A Day Trip To Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle (Day 41)

(Being the adventures of:)
FEBRUARY 12, 2011

An early wake-up call at 7:30am so we could catch the tube to Notting Hill Station. The IFSA-Butler office is right by the station, so we hopped on the coach (bus, to us) there for the day trip!

First stop: Hampton Court Palace, the get-away mansion for such historic figures as King Henry VIII and King William III. It's noted for being a good representation of the period of English history in which most architecture was in transition between classic Tudor and Italian Renaissance styles. It's also one of two surviving palaces once owned by King Henry VIII.

The front gates. Unicorn statue..?

Hampton Court Palace!

The entrance

The (first) inner courtyard. Neat architecture.

A random little fountain

Another courtyard

Staircase to Mary II's apartments.

Ceiling of the staircase room

First of many huge paintings at the palace

First of many fireplaces as well. I swear there was one in every room.

Fountain Court

Another ridiculous fireplace. I need one of these bad boys at my place.

What an outfit.

Another painting. There were some pretty cool ones. 

I think this was in the Queen's Gallery..?

Almost all the walls and ceiling were covered in paintings.

The amazing gardens. Just beautiful.

I need a bed like that.

Wait, maybe this was the Queen's Gallery..

Closer view of the Fountain Court. Pretty.

Another view of the Garden. It's almost eerily well-kept.

Looking back at the north end of the Palace from the Gardens

The wine cellar

Entrance to the Chapel Royal. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside..

Shhh... pretty ceiling though.

A banquet hall. I need one of these as well. So big!

Nice antlers.

Some tapestries. Imagine if those were real candles. Jesus, the whole place would go up in flames.

An old writing desk

Another crazy bedroom. Man, such money..

More paintings in a neat little room

.. or was this the gallery..? Geez who knows.

Some really famous/expensive painting worth like $1 million or something. Crazy. Terrible shot (another  secret one, shhhh)

What a crazy clock. Months, signs, two of every number..? Oh man, trippy.

Hi there!

Some actors in costume. Awesome!

No idea.

Random Roman stuff in an English palace? Apparently King Charles admired Caesar so he bought a collection of works by the Italian artist Mantegna called 'The Triumphs of Caesar'. It's a nine-painting series depicting a parade in honor of Caesar's triumphs as he enters Rome. They were neat, but again, we weren't allowed to take pictures..

More gardens on another side of the palace. There was yet another side with a crazy hedge-maze, but we didn't make it to that side.. Sad face..

Woah. More whole-room paintings = crazy. OK, so painting a ceiling has got to be hard, but how do you paint a corner?!?

.. and WHAT are those things?!

Geez, what an entrance to a room.

Confused? THOSE ARE ALL GUNS AND SWORDS. Yup. Epic.

All guns. Unreal.

WE MUST HAVE MORE WEAPON ART!

Can't et enough of it.

Another side of the palace with more gardens! Maybe the maze was over there somewhere..?

Yet another sweet room.

Oh yeah, just throw in some drums with those knives, swords, and guns.

A happy dragon statue and a disgusted unicorn statue. What.

What a neat place! So much money and history.. you can imagine why the commoners were all so angry as they lived in squalor on the streets, starving, and royalty had entire palaces like this that they basically just visited on holiday. Crazy.

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We hopped back on the coach and headed down to the next stop: Windsor Castle, originally a medieval castle built to protect Norman dominance on the outskirts of London and hold a crucial part of the River Thames, it now is used as a weekend home for the Queen and a tourist attraction. With over 500 people living and working in Windsor, it's the largest inhabited castle in the world.

Windsor Castle on the horizon

Windsor Royal shopping complex.

More of the shopping complex. Ate lunch at a sandwich place there

Windsor Castle!

The streets of Windsor

More of the castle. Very imposing structure

More of the huge castle stretching off into the distance

Oh hello there!

Very pretty

Ah so British..

Windsor alleyways 

More Windsor streets

An old church

More castle gates

The main entrance to the Castle

'The Long Walk', looking away from the Castle. Very cool

A closer view of the main entrance to the Castle

Another view of The Long Walk

An ancient well. Pretty self-explanatory..

A neat clock atop the entrance to the shopping center

More of Windsor. Cute little town

Walking towards Eton. What a beautiful day!

Crossing the Thames, like usual! Looking back towards Windsor

.. and away

Back at the Castle from the bridge.

An old, random sanitarium (insane asylum)

An old church near Eton. Too bad it was mostly under repair.. 

Eton! An old British independent school for boys founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. It's apparently one of the most prestigious schools in the UK and requires its students to wear tailcoats!

Another cool building.

Some apartments

A building on Eton Campus. Too bad it was closed..

Another view of that church

A view of some gardens in Eton.

Walking back towards the castle

The busy (read: tourist-filled) streets of Windsor! I think this was on one of the shopping streets, looking up towards the Castle

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After that, we caught the coach back to London! Nap time after a long day of touring..

I would have loved to go into Windsor Castle, but there was a HUGE line, it was £15 to get in, and I'd already been inside before when I was in London a couple of years ago. So I was content with wandering the surrounding area and getting the good views from the outside. Oh well!

Came back and ate dinner before meeting up with some people for a 'pirate-themed' party in a nearby flat. It was pretty fun! Lots of rum, Jack Sparrow impressions (some actually very good!), Pirates of the Caribbean music, and pirate costumes! Arrrr! My 'costume' was limited to a pirate-esque outfit since I only have limited clothing options, but it was fun nonetheless! Eventually, I went back to my place and passed out after the long day! Goodnight!

Good music to tour Windsor to:

The Decemberists - "Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect", off their album "Castaways and Cutouts"

A great folk band and a great album. Love it.

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Well that's another big update down! Now to catch up on the last few days as well..

Cheers!

Falling Behind Again! A Full Update Of The Week Post-Dublin (Days 36 - 40)

A couple exams and a pretty typical week punctuated by seeing Wicked!

(Being the brief summary of:)
FEBRUARY 7 - 11, 2011

After the awesomeness that was Dublin, the next week just kind of passed in a blur. Actually, it went by so fast that I didn't even have time to update the blog. So this is going to be a quick update/summary of the past week up to Friday the 11th.

Monday, February 7
A boring 9am lecture is not the way to start off a week after an excellent time in Dublin. Especially after also staying up to study/watch the Steelers lose the Superbowl. After lectures, I went and grabbed a burger at McDonalds since it was quick and cheap, then came back to go over my notes one last time before my first Abstract Algebra quiz. It wasn't bad at all - pretty simple yes/no questions in response to some logic, linear equations, and prime number problems. Hung around back at the apartment for a while and just relaxed. Eventually met up with some people to find dinner. The first place we tried closed their kitchen at 7:30pm, which was ridiculous, but we ended up getting some good kebabs from a local place around the corner. Afterwards, some pre-gaming and Moony's for our regular Monday night out! Hit the pillow around 3am. Good night!

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Tuesday, February 8
Slept in until around 12:30pm, went out and bought some groceries for the week. You gotta love Iceland. Staying under budget and still eating for a week = Awesome. Did some work and organization, nothing too crazy. Eventually had to head to my only class of the day: Thermo lecture at 5pm. Some pics of the beautiful London sunset on the way:

Nice.

Gotta love it when the sun starts going down at 4:30pm

After lecture, grabbed a quick dinner before making my way to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to see Wicked! It's a nice 30-minute stroll down the Strand towards and past Buckingham Palace so I took some pictures along the way:

Admiralty Arch near Trafalgar Square

Buckingham Palaec

The Mall, the stretch of road that passes through St. James Park toards Buckingham Palace

Some crazy neat building. No idea what it is.

The Victoria Palace Theatre playing Billy Elliot. Sorry about the blurriness..

Victoria Station

One side of the Apollo Victoria Theatra

The other side of the Apollo Victoria

Inside. All greened-out for Wicked!

The stage

The set

Neat theatre

A closer look at the show's map

Shhh a secret, illegal shot of the show!

The show itself was very good! The lead two women had amazing voices that really stole the show. Everyone else was subpar, but played their parts well. Having never seen the show or listened to the music, I went in with an open mind, but I liked it a lot! Very good music - I'd love to see other shows while I'm here in London as well.

Then the walk home, a different route to see the sites:

A closer look of Big Ben at night!

The opposite view of the London Eye from the Westminster Bridge instead of the Waterloo! That's the London County Hall on the right, really pretty with the lights on the water.

Parliament from the bridge

Just hung around that night to save money. Did a bit of studying and got some sleep. Goodnight!

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Wednesday, February 9


10am lecture and a quick lunch before hopping the train to another football match with the KCL 4s lads! We played a home game ('home' is still a 15-minute train away to Berrylands) versus Royal Holloway - the same team we lost 1-0 in my first match. This game we didn't fare so well, although we did go up first about 15-minutes in. After having a goal called back due to a suspiciously close offsides, we came back a couple minutes later and out one in off a cross that made it through the 6 to the back post. 1-0. It was pretty back-and-forth after that, until there was some drama between our second striker (I was the other) and one of their defenders in the form of a lot of pushing and shoving. In the aftermath, our offense was limited, and they were able to beat our defense a couple times with a streak down the left, and a little later, a volley past our keeper on a hail-mary pass. 1-2. I had a couple good looks at the net and set up some nice opportunities in front, but we just couldn't put anything in. Eventually they put a third goal in, although it was another suspiciously offsides call that went in their favor this time. 1-3. The last 10 minutes or so of the game, we dominated, but just couldn't find the net. Game.

After getting home and showering, I studied for a bit before meeting up with some people for pizza and a movie - two of my friends had a 2-for-1 pizza deal for Pizza Express so we got 4 pizzas and went to their place to watch Despicable Me. I only got to watch a bit of it before I had to head home for a couple Skype dates, but I thought it was funny and I'd love to see the rest of it!

Skyped with the parents, and Brittney for a bit, then called it a night. Cheers!

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Thursday, February 10


Lectures 10am-1pm started the day off. Afterwards, came back, ate lunch, and got to studying for the Thermo exam coming up on Friday. That's pretty much all I did. Watched a little of the Pens game that night - a surprising and