Time for Home

My adventures in England are quickly coming to a close.  Here I am, with seven days left. There are so many things that I've not yet done. I've not seen nearly enough. I didn't even make it to Scotland, never mind all the way to Loch Ness! Prince Harry has been in New Zealand almost the entire time I've been here, so there's no way I could have met him. (Ignore the fact that I wouldn't have been able to anyway, because he's WAY out of my league...)

But despite all the things I haven't been able to fit in, I've managed to see and do so much. I've made amazing friends, whom I'll miss terribly when I have to leave. I've gotten to know my family really well, which has been a huge blessing.

I've explored Paris and London; witnessed a foreign election; been a part of the celebrations for the new royal baby's arrival. I've seen mountains and caves. I've been to the sea. I've partied with some amazing people, and attended some very interesting classes.

I've seen Plague towns, old roman towns, and the Home of the Beatles; walked the same streets as Jack the Ripper; I've seen some of the magic behind Harry Potter. I've stood where Anne Boleyn lost her head.

These things are all amazing, but it's time to go home. My little brother has tripled in size since I've been away, And I hardly recognize Robert. I miss cuddling with my dogs, and I even miss being picked on by Dad. I miss the quiet of rural Missouri. You can't see stars here, it's too bright. I miss DeAnne and Lacey and Jena. I'm excited for my week in D.C. with Josiah.

It's sad to be leaving here, but I have so much to look forward to when I get home. And it's just time.

Mary, Gerald, and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This morning wasn't so bad. I woke up at 8:30, had breakfast with Gerald and Katia at 9, and went to bed for another couple hours, as I was still feeling tired. Then I woke up, and met the gang at the library at around 1:00. Things went as planned: Francine, Holly, and I studied while Gerald took a nap.

Dinner was at 6:00, and that's when everything started to go wrong. The chicken was dry, and the bananas were green. Too green. Gerald struggled with it for a while, finally got it peeled, and promptly dropped it in his custard. Twice. And then, while I was dying of laughter, I picked up my phone, dropped it, and barely missed my own custard. Dinner continued and when we finally left to put our trays away, Gerald managed to drop his butter-covered knife on the floor and managed to get butter all over his shirt.

Then we got our customary after dinner coffee, which I used to burn my knuckle. And I spilled it everywhere on the way to our usual seats in the bar. While drinking our coffee and discussing scholarly things (Ok, we were really talking about seeing Loch Ness monster and the likelihood of me meeting Prince Harry. Which one is more likely I'm sure I don't know) I was twirling my dog tag around my fingers and smacked myself in the forehead. After we finished our coffee, we left the bar and went to our own separate rooms. But on the way, I dropped the plum I had takes for a before bed snack. :(

My poor plum... 

So ended the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The Epic London Adventure- Part 3

This will be the last of the 3 part adventure! You can find the first two here and here if you need to catch up. Onwards!

Saturday

Amy and I on the train to the Tower.

On Saturday we had another early start; our first stop of the day was the Tower of London. My friend Amy joined us for this one, so there were four of us. A free tour, given by a resident beefeater, is available at no extra charge. So we definitely took advantage of that! I learned so much. 

Mady, Me, the Yeoman Warder, Victoria, and Amy

William the Conqueror had the White Tower built after he had taken over the country in the 1070s. William’s successors – most notably Henry III and his son Edward I - extended and strengthened the fortress throughout the Medieval period. By 1350 the Tower had taken on several roles, including royal accommodation, the Royal Mint and even an exotic menagerie (with lions and polar bears.)

In 1483, The Princes in the Tower (12-year-old Prince Edward and his younger brother Richard) were imprisoned by their uncle Richard III, and were never seen again. In the 1930s, two child skeletons were found buried beneath a staircase during refurbishment, and were attributed to the missing (and probably murdered) princes.

During the Tudor period, the Tower entered the bloodiest period of its history. Its cells and torture chambers were rarely empty of political and religious prisoners in the aftermath of Henry VIII’s break from the Pope in Rome. The imprisoned included Henry’s second wife Anne Boleyn, and Lady Jane Grey.

