Late-y Lateness

Sorry guys.
It's been a little crazy up in here. And I've been feeling kind of sick. So that's why this blog post is so late, and it'll probably be short, too. I just wanted to do a quick update since we're going on a long trip this week and I don't know about the wifi situation.
Anyhow, on Wednesday, we went on a day trip to Bath. The first stop, though, was called Stourhead Gardens. This was the most idyllically, ridiculously gorgeous place I've ever been.
I mean

Look at it

We were only able to walk around for maybe a couple of hours, but I could have stayed all day. This is the England of my dreams. London is very cool, but this, man. This is what I'm talking about.
The highlight of the gardens for many people is this vaguely Greek-ish temple-y building where they apparently shot part of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice. I've seen it before, but I have hardly any memory of that version. I did get a pic, though, just because. Apparently this is the very spot where she leaned. Cue dramatic romance face.

Anyway, we had to go to head to Bath. This is another place that I'd love to come back to. The only thing we did here was tour the Roman baths. Afterward, we had a couple of hours to wander around, but I didn't want to get lost, so I didn't ever stray too far.
The baths were pretty cool, though. I don't think they're something that would really be on the top of my list of things that I want to see. I don't know too much about Romans. The real draw of Bath, for me, is its connection to the stories of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. I really wanted to buy a copy of Northanger Abbey while I was there, but I couldn't find one. Oh well. I probably should cool it on the books, anyway, or I'll never get my suitcase home.
I just don't really have too much to say about the baths. It was interesting to kind of catch a glimpse into the past, though. It's quite incredible how long these structures have lasted.

I'm going to hazard a guess that that's not what the water looked like back then. Because I don't think anyone could look at that water and be like, "I'm going to get in there and it will probably cure me of all sorts of ailments and totally not give me diseases. Let's all do it together!"
Anyway, next we went to Stonehenge

Wow. Very majesty. Such magnificent. (Sorry, guys. It's really late right now.)
I really enjoyed Stonehenge. It was peaceful there. There were other people there, but it didn't seem nearly as crowded as most of the other places we'd been to. Maybe it was just because it's in a big open field rather than in the city. It was also nice to just have the one thing to look at. In so many places, you rush through room after room, trying to learn about everything, but here it's just a circle of rocks. There's something very calming in that. One of the young daughters of one of my professors was telling me how boring she found Stonehenge. Her complaint was that it didn't do anything. That's what I liked about it. It's just there. But, the fact that it's there is fascinating. Although, to be honest, I was expecting the stones to be a little bigger, they are still an extremely respectable size. How did people, ancient people for that matter, with no modern technology or equipment construct it? And why? It would have taken so much time and effort to complete. Why was it worth it? It's that mystery that makes it fascinating.
Plus, it's such an iconic place. Everyone knows about Stonehenge. It was very cool to actually be there.

I honestly can't remember what I did on Thursday. That might have been the day of the cemetery fiasco. Briefly, we had to go to a cemetery and take pictures of some graves. It was pretty far away, but we finally got there. We walked around for awhile and then it just poured rain. We all got drenched and decided to just go back to the center. I didn't get all the pictures I needed, so I'll have to go back.
On Friday, we toured Westminster Abbey. They didn't allow pictures inside and I don't like any of the ones I took of its exterior, so just use your imagination. It's a really interesting place to be in, mostly because the floor is just covered in grave markers. You literally can't walk anywhere without walking over someone's grave. I saw the tombs of Queen Elizabeth, Bloody Mary, and Edward the Confessor, among others. My favorite part was definitely the Poet's Corner, where many famous writers and poets are buried. Lord Byron, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, George Elliot, T. S. Elliot, and many others are buried there. In one section, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and Handel are all grouped together. It was very neat to see Dickens's grave, since I'm such a fan, but it also made me sad. He never wanted to be buried there. In fact, he actively requested not to be buried in Westminster. He wanted a small, quiet funeral and an obscure burial. What he got was a week of people filing past to see him lying in state and a command by Queen Victoria that laid him in his final resting place. It just made me feel bad and kind of wonder about the whole celebrity culture that we have. It's just like people seeing a celebrity and feeling like that famous person should be obligated to stop for them and take a picture regardless of whether that person wants to be bothered. It seems like we feel like we have a sort of ownership over celebrities and that we should have a say in their decisions, such as where they're buried. I know that they were trying to bestow an honor on Dickens, but it still just feels sad and wrong to me.
Anyway, on Saturday we went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. Once again, no photos were allowed, but I did get some pictures of Big Ben.

