We went to a Football (soccer) game that night.
let me tell you...they take their football seriously!!
We took a train there and there were a couple of guys singing "When the Saints go Marching in" the whole way there...prepping for the game....already drunk.
Once we got there we walked with this singing mob through the streets to the stadium.
I didn't really know which side we were cheering for...but it was fun to watch nevertheless. Saw a few goals...and the crowds went absolutely wild!!!
The opposite sides of the stadium competed to see who could sing their team's song the loudest.
There was no need for them to play music over the speaker to get the crowd rowdied up....the audience did it all. Including the Adam's Family...haha! Most of the time you could hardly understand a word they were singing. lol
After the game we had to walk back through the streets to the train station. The mob was INSANE on the way there. Hardly any women besides us in the crowd....so it was good to have Mat there to follow and protect us. lol. The crowds were still singing and just going wild...police officers on horses had to walk around to make sure fights didn't break out between the fans of the two teams. Crazy!
Once we finally made it to our platform there were two groups of young kids yelling at each other from across the platforms. When we got on our trains, they were swearing at each other through the windows and a police officer had to come on and try to calm them down.
Well...that was an experience! Jeesh!
Wednesday, March 23rd:
Saw an interesting memorial for my art class. It honors those that gave their lives to save someone else. I teared up a bit because most of them were children saving a sibling. Innocence.
Art class was a Tate Modern, the gallery with the sunflowers seeds. It is in an old factory across the river by the Millennium bridge. There are usually a couple guys selling honey roasted peanuts on the bridge and they always smell so wonderful. I gave in and bought some expecting them to be gooey and flavorful...not realizing that the ones they sell have been sitting out to dry for awhile and are actually crunchy. lol. Oh well...not worth the money, but still pretty good.
Thursday, March 24th:
After class, the two Kristins and I went to Portobello Rd to get cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery.
Portobello Road was absolutely adorable! The houses on the streets were each a different pastel color..."like Easter eggs!" one of my friends said.
...and the streets were also lined with flowering trees....cute!!
The Hummingbird Bakery was darling as well! and it smelled SO good!
I finally decided on two - a Red Velvet and a Cream cheese filled chocolate cupcake.
I could only eat one though, they were so sweet.
The Red Velvet was divine!!! mmm
After that we went over to Westfields Mall to walk around.
This shopping center was HUGE! Everything was very expensive too. Window shopping! lol
Friday, March 25th:
I ended up going back to Portobello Rd with Megan and Mary my roomie. lol
They got cupcakes and then we walked through the market for awhile.
I just love this area of the city!
The market mostly had antiques, clothes, and food (mainly fruit) tents.
I couldn't resist getting a banana and nutella crepe...although it was not near as good as the one I had in Paris. :)
Next we went over to Borough market to get some lunch.
I didn't realize how big this market was before. It is an all food market broken up into smaller markets selling different foods such as cheese (a.k.a. the "smelly market") and breads.
We sampled a lot...especially olive oils and bread. mmm...we could have made a meal out of it.
I was in the mood for chicken curry and got some from a stand that made it in front of you. YUM!! Since it was so hot out we also got fruit smoothies....can it get better than that!! I submit that it cannot! :)
After that we parted ways and I went to Camden...originally planning on finding Primrose Hill to see a view over the city...but I ended up going to their clothes market instead. lol! I found a cute button up with a belt.
On my way back I went to the British Library to see their exhibit.
Oh my goodness!
I ended up being there for like two hours!
Among the collection they had the Magna Carta, some of the first handwritten and printed copies of the Bible (including a possible original page from John and the Psalms!)
Handel's Messiah and other musical masterpieces, handwritten lyrics by the Beatles, Jane Austen's writing desk and some of her letters, Shakespeare, Lewis Carol, the Canterbury tales and more....Good stuff!! Most of them original documents!
We had a girls night at Vandon that night.
Homemade fruit and regular pizza, painted toenails, and watching Despicable Me. :)
Delightful.
Saturday, March 26th:
And the guided day trips begin! I was hoping to go to Scotland this weekend with Megan and Mary, but we decided too late so it was too expensive.
Warwick Castle, Stratford UponAvon, and Oxford with EvanEvans tours.
They had a pickup service, so they picked me up right across the street from my door! The shuttle and bus driver ended up being my tour guide all day...so that worked out well. haha!