In 1605, it played bleak host to Guy Fawkes after the disastrous plot to blow up Parliament. It was an important pawn in the Civil War. After the Restoration, it became a permanent home to the new Crown Jewels. Even during the two World Wars, the Tower played its part. It survived a direct hit during the Blitz, while the filled-in moat was used for growing fruit and vegetables. Several spies were also held and executed there: in 1941, German Josef Jakobs became the last person to be executed within the Tower’s walls.Contrary to it's terrifying myth, only 22 executions have ever taken place within the Tower of London. 

I visited the Bloody Tower, and saw the Crown Jewels (sadly, pictures were not allowed. But I can tell you that there were jewels in there the size of my fist.) I saw Traitor's Gate and the very spot where Anne Boleyn was beheaded. 

After the Tower, the four of us split up. Mady took the bus back home, and Amy met up with some other friends. Victoria and I got lunch, then headed to Buckingham Palace, because while we were at the Tower, it had been announced that the Royal baby had finally arrived!

Victoria and I queued for twenty minutes or so to see the official announcement for the Princess of Cambridge. 

The gates of Buckingham Palace. It made a nice picture while in the queue. 

The official announcement, on a gilded easel. 

Then, after we'd gotten pictures of the moment that will never be repeated (honestly, how many times is a girl gonna be in London when an heir to the throne is born??), we went and stood against the fence of the Queen Victoria memorial to people watch. We had plenty of time before we needed to be anywhere, so we just decided to chill. And chill we did. 

 Until a man tried to be cool and jump the fence around the memorial. And failed. Miserably. 

He landed funny, with one foot on the ground and one on the step leading up to the memorial. Then he broke an ankle. It was awful. Victoria and I saw the whole thing, and rushed over there to make sure he was okay. He was leaning on his friend, who was slightly laughing at him. Victoria asked if he was okay, and then she called the ambulance. Then while we were waiting, we got to talking. Luke (with the broken ankle) and Martin were training to be police and had come to London for the day. I asked him why he had thought jumping the fence was a good idea, and he replied (in a thick Scottish accent), "Honestly, I thought I was the fu*cking Batman." 

So then the paramedic got there and gave him laughing gas for the pain when she took his shoe off. Then things got even more funny. At one point, a random man came up and snapped a picture right in the poor guy's face. (So did we, but we called the ambulance for him.)

And there he is, poor guy...

Victoria ended up giving her number to Martin (the friend) and we got updates on him. He had to have emergency surgery. It was really ugly. It didn't break the skin, but you could clearly see that it was broken. 

When they took him away we went on our way. We had a ghost tour planned. Which was really good.  I didn't take pictures because it was dark by that time, but we talked about the Tower of London, the plague, and of course Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders. All in all, a good day.  

Sunday

On our last day in London (or half-day really) we decided to visit the most famous address in Britain. 221B Baker Street. Any guesses? Yup, the address of the famous (but fictional) Sherlock Holmes. Really it's just an apartment done up as if it were still the Victorian era. But it was very cute, and they had items that were featured in Sherlock stories. Apparently, not everyone understands that Sherlock was never a real person. We talked to one of the workers, who was an adorable woman dressed in a cute Victorian maid uniform, and she said she gets asked all the time whether Sherlock Holmes actually lived here. How disappointing for them when they find out. 

Me, deducing facts and solving the case...

The Epic London Adventure- Part 2

Friday

Friday morning we got up and had breakfast at the hostel. Then the three of us hopped on a train to central London to have a tour of Historic Royal London. I'd been on the tour before, but Mady and Victoria hadn't yet. 

Victoria, Me, and Mady

On the tour, we saw Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey... I won't really go into it. If you want to know more of what we saw, check out my previous post here. The only difference was our tour guide. Our tour guide was a wonderful young man by the name of Jake. He was Jake the Tour Guide (not Jake from State Farm. And he wasn't wearing khakis.)

Victoria and Jake, the Tour Guide

After the tour we had a quick lunch and then hopped on the train to Watford for our tour of the Harry Potter Studios! It was so exciting! (I'm getting excited again, just typing about it.)

 There was a bus that took us straight from the Watford train station to the doors of the Harry Potter Studio. And it was even decorated, although I think they should have made it to look like the Knight Bus...

But we got there. I was so excited! We redeemed out tickets and hopped into line, which moved very quickly, and then we were in! The first thing we saw was the Great Hall. Everything was so lifelike, and the detail was amazing, but I guess it has to be for movies like this. There were two house tables set up, with the head table at the front, with several of the professors' costumes.