It was just so weird to be in this part of London. You have Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, plus the London Eye and Westminster Abbey all in one place. It's so iconic and surreal to be standing there.
We had a very informative tour guide for the Houses of Parliament. The thing that I learned is that British government is weird, man. It's very ritualistic. Apparently, every year on June 1st, the queen gives a speech and opens up the session of Parliament. The members of the House of Lords are all assembled in the right room, but the MPs of the House of Commons don't come yet. The queen sends a messenger down a hallway to the room where the Commons MPs are. They slam the door in his face. Then, he knocks on the door with a special stick in a special spot, and the members of the House of Commons follow him back to the first room and listen to the queen.
That was just one example, but there's all sorts of other weird stuff about the government. It's not required for MPs to show up. Most votes are decided by whichever group yells the loudest. When there's a tiebreaker, MPs who aren't attending have eight minutes to get there to have their vote counted.
It's just super different.
Anyway, that's how my week has been. Tomorrow morning (or this morning, actually. It's really late) we're leaving for our trip north. We're going to be passing through the Lakes District, lots of church history sites, and Edinburgh. I may or may not update while I'm there depending on the wi-fi situation and how tired I am. Until then,
Bye!

Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts

Hello!

Sorry this is late! The wi-fi at the Centre has been having one of its tantrums, but it's back online again (see what I did there?). Anyway, this post is about yesterday. I think I'll do another one about what happened today (Bath! Stourhead Gardens! Stonehenge!), but I'll probably write it tomorrow because of homework. Anyway, this is my rundown of the HP Studio tours. An alternate title for this post is "A Rant on Commercialism," but I'll get to that later. Prepare yourself for a little bit of crazy, though.

I should probably preface this by letting you know that I have very strong feelings and opinions about Harry Potter. I absolutely love the books. Like so many other kids in my generation, they formed a large part of my childhood. The books are not only fun and engrossing reads, but they have a strong morality and an appreciation for goodness, loyalty, bravery, and, above all, love that is heartening and inspirational. These books and the characters in them will always hold a place in my heart.

So, yes, I love Harry Potter. And I didn’t not love the studio tour. In fact, there were lots of things that I really, really liked about it. I mean, the movies have never really been my favorite things. Don’t get me wrong, they’re actually quite good, but they’re not the books. I understand that they have to cut stuff out to make them fit into movies, and I think they do the best they can, but I feel like a lot of the complexity of the story and characters is lost on the screen version, and you know how I love complexity.  I do still enjoy watching them, but I’ve never really been a fanatic for them. I read the books over and over, but there are several of the movies that I’ve only seen once. That said, I did really, really like seeing the sets, props, and costumes from the movies. There were a lot of details that I got to see that you never see on camera, and it was really cool to see the care and love that went into everything.

I started the day in full-on excited fangirl mode. It was just fun to be there with other people who love Harry Potter and just to be doing something so completely nerdy and fun. The tour starts with a little introductory movie, but on the wall on the side of the line where you wait to go in to the movie they had this bad boy:

Harry's actual cupboard under the stairs! It's so little and adorable and depressing! It definitely got me in the right mood to start the tour. Then, there was this fun movie about how Harry Potter had sort of caught the world's imagination, and how it unites us all or something. Then, we entered the Great Hall. It was really quite cool, but smaller than I'd thought it would be. It was interesting to see the costumes they had there, too. I took lots of pictures, but I'll just post some of my favorites:
Here's Harry's first set of Hogwarts robes:

And here's Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Snape:

There was a section with wigs, which I thought was really interesting. You know that people like Hagrid and Lucius Malfoy are wearing wigs, but they also had wigs for Hermione, Ron, and Draco, which I wasn't really expecting since I'd assumed they were just using their real hair.

Then we got into some of the sets. Here's the Gryffindor boys' dormitory (Neville's bed is in the foreground):

 And here's Ron's headless body standing in the Gryffindor common room. I really want to go back and watch the movies now, because I feel like this isn't how I remember these rooms. Maybe part of it is that I'm never too concentrated on the background when I watch the movies, but I think another part of it is that I have mental pictures of the rooms that are a bit stronger than the movie versions. It'll be really interesting to watch the movies again, though. The funny thing is that all the sets are smaller than you'd expect.