We had a small group, which our tour guide, Derek, said was unusual. So instead of having a large charter bus, a bus driver, AND a tour guide....we got this shuttle and Derek had to play both roles of guide and driver. Lot on his plate. But he did a great job. :)
Our first stop was Warwick Castle. It was kind of a dreary, foggy day...not cool. :(
Meh…not my favorite castle. The wax figures were kind of cool.
I guess I didn’t realize before coming on this trip that the castle you see from a distance is actually a massive wall surrounding the inside fortress and houses. I had always thought that the entire thing was a stone house of sorts. Warwick castle might have looked big from the outside, but was actually rather small. I walked around the rooms a bit, including where some Duchess partied it up. (idk…) and then I went out to the grounds.
I enjoyed the aviary…huge birds you don’t see very often: eagle, different owls, etc.
There was a peacock garden as well. The hedges were cut into the shape of peacocks and the garden resembled a small hedge maze. There were so many of the birds! I could walk right up to them and take pictures! They were very nice and colorful models too.
Before leaving I climbed the towers to see the view from the top.
Stairs…stairs…stairs.
And tight narrow staircases! You could only go one way…once going in there was no coming back. Lol!
I ended up being stuck behind a couple with their three year old son who, as you could imagine, was as slow as a snail. Sigh…he was a little trooper though…but really parents!? Why make your kid do that?
Because of the fog, the view from the top was really not that spectacular. Lol, oh well. It gave the castle a slight eerie feeling…wrapped in dark blue mist.
Next we went to Stratford to see the birthplace of Shakespeare. We went through a small museum and then we got to walk in and around the old timber shack. (Although, I thought I overheard one of the guides saying that it was the actual birthplace…but the house next door. :/ )
It wasn’t anything too special. I enjoyed hearing one of the guides explain Shakespeare’s father’s trade of glovemaking though. Gloves were a very popular fashion trend back in the day. You could even give the glovemaker the skin of your favorite dog and he could make you gloves so Sparky is always with you.
Eww.
By then it was time for lunch. I only stayed on the main cobbled street with the shops and street performers (not many actors out performing Shakespeare though…you’d think there would be) because I didn’t think I’d have time to walk over to the River Avon…plus, it was a little chilly and still foggy out. :/
I ended up eating at Subway. Haha! Something fast and familiar. I had tried to find a place to go for tea, but didn’t really find any relatively cheap sit-in places.
I proceeded to walk around the shops for awhile, bought some maple fudge (Bath got me really craving the stuff) and was about to walk back to the bus when I saw a Wizard magic shop and on the sign outside…Butterbeer!!!
I raced inside and asked to get one to go….excitement building as I browsed through some of their “wand” merchandise. Haha! Wow…I’m such a dork. But here’s the thing…my mom found a recipe for Butterbeer years ago and made it for us kids…and it was Delicious!!! So I was expecting greatness.
What they brought me was a plastic cup with a couple of neon straws sticking out and bubbly foam heaping on top.
Um…this is take-away…can I have a lid? No lids….well crap…looks like I have to drink this all in 2 minutes before getting on the bus. Arg! I was really disappointed. The butterbeer my mom made was warm and had brown sugar-y stuff melted in it with ice cream. But this stuff was basically just a couple kinds of soda mixed together and some bubbly foam added on top. Lame. So I drank as much as I could and had to pitch it before I was late to get back to my bus. Meh. What a letdown.
One of the Asians on our bus was late (not surprised…they’re always slowing us down. Lol. Asians and their cameras…sigh). So our driver had to race to Oxford before they closed Christ Church, where we had paid for entry to. We drove through the beautiful hilly Cotwolds again…but he was in such a hurry that I couldn’t get a good picture. Wow…this day is turning out to be kind of disappointing.
We made it to Oxford and got inside Christ Church (College) just minutes before it closed. But even then, buildings were closing all around the city, so our guide had to hurry us through everything…no time to linger…or take many pictures.
The college was stunning! The architecture was so ornate and gorgeous….sophisticated. It is one of the oldest and wealthiest colleges in England! The grounds were beautiful as well…very green.
We went inside the cafeteria of the college. It was lit by lamps and a really pretty room….I didn’t find out until we had walked out that this room was what they based the Great Hall off of in Harry Potter! (They didn’t use this actual room for filming, but they built their own replica at their filming studio). Of course, I wanted to run back in and have another look…but we were moving on.
The stairs we walked up leading to the “Great Hall” were the same ones that the first year students met McGonagall on before going in to be sorted in the first movie. Sweet!!
