FEBRUARY 26, 2011
Well, Pens lost last night, but I enjoyed the hell out of that chocolate cake. Half of it, at least (come on, I'm not THAT bad). Waking up at 7:15am sucked though, especially when it's looking like rain outside. I hopped on the tube to Notting Hill Gate and got on the bus to Warwick Castle for the beginning of our day trip!
Warwick is a medieval castle a couple hours northwest of London and built by William the Conqueror in 1068 - although now it's more like a Renaissance Fair tourist attraction with a bunch of actors dressed in medieval costumes. Still neat though. Probably more fun for kids, but still a good time.
The first of the costumed actors. These guys were pretty funny though - guy on the right was 'modeling' for the cameras.
Warwick Castle!
Front gate
Courtyard, from the gate
Looking up at one of the towers from the courtyard
Inside one of the halls. Tons of armour in this place
More weapons and armour
A dining hall
More rooms..
Fancy stuff
Mannequins and wax figures. Things were a little creepy, I'm not going to lie..
Henry VIII
A bedhamber. I'm still not getting the whole 'rugs as wallpaper' thing.. must be a fad..
Cool ceiling
Walking down a hallway..
16th century pistols, I think.
A pretty neat chapel, although small
Pulling the sword out of the stone! I failed..
More shots from the courtyard
View from 'The Mound', a hill on the side of the courtyard - pretty view down towards the river
No idea what that tower is, but seemed cool
Looking down at the courtyard from The Mound
The view from the ramparts over the castle grounds
.. more from the ramparts
From up on Guy's Tower, the tallest of them. Overlooking the courtyard
English countryside from the tower
The town of Warwick
More of Warwick
View of Guy's Tower from the ramparts. Hundreds of steps up and down around the towers and the ramparts. Crazy.
More mannequins. No clue what's going on here..
Seeing a man about a horse..
Yup, I of course had to try on everything. Awesome.
Some bows and crossbows
A cannon!
Cannonballs
More creepily real mannequins. The worst part was they had this sound clip playing of little girls laughter, which of course just came off as creepy. They were also giving away 'love potions' in this room (no clue what it really is..). Picked up a 'passion potion', so I got THAT going for me..
The treasurer. Rich old white dude, who else?
Some knight mannequins.
This was during the 'Birds of Prey' presentation. That's an owl, but I can't remember her name..
Cathy the vulture
Nikita the eagle. Thing was massive
Nikita on top of the tower! The birds were pretty neat as they flew and around and hopped onto posts and the trainer's arm for food.
The first of the birds up close in their little huts. I think this one's an eagle?
Some more..
Reminds me of the vultures from the 'Jungle Book' movie
A mill out behind the castle on the river
On the river..
From the mill
They caught me being too awesome..
At that point, we headed back onto the buses to make our way to Stratford! While it had been cloudy and threatening rain all morning, when we neared Stratford the sun came out!
Stratford-Upon-Avon, William Shakespeare's hometown! The 'Upon-Avon' is because it's on the River Avon
The Gower Memorial, as we headed into Stratford. I'll get back to this..
Looking up Bridge Street
Looking down Henley Street, where Shakespeare lived!
Shakespeare's house!
The Shakespeare Center
Me in front of Shakespeare's house! It was 12 quid to get in, which was ridiculous, so we decided not to do it. I've already done it so didn't matter much to me. But it would have been cool to go again..
MooMoo's Milkshakes! Awesome place where we had dessert after lunch (I know I'm backwards picture-wise, sue me). They had literally a hundred flavors and I got Cadbury Milk Chocolate, which is like a chocolate milkshake made by mixing vanilla ice cream with bits of Cadbury Milk Chocolate! It was awesome.
Mistress Quickly's, where we had panini's for lunch. Yum!
In the center of town
The Town Hall, as we're walking towards the church where Shakespeare's buried!
An old inn.. Love the buildings here
'The Bank' apparently.
Looking down Chapel Street
King Edward VI School and Guild Chapel
More cool houses. I love the chimneys!
Another neat building. I think a school..?
Cute town. Pink house..?
Hall's Croft, where Shakespeare's daughter lived with her husband
An old cemetery, with Holy Trinity Church on the horizon to the left
Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare's buried! On the way, since we were already peeved about the price of Shakespeare's house, we were joking about how they might make us pay to see his grave. Wouldn't you know, it's 2 quid for adults (only 50p for students, but still..). Unreal. I think this town's sole income is determined by the fact that it's Shakespeare's birthplace. Guess I can't fault it - upkeep's gotta suck, and it is a pretty town. Oh well..
The chapel. Pretty
Main part of the church
Anne Hathaway's and William Shakespeare's graves!
The altar
A Shakespeare bust
The baptism and burial records for Shakespeare
Small chapel on the side
Another view of the main part of the church. Gotta love the architecture, and the giant organ
One of The Shakespeare Company's theatres. Walking back towards the town centre along the river.
The River Avon
What a pretty area
Another of the Company's theatres. Huge.
More of the river and park area
.. still more. Cool bridge at the end
Looking back towards the main part of town
Neat little area
Some Stratford streets
Food prepared on a boat. Gotta love it.
So many ducks!
The Gower Memorial (told you I'd come back to it!) to Shakespeare. Statue of Shakespeare on top; other statues figures surround him on the ground: Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal, Hamlet, Henry V, and Falstaff, representing Philosophy, Tragedy, History, & Comedy.
Hamlet!
Another beautiful view of the river
Oh hey
After a long day of adventure, we made our way back to the buses for the 2-hour journey home.
Some English countryside. I think is before I fell asleep.
.. and some more. I think I took this right after I woke up (strangely, after almost exactly one hour of sleeping. Weird.). I liked the valley in the waning sunlight. Pretty
As we continued towards home, I did a little math homework before the sun went down completely. When we got back, everyone went home to their separate places of residence - I hung around in the area since I wasn't in any hurry and I wanted to check out Portobello Road! I'll put those pictures up in the next post, actually..
When I got back, ate dinner, did a little more math, started working on this post, and played some Starcraft with Garrity and Ethan before the Pens game started. As I'm writing this, what was left of my delicious chocolate cake is digesting and the Pens are celebrating their victory woooooooo. Weird game, but it was certainly entertaining: 6-5 Pens, decided in a shootout. Huge goals by Kovalev, Jeffrey, Letestu, Talbot (a shortie wooo), and Rupp. Finally some offensive production from the boys, but soo many terrible defensive mistakes for both teams. Fleury was solid the majority of the time, but got some bad bounces and maybe should have 1 or 2 of the goals. Thank god they called back that kick-in early on though. Would have a been a game-changer.
I'll take the two points. Can't wait for playoffs. Hopefully meeting up with my coach tomorrow, but definitely sleeping in.
Goodnight!
Good music for long bus rides and day trips:
River City Extension - "Something Salty, Something Sweet", off their album "The Unmistakable Man"
Love this song right now, and the rest of the album continues to grow on me. Just a happy bunch producing catchy and well-written folk/indie-pop songs.
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Thought I'd get this post up early while I had some spare time. Tomorrow's mostly going to be a study day - math quiz Monday.. Can't wait to sleep in. Also, apologies for any misspellings in this and the last post: Pens games are more important than silly things like spellcheck..
Cheers!
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