And here's me with the costumes that our trio wore in the final battle at Hogwarts:

The costume that surprised me the most was this one of Voldemort's:

It's like a light lime green color. What? The card says it's from the Half-Blood Prince which, granted, I've only seen once, but I think I would have remembered this costume if I'd seen it. It just seems a little fruity for the Dark Lord. I guess maybe it shows up differently on camera or something. It just made me laugh.
Here's Dolores Umbridge's Ministry of Magic office, which I sort of loved. She's such an awful, awful person, which is what makes her such a great character. She's the reason why the fifth book is so great.

Here are some of her costumes. I really liked the details. The brooch on the one on the left is a cat, which you'd probably never pick up onscreen. I love stuff like that.

Then we went outside. Here's me on the Knight bus, which was pretty cool:

And here's Number Four Privet Drive, which is an actual house-sized house:

My favorite part of the tour—probably everyone’s favorite part—was the Hogwarts castle scale model at the end. It was huge—much bigger than I was expecting. And it was so beautifully detailed. It just looked absolutely real, like you could just walk down and go inside and start your magical education.  And believe me, I wanted to.

It was just absolutely incredible.

Then, at the end of the tour, there’s this quote on the wall from J. K. Rowling: “Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." Beautiful.

And then… the gift shop.
(This is the rant bit. You can skip this paragraph if you want to)

This is what left a sour taste in my mouth. It just felt like hypocrisy. There you have that beautiful quote from J.K. and now you’re trying to fleece us for all we’re worth. Everything in the gift shop cost about twice as much as the highest price I’d be willing to pay for it. It just felt so wrong to me. The people who are coming to the studio tour and want to buy the merchandise are the people who’ve purchased and loved the books and movies. These are the people who have made the people of the Harry Potter franchise very wealthy, so it seems like the movie people could stand to give back a little. It just felt wrong of them to try to take advantage of people’s HP love like that. Don’t tell us that we’re all one big happy Potter family and then try to rob us. I get that it’s a movie franchise and it has to be commercialized because that’s what movie franchises are for, but I felt like it could have been done in a less tasteless way. In all fairness, much of the merchandise was very well made (except for some designs on t-shirts and sweatshirts and things that were very tacky) and I had to keep telling myself no on lots of things. I would happily have purchased plenty of things if the prices had been the least bit reasonable, but it just felt like they were money-grubbing to me. It felt like a desecration of art. I guess it’s just using economic principles to charge more since the people who love Harry Potter the most are usually willing to pay more, but it just gave a bad taste to the whole experience. I'm not saying that I think there shouldn't have been a shop or that the movie people aren't entitled to make a profit off of their work. I think there is a balance that can be struck between commercialization and respect for art. This gift shop, however, just hurt my soul. It’s very similar to how I felt about Harry Potter World in Orlando, except I disliked that much more (I won’t get into that here).

Maybe I’m just a crazy cheapskate. Everyone else absolutely loved it, and I definitely loved the tour part of it, and I’m glad I went. The detail and craftsmanship on the sets, props, and costumes were beautiful and I really enjoyed seeing them. However, my deep and abiding love for Harry Potter also gives me very strong opinions about Harry Potter and I don’t like to feel like I’m being taken advantage of, especially by something that I love and something that claims to love me as a fan (see the above Rowling quote). I guess that’s just a problem with the entire movie industry in general, I just don’t care about most other franchises the way I care about HP.

Anyway, that’s my take on the Harry Potter Studio Tours. If you get the chance, I would definitely go. Maybe the parts that bothered me won’t bother you, and even if they do, there’s enough good for the experience to be worth it.

Thanks for reading and putting up with my craziness. If the internet doesn't go down, I'll tell you about Stonehenge and stuff tomorrow!

Bonjour!

Hey all! Long time, no blog!
Sorry for the late update. I'm back in the London Centre and the wi-fi has been a little temperamental. Other than that, the London Centre is amazing! I'd encourage people to come on this study abroad just so they can live here. Apparently Johnny Depp has an apartment just down the street and several people have seen him walking around, so that's pretty cool too. (Speaking of celebrities, some girls from my group went to stand outside the Maleficent premier and got pictures with Brad Pitt. They were in a local newspaper too. Crazy stuff.) I'll need to post some pictures of the Centre, but I think I'll save that for another post since this one's going to be ridiculously long.
Okay, Paris. So, we left at about 4 am on Tuesday morning in order to catch the Chunnel train at about 6:30 at St. Pancras station. I think I fell asleep during the part where we were under the English channel, so I can't really tell you what that was like. Anyhow, we arrived in Paris at about 9 am local time--it's one hour ahead of London.
The first thing we did was take the Metro over to the Pompidou Center, which is right by an LDS church where the BYU Paris study abroad group has their classes. They gave us a little introduction to the city as well as some advice (say "bonjour" and "pardon", don't buy things from people by the Eiffel tower, don't go around by yourself) and then sent us on our merry way.
A few girls from the Paris group showed a group of us around to a few places. We walked down the Champs Elysees for a bit, and I had this song stuck in my head the whole time, even though I only know about three words of it:
Champs Elysees song
We then ended up at the Arc de Triomphe.

And they were doing construction on it, so the picture's kind of lame. We walked around under it for a bit too. I feel bad that I don't know too much about it. There were signs with historical facts on them, but they were in French, and I couldn't decipher them very well with my limited French skills. I would look it up, but I need to get a move on, since I still have homework I need to do tonight. There was also this terrifying clown wandering around, which leads me to my first observation about France. They have a lot of weird street performers.

For instance, there was a guy in a superhero outfit breakdancing by the Eiffel tower, and later a guy fire dancing in the same place. I saw two different Michael Jackson dancers, one of which was dancing inside a Metro car as it was moving, and numerous bands in various places.
Another observation about France, while I'm thinking about it, is that there are lots of creepy men who are very forward. There were several guys who asked if we wanted to go somewhere with them or asked us where we were staying. Rachel kept having guys try to hug or kiss her, which was pretty creepy. Moral of the story: if you're pretty and blonde, men will harass you in Paris, so be on your guard.
Anyhow, back to my day. We next went to Notre Dame. It was incredibly beautiful to see it in real life. You just don't get the idea of how big it really is from seeing pictures, or even from watching the Disney movie. It was gorgeous, though, and I loved being able to recognize the Gothic details that we'd learned about in my history of architecture class. As we left, we heard the bells ring, too, which was really cool. No sign of Quasimodo, though.

Just a side note: check out how blue that sky is. The weather was ridiculously beautiful (except for the one time it rained) the whole time we were there. Paris is just a gorgeous city.
Next, we tried to go to the Catacombs (at least I think it was next. My chronology has gotten a bit messed up since we did so much), but they were closed, so a couple of girls and I went to the Eiffel tower. We hung around there for quite a bit, waiting for it to get dark so we could see the tower light up. We got really good crepes at a stand and ate them in front of the tower, which was pretty surreal. It was just about the most French thing ever, to eat crepes in front of the Eiffel tower, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. We also took lots of pictures. This one is probably my favorite:

It's like High School Musical up in here. After it got dark, the tower lit up, which was really pretty. Then, it started "sparkling," which basically means that a bunch of lights on the tower flickered on and off randomly. I found that a little bit tacky, personally, but it was still fun to see.

The sparkling was hard to get a very good picture of, but this one gives you a bit of an idea. After that, we headed back to our hotel and went to bed, since we were all pretty exhausted from walking around all day on only three hours of sleep.
Next morning, we got up and ate the hotel breakfast. Now, I'm not usually a continental breakfast fan, but (besides Granny's bacon/french toast breakfast) this was the best breakfast I've ever had. I had baguettes, croissants, crepes, pain au chocolat, you name it. And an apple so it was healthy. It was beautiful.
Some girls and I then headed to the Louvre.

It was enormous. And beautiful. We were only in Paris for three days, though, so we had to move pretty quickly. I feel like a total jerk, but we probably only spent an hour and a half there, and you'd probably need at least two days to see it properly. I did see the Mona Lisa, though. The room was absolutely packed. It was insane, and smelled terrible. To give you an idea:

And it got even more crowded. I managed to squeeze in a little closer, but this was the best picture I could get:

I actually don't get what all the fuss is about. I mean, I like da Vinci and everything, and it's a nice painting, but it's not really all that cool, to be honest. It's pretty small and it's just some lady with no eyebrows. Yet hundreds of Asian tourists pack into a room to see it and it's probably the most famous painting of all time. If anyone knows why it's so special, please let me know, because I'm quite curious.
We then went to the Eiffel tower, as the girls I was with had tickets to go up to the top. I got a few great pictures on our walk from the Metro station to the tower. Look at this pic of the Seine. It was the prettiest day. I can't even handle that sky.

There was a big group going up the tower, and a few of us who didn't have tickets were able to buy some there. Unfortunately, as we found out later, our tickets were printed wrong or something and we were only able to go up to the second level. I wasn't too upset. It was cool enough to just be there. Plus, there were some really great views just from where we were.

Beautiful. My favorite part of the tower, though, had to be this little warning sign on the elevator door. Despite the single tear and the slight frown, he doesn't actually seem all that distressed by the giant red sunburst of pain around his hand. It just made me laugh

The next stop was the Musee d'Orsay. This was the place that I was the most excited to go while we were in Paris. I love the style of art in the Orsay much better than the Louvre, even though the Louvre is cool and all. However, we arrived too late. The museum had shut its doors for the day. My only consolation was a nearby crepe stand and this statue of Thomas Jefferson, which I thought was funny because I didn't expect to see him in France.

There's also a Metro station named after Franklin D. Roosevelt (and one called Stalingrad, which is irrelevant, but interesting), which I think is funny because you always hear about how much the French hate Americans, but that hasn't really been my experience. It seemed, to me at least, that the French were friendlier than the Brits. We ate out one night and our waiter kept refilling our water pitcher and bread basket, which has never happened so far in England.
Anyway, we next stopped on this bridge. There are lots of bridges like this in Paris with these locks on them.  Looking at the other bridges that we saw later, I don't think this was the original one, since there were a couple where you couldn't even see through the handrails since there were so many locks. I'm not really sure what the significance of the locks is, other than that it has something to do with love. We got a picture, though.

We then met up with the entire group to go on a boat tour down the Seine. It was pretty cool to see all the sight from the river and see where places were in relation to each other, which you don't really get from taking the Metro. After that, we walked around the Champs Elysees for awhile again, trying not very successfully to find a bathroom. Public bathrooms aren't really a thing here.
Next morning, we ate another superb breakfast and headed out to Versailles. I was really stoked to see it since I'd learned about it in my architecture class as well. We took about an hour's train ride to get there. Unfortunately, there was some sort of strike going down and the palace was closed. The sad thing was that lots of people in our group had been saving Versailles for the last day and nobody got to see it. The pictures I took aren't even worth posting since we couldn't get past the gate. Boo.
So, we took another train back. The kicker was that we had to pay extra for the train since it was so far away, and we didn't even get to go inside the palace. That hurt.
The good news is that we got to go to the Musee d'Orsay after all. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, so you don't get to see. We went through the Van Gogh exhibit, which was very cool. I really like his landscapes. My favorite of the ones of his that they had there is called Starry Night Over the Rhone, which isn't the Starry Night that you're thinking about. I just really love the reflections of the light in the water. I wish we could have spent more time in the Orsay, since we only saw a small portion of all the gorgeous paintings that they had, but it was our last day and we had to keep moving.
Our last stop was the Palais Garnier, which is the opera house where the Phantom of the Opera is set. It was beautiful, but quite opulent. I mean, take a look at this hallway:

It was also a bit creepy, in a way. There were lots of archways, some with mirrors, and some without so it was hard to tell what was real and what was just a reflection. It gave the whole place an air of mystery and unreality. It's not a place I would want to be alone in after dark. It's hard to explain, but it did kind of give me the jibblies.
After that, we picked up our bags and headed back to the train station to go back to England. It was a pretty crazy three days. I don't think I've ever had sorer feet. We were just on the go constantly. We saw lots of really cool things, but I was very tired by the end and very glad to get back to London. I guess that's what this little trip did most for me: it made London feel more like home. London just feels much safer. I don't know if it really is (one of the girls in our group had her phone stolen today) but at least men aren't always harassing you. I much prefer the Tube to the Metro, and it's nice to see signs in a language that I understand. Paris was very nice and I really enjoyed going, but I think my heart will always belong to England.
Anyway, that's the Paris trip for you!
The past couple of days have been pretty unremarkable. It's mostly just been settling into the Centre, doing laundry, and meaning to do homework but never actually getting much done.
I did give into temptation and buy these, though. Take in the majesty:

And I bought tickets to go to the Harry Potter studio tours on Tuesday, so look forward to a full report of that.
Anyhow, I've got homework to do and miles to go before I sleep, so I'll blog at you later. Thanks for reading!