We also went into the chapel and walked around the grounds where Lewis Carroll, author of Alice and Wonderland, used to be a professor…including a statue of him (or something like that…I was too busy looking than paying attention to what our guide said). Our tour guide showed us the outside of a library also used in the Harry Potter films, a bridge based off one in Venice, the building where students graduate, and a famous five pillar structure, each pillar with a different Classical Order style. (I learned about that in my Renaissance art class!!)
We then had free time to walk around this beautiful college town. I walked through some of the shops…bought some Mango sherbet (and the ice cream craze begins…lol…I bought like 5 things of ice cream this week!)…and then walked quickly over to the Eagle and Child to snag a picture of the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (two of my favorite authors!) used to meet and hash out their ideas for their stories and talk about Christianity.
Wish I could have gone inside, but it looked really dark in there (scary!) and I was getting close to the time the bus would leave anyway. But I saw it! I saw it!
Derek was nice enough to drop me off right outside of Vandon House…I was the last one off the bus. It’s probably a good thing I went on a daytrip this day…because the students in London had planned a mass demonstration for the day to battle the cost of college that has now been thrust upon them. I heard later that the streets of central London were packed with people and just crazy! Students came from all over to join in the effort.
Sunday, March 27th:
Daytrip Day two! – Leeds Castle, Canterbury, and Cliffs of Dover
Poor little kitty outside my neighbor’s door on the way to the tube that morning. I wanted to take it home and love it.
Unlike EvanEvans…I had to find the bus for my tour on a side street nearby the Euston train station. :/ Oh cheap Student tours…
Plus, with the time change the night before…half the group was late getting to the bus. So our time was a little crunched due to the late start…oh, and the fact that the bus driver had never driven for StudentTours before and didn’t really know his way around. Shouldn’t bus drivers know that you can’t always trust a TomTom? Lol. Took us awhile to even get out of London, but our roughandtoughsmokercoffeedrinker tour guide gave us some good commentary. Lol
Once again it was a little foggy in the morning but it cleared up and was sunny and absolutely gorgeous later in the day.
I don’t think Leeds Castle would have been as pretty without the sun….one of my favorite castles I’ve seen.
It even had a legit moat around it! The lake with ducks and foresty gardens around it were very beautiful as well…more remote…a truer castle in my opinion.
After walking through the castle and a bit of the gardens, I went to the aviary. It was like a zoo! Loads of tropical birds in netted cages. There was a sweet Cockatoo that loved to speak to us. Hehe! Cute
Skipping the Dog collar museum (yea…) I went to the maze and grotto. Legit shrub maze…and not as easy to make it to the grotto as it looks. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the lookout rock in the center. Haha! I finally had to cheat and listen in to the directions the guard gave another group. Lol. The grotto led under the lookout rock into a cave underground…with loud ocean sounds to match the walls covered in shells and creepy statues…and took me under the maze to an opening on the other side.
I then walked around the beautiful grounds a bit more, ate some lunch, and returned to the bus to go to Canterbury! I had paid to go inside the Canterbury Cathedral…Canterbury tales you know? It was pretty neat…old and big as these churches are. We saw where Thomas of Canterbury was murdered in his own church, along with where pilgrims used to make their way in flocks. I really liked the mini chapel they had for the martyrs and saints of our own time…and the crypt, cloisters, and stained glass (made by a Jew from the Holocaust) was cool too.
After the Cathedral, I had some free time to walk around the brick shopping streets of Canterbury. Again, on an ice cream kick, I stopped for an ice cream (maple nut) at Thortons….and then later got an oreo milkshake and ShakeAway (they have SO many flavors there! But their shakes are more like flavored milk with little bits of oreo in it).
Before getting back on our bus (which was late to pick us up….go figure), I walked for a little while on the Canterbury wall that still stands around the original city. Kind of cool. History.
We then headed over to the Cliffs of Dover. When we drove through the cliff opening the sight was breathtaking! Sunny blue sky and green grass against the huge white stone of the cliffs… beautiful! I expected the bus to park somewhere close by so we could walk on the beach and docks to take pictures. But no…we parked far away and were only given 20 minutes to take pictures. So I couldn’t get up close enough to take good pictures of them. So I walked along the stony beach and took pictures of the sea and chose some rocks to take home. Haha! I guess the Dover is one of the closest points England is to France. I feel like she said it’s 20-some miles.
Then we went back to London. Yup…so that was my day trip weekend, all by myself. lol
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