. However, the seats were VERY expensive and there was a general lack of student deals. I also had no desire to pay money to see Phantom performed again. Once was plenty. Therefore I decided to align myself with the smaller group that wanted to see Sweeny Todd. We got our tickets, and THEN I decided I wanted to go with the group that went back to St. Paul's Cathedral to climb to the top. With my recent breathing problems, I knew this was going to be a challenge for me, but it was one I really wanted to accomplish. With our looming play performance later, maybe I should have waited for when I would be taking up my own time. I didn't though. It was a struggle. I lagged behind the group, and was quickly out of breathe and soaked in sweat. London was extremely humid while we were there. One of the guys in our group was really kind and stayed with me throughout my trial. And I did make it to the top. It was a LOT of stairs. The view was beautiful! Downstairs wasn't quite as hard as upstairs, but it wasn't easy either. I wanted to rush into the gift shop quickly to buy a CD of the boys choir, while the others grabbed food there, but then they decided they were going to go somewhere cheaper. Having been holding them up all afternoon already, I rushed to buy my CD. Having forgotten I had tossed my camera into the top of my backpack after taking pictures at the top of St. Paul's, I quickly unzipped my bag to grab my wallet, and my camera fell out. Holding a CD, an empty bottle from my hasty lunch, and balancing my backpack, I didn't have the hands to grab it. I didn't have time to check on it then. I made my purchase and rushed to join my group. When they paused to grab lunch, I tentatively pulled my camera from my bag. As I opened the case it was in, I couldn't help but notice, my lens was no longer attached to my camera body. My heart sank, until I decided to try and just stick it back on. It went on.... and then came apart again. The plastic grooves that help the lens in place had broken off. Wanting to break into tears there and then, I carefully replaced my camera into it's case, and then into my backpack, and as we walked to the Globe, started brainstorming what to do. We got to the Globe, and took our seats, and I couldn't help but take my camera out to try and fix it somehow. I finally got around to trying to take a picture with it, and I did! This gave me hope that nothing more serious was wrong.

Then the play began! It was great! The only problem was our seats. The main character (Henry) often stood center stage for a good portion of his scenes. There also happened to be a pillar in between where we sat and where he stood. This was particularly sad because King Henry was pretty darn attractive. We did our best to follow the plot and understand the few portions spoken in French, and then I, already emotionally drained, decided to head back to the hotel. I collapsed on my bed, occasionally chatting with one of my roommates, while I waited for one of the people in my group that was heading to Sweeny Todd got a hold of me. And waited. I finally decided to start searching for Ian (not my boyfriend, his roommate. It's not at all confusing) as he had my ticket. He was not in the hotel. Not even a little bit in the hotel. Trying not to panic, I went back to my room and mapped out what the best way to get to the theater, packed up what I thought I might need, and headed for the Tube station, praying I would run into someone in my group on the way. Once I got to the station, I stood around for a couple of moments, and headed back towards the hotel. I wasn't willing to waste money on using the Tube when I wasn't sure I could definitely get where I was going, and I didn't have a clue where my ticket was. At a light, Dr. Coolidge and her husband of all people came up behind me and asked me how my day was. As soon as I started talking, I started crying despite my best efforts. They offered to help me get there, but at this point all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I headed back, hoping my room was empty, and when it was not, took a quick shower for some privacy. Dr. Coolidge came and checked on me, and after I had convinced her I just wanted the day to be over and wasn't interested in trying to make it to the theater still, I went to bed.

As I said, this was without a doubt the worst day I had on my trip so far. And even then, there were good parts. And it gets better!!!! While my camera has still not been repaired, it's a priority for me, now that I'm in Oxford. I would try to get more caught up, but it's getting late, and my freshly laundered pajamas call for me. :)  Stay tuned for happier adventures!