Quick Update

Hey guys!
Today was our first day of church in our assigned wards here in London. Mine is the Catford ward. The girls who went there during the winter told us that it would take a long time to get there, so we left quite early. However, we arrived at the building about an hour before the meeting started. Needless to say, we'll be sleeping in a little next week.
Since we're only here for five more Sundays, we got assignments rather than callings. Another girl and I have been assigned to Relief Society, which I'm a little nervous for. We both have to teach twice, as well as give a talk while we're here, so they're definitely keeping us busy. This ward is also really interesting and diverse. The bishop is from Russia, the Relief Society president is from Jamaiica, and there were people from Brazil and other places that I can't remember. It's very different from home, but I think it'll be a really good experience.
Tomorrow we're moving from the flats that we're staying in now to the BYU London Centre. I think it'll be really nice there, but the renovations aren't totally done. One of the things that isn't working apparently, is the wi-fi, which is kind of annoying. Then, we're leaving early Tuesday morning (and I mean early. I'm talking like 3 am) to go to Paris until Thursday, and I don't think I'm going to bring my laptop. So, I just wanted to tell you to probably not expect a new blog post until Thursday or Friday. Not that I think anybody follows this blog religiously or anything. I just wanted to let you know that I'm not dead.
See you later!

Markets and Harry Potter

Today was quite fun!
Some girls and I went to Camden Market this morning to look around. It was the first market I'd been to, but the girls I was with said that the other markets are much better. Most of the stalls were selling the same selection of t-shirts and bags at the exact same prices, so that was kind of lame. The food booths looked a little sketchy and some of the vendors were pretty pushy, but I think that might just be markets in general. It was still pretty fun to look around, though, and I did get a couple of cool things.
Wa-bam:

Harry Potter jewelry for the win. I'm very pleased.
After walking around for a bit, we decided to go to King's Cross Station, of HP fame. The line to take pictures at Platform 9 3/4 was ridiculously long, so we're probably going to go back for that later, but we did go to the cute little Harry Potter shop. The wands and scarves and things were fun to look at, but very expensive. I ended up picking up the British versions of the first three books, though.

They're so shiny! I started reading the first one, and all the minor differences are very interesting. It's really only word choices, like in the British version, the word baby Dudley learns is "Shan't" rather than "Won't," so it's nothing major, but I still enjoy it. I'm very happy with all my purchases today. I really want to get all of the HP books eventually, but that's a lot of weight and suitcase space, so I'm still debating that with myself.
Anyhow, after we got back, we watched the first Harry Potter movie. It was really, really weird, but cool to be watching HP in England. The streets that Harry and Hagrid walk down in London look very familiar now, not because I've seen the exact ones, but just because I'm more familiar with how London looks. It was very fun.
Anyhow, we're going to go get crepes in a few minutes so I'm going to be done. Until next time!

Hampton Court

Hello again!
Today we went to Hampton Court, home to both Henry VIII and later William and Mary.

The cool thing about Hampton Court is that there are two different sections to it. Part of it was built during the Renaissance, as seen above, and part was built during the Baroque period, both of which I learned about in my history of architecture class, so I thought it was pretty cool.
In the Renaissance section, there are tons of these columned chimneys. Fun fact: no two chimneys have the same brick pattern.

The Baroque section was really gorgeous too. There's this lovely courtyard designed by Christopher Wren, the same architect responsible for most of the churches in London, since he was hired to design a bunch after the Great Fire of London burned down most of the old churches:

The Baroque section also had these gorgeous painted ceilings and walls:

Here's the back of the palace, which is done in the Baroque style. Both sides of the palace are beautiful, but I think the contrast is really interesting:

The fountain kind of got in the way, but you get the idea.
My favorite part, though I loved looking through the rooms of the palace, was the grounds. They were huge and beautifully maintained. I just wanted to stay there forever, walking around and reading books. I mean, look at it:

It was just really, really pretty. Hampton Court is also the site of the largest grapevine in the world, which I didn't know was something we kept track of, but there you go. I thought it was at least worth a pic:

After seeing just about everything there was to see, we got lunch and headed back. While waiting for the train, I bought a candy bar and learned that British chocolate is really, really good. It's much smoother and creamier than your standard Hershey's bar. I'm definitely a fan.
Anyhow, that was my day today! Tomorrow, some girls and I are going to check out a few markets, and next week, we're all going to Paris!

Warwick, Stratford, and the British Museum

Hello!
It's been awhile, but I'm back with a real blog entry!
Yesterday started quite early with us getting on a bus (a rented one, not a public one) at about 8 am. We drove for about two hours and passed a lot of absolutely gorgeous scenery. It was nice to get out of London for a bit and see the England that I'd imagined from my Jane Austen books. The countryside is unspeakably lovely with the rolling hills and cute little towns. We passed fields with sheep, cows, and even baby horses, which were adorable. We finally arrived at Warwick Castle (pronounced like "Warrick"). That's one of the weirdest things about English-style English. They don't pronounce half the letters in their words, or at least the names of places. I don't know who the person was who looked at the word Gloucester and thought that "Gloster" was the right way to say it, but apparently it caught on.
Anyhow, the castle:

There were signs all over celebrating the castle's 1100th birthday, so that gives you an idea of how old it is. It was originally built by William the Conqueror (in 1068 according to Wikipedia, so I'm not quite sure how they came up with 1100, but whatever). I actually just read through a bit of the Wikipedia page to try to figure out some of its history, since I don't feel like I learned too much about it while I was there, for reasons that will soon be made clear, but it mostly just talks about different Earls of Warwick that it passed between, so it's mostly just a cool castle, I guess.
The castle had a bit of a different style than the Tower of London. It was very touristy, which I guess the Tower was as well, but this one felt a little more amusement park-y, like Lagoon without the rides. There were people dressed in period garb and different carnival-ish games you can play.
The creepiest thing was that most of the rooms were filled with eerily realistic wax figures.

There were two different time periods represented: a medieval section and a later section, maybe in the 1700's or 1800's (I really tried to find out exactly when it was, but I'm still not sure. Sorry). It had some pretty cool interiors. I recognized some Baroque and Rococo furniture thanks to my history of interior design class. There were also some pretty cool historical-ish items there, like this clock that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, which was purchased by one of the owners of the castle:

Two of the most famous owners of Warwick were Henry VIII and Richard III, however neither of them ever actually lived in it. They mostly just left it neglected, which is a shame. Here they are, once again in creepy waxwork:

I don't know who thought the wax was a good idea. It's really unnerving.
My favorite parts of the castle were the least touristy. There was a really lovely rose garden that I enjoyed even though the roses weren't actually blooming yet.

 A couple of girls and I also climbed up a ridiculously long and slightly dangerous-feeling spiral staircase to get up to the top of one of the towers. There were really gorgeous views from up there:

I mean, look at that! It's so incredible that I get to see these things.
Anyhow, overall Warwick castle wasn't my favorite thing that we went to. It just felt a little overdone with all the waxworks and characters running around. It would have been really nice if it were just the castle and the grounds without all the fluff. If you ever have a chance, I would say go since it's quite picturesque, but if you're in England and your schedule's tight, I would say it's a pretty safe one to miss.
After Warwick, we got back on the coach and drove to the next attraction: Anne Hathaway's house. This house also had a very nice garden. Many of the plants had little plaques next to them with quotes from Shakespeare's plays that had mentioned the plant's name. After wandering the gardens for a bit, we made our way to the actual house:

I'm loving on the wattle and daub. It's such a friendly sort of cottage. We were guided through the house where we got to see the settle where Anne and Shakespeare were supposed to have courted as well as the original stone floor in the kitchen, which is the only flooring in the house that is the same as it was during Shakespeare's time. It was cool to walk through such an old house, but there really wasn't actually too much to see, especially since Shakespeare never actually lived there. It was also quite small and crowded, so we mostly just shuffled through the rooms and it was hard to get a really good look at anything. It's kind of hard to see things like this with such a big group, which was probably the biggest problem.
The next place we went to was the farm that belonged to the family of Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother. It's a working farm today, but it tries to remain the same as it would have been back in Shakespeare's day.
They had lots of interesting animals, like these pigs that were Maggie-colored:

And these pigs that were rather sheepish (literally):

There was also a pile of sleeping ferrets, which are creepier than the wax figures:

The cutest thing was this baby cow:

There was also a pretty cool falconry exhibit, or "predatory bird demonstration" as the guy called it, since falconry means that live prey is involved. It was a pretty cool little farm, but it started raining and was pretty cold, which meant that we spent quite a bit of our time in the gift shop and cafe.
Next we went into Stratford itself to go to Shakespeare's birthplace. Somehow, I didn't get any pictures of it, but probably my favorite part of it was a window that had signatures of visitors carved into it, including those of famous writers who'd come to visit. It was quite hard to decipher, since there were so many of them, but it wasn't so much the names themselves that interested me. It was how people felt obligated to leave a mark on the home of someone who'd left a mark on them. It's like they were hoping to retroactively become a part of Shakespeare's life because he was a part of theirs. I'm probably romanticizing here, since lots of it was probably just like graffiti that you see on, like, fences at Lagoon, but still. Continuing my tradition of buying books at the homes of their writers, I picked up a pretty little copy of Shakespeare's sonnets at the gift shop.
My favorite part of the day was going to Trinity Church. It was there, standing at the grave of William Shakespeare, that I finally felt the connection to him that I'd been searching for all day. Not everyone in the group had come to the church, so it was less crowded, plus there's something about old churches that induces quiet. I don't think it quite matched the moment alone at Dickens's desk, but it was a similar feeling of connection and inspiration, and it was just really nice.

There was also the font where baby Shakespeare was baptized, as well as a rather scary bust that his friends purchased and placed in the church:

The church itself was absolutely beautiful, too. I really loved all the stained glass.

After we left the church, we walked past the site of New Place, which is the home Shakespeare bought and lived in after he'd made some money from the theater. The house is no longer there, but it was still cool to see the site.

 After getting dinner, we got to go see Henry IV part 1 performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The play was incredibly good. I'd never seen or read one of Shakespeare's history plays, so I didn't really know what to expect, but it was fantastic. It was funny and well-acted. I wish I'd read the play before so I had a better handle on its politics and the back-story on some of the aspects of the play, but it was still very enjoyable. My only regret is that I was so tired from the long day. I'd gone to bed fairly late the night before and gotten up early, plus we'd done so much walking that I was really struggling to pay attention even though the play was so good. I have to admit that I nodded off a few times during the second half. I really wish that I hadn't, but there it is. I wasn't the only one, but it makes me feel like a Shakespeare traitor. I'd love to see another play by the RSC when I'm not quite so tired.
After the play, we had another coach ride back to the flats and went straight to bed.
Today was another full day, although not quite so full as yesterday. We had class this morning and then went for our second London walk.
The first interesting site on our walk was the British Museum. It's enormous, so we only went through a few exhibits. Thankfully it's free, and I'll definitely be coming back another time. We walked through the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman exhibits. I got to see the Rosetta Stone, which was really cool. It was super crowded, so I didn't get a great picture. Have the Rosetta Stone and some guy's head:

I was also giggling a little bit because Sydney and I have this joke about someone having the Rosetta Stone on an engagement ring (because people refer to diamonds as "rocks"), and seeing how massive it was was just really funny.
I also got to see the Elgin Marbles, which are pieces of the frieze of the Parthenon. It was amazing to be able to look at the Parthenon while standing in London.

 Have you ever been so mad, you punched a centaur?

The next stop was University College London. The main attraction there was really weird: the Auto-Icon of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, wrote in his will that he wanted his body preserved and displayed at the College. So his actual skeleton is inside his actual clothes (padded out) sitting on his actual chair in the college. He originally wanted his mummified head to top it all off, but the mummification process went slightly awry, so they topped it with a wax head instead and store his real head in the university vault. What a guy.

For your edification, please google "Jeremy Bentham mummified head" and prepare to be thoroughly creeped out. Or don't. It's pretty cool/gross though.
We also walked through Tavistock Square, where Dickens lived during the time that he wrote many of his later novels including Bleak House, Little Dorrit, and A Tale of Two Cities. Sadly, the house is no longer there, so we weren't able to tour it or anything. It's just a park now.
The last stop on our walk was the British Library, another place that deserves a whole day rather than the half-hour or so we were able to give it.

Inside, there's a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. I saw part of Jane Austen's manuscript for Persuasion as well as her writing desk, which was very, very cool. There were some of the early published copies of Shakespeare's plays (not the Folios) and part of a Dickens manuscript. There were also pages of music handwritten by Handel, Bach, and Mozart. I don't know too much about classical music, but they were still really cool to see. I also took a quick peek at the Magna Carta, which was there as well. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm definitely going back because I only saw a small portion of all the amazing things they had there.
Well, thanks for reading this very long post. I'm having a lovely time here, but I need to get to bed now.
Tomorrow: Hampton Court, home of Henry VIII