Dumbledore's Costume. Doesn't it look awesome? 

 Then we left the Great Hall and entered a giant room full of props from every movie. They literally had everything, from the Mirror of Erised to Dumbledore's Office.

The three of us in the Mirror of Erised

The Fat Lady was present. The Griffindor common room was there right next to her, shabby armchairs and all.

Here's Harry and Ron's dormitory!

Here's the spiral staircase to Dumbledore's office.
 Sadly, I didn't know the password. 

The office looked so complete, it even had a cabinet with his pensieve.

 There were several other sets, including classrooms (the potions classroom was my favorite!) and the Chamber of Secrets.

There was also the death eater side of things. Here we see a nasty scene in which the snake Nagini kills a Hogwarts teacher at a meeting of the evil death eaters.

They even had a display of all the creepy
death eater masks. Gave me the shivers. 

The Hogwarts Express was even there! With scenes from several of the movies. Here's Ron and Harry getting high on sugar:

 
Then it was our turn to get high off sugar, with some famous Butterbeer. I can't quite describe the taste. It was basically like liquid butterscotch, with cream. Maybe cream soda? All I can tell you was it was really really good.

 We visited Harry's horrible family at Privet Drive, and saw the Knight Bus. I tried to get a picture of the talking shrunken head, but I couldn't get a decent one. It was there though. You'll have to use your imagination for that one.

 After that, we came to Diagon Alley. That was one of my favorite parts. They had Ollivanders, the Weasley's joke shop, Madam Malkin's robes, the apothecary... everything.

The last thing was the Creature Shop and the model rooms. The creature shop had all the prosthetics and animatronics used by the costume and creature departments. They had models of the mermaids and inferi. I liked the mermaid head: 

 They had a life sized animatronic Buckbeak. and a giant Aragog hanging from the ceiling. All the concept art was on the walls from all the different ideas people had had.

Buckbeak concept art

But my absolute favorite part of the whole day was the very last room. They had a huge model of the complete Hogwarts castle. It was so beautiful, and it even had lights twinkling in the windows. It was the perfect end to a great day.

The Epic London Adventure- Part 1

I recently returned from my last trip to London, which was amazing in every way. I absolutely loved it, and only wish I could have done more, though I did do quite a bit. Which is why this will be several posts. :) So here we go:

Thursday

On Thursday, I packed up all my stuff and caught a bus to the nearest train station. Where I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to pack my camera. So thanks to my friend Victoria, because she's the reason I have any pictures at all of the trip. Victoria met me there at the train station, and we traveled down to London together. Our train was at noon, and we arrived in London right at 2:30. The first thing we did was make our way to our hostel and drop off our bags. Then, because it was Victoria's first trip to London, I took her to Westminster to see Big Ben and the London Eye. We were planning on attending a service at Westminster Abbey that evening, and at 5:00 we made our way there. 

We weren't allowed to take pictures, seeing as it was a proper evening service. But it was absolutely incredible. The choir was singing, and apparently they're world-renowned. They read some passages out of the bible, there was a lot of sitting and standing. But the Abbey was so beautiful. It was actually very inspiring to me to be listening to a church service in such an amazing place. I felt very lucky to be there. 

After the 45 minute service, we made our way to the London Eye and met up with my other friend Mady. We had tickets for the Eye, so we collected those and then joined the queue. The Eye never looks that big in pictures, but once you're actually on it and going around, it seems massive! It takes 30 minutes to make a complete rotation, you know. Here are some stunning pictures: 

When we were near the top of the Eye, we noticed what looked like a giant purple bouncy house. After we were safely back on the ground, we discovered that it was not a bouncy house, but a tent in the shape of a giant purple cow on it's back. And it was the Udderbelly Festival. 

Victoria and I ended up going to that night's show, which turned out to be great. The show was called "Festival of the Spoken Nerd" and was comprised of three super nerdy people making science and math related jokes. It was FANTASTIC. If they sound interesting to you, and they should because they're awesome, then check out their website. Soon they'll be coming to the States!

festivalofthespokennerd.com

Then after that, we made our way back to the hostel for the night, as we had an early morning ahead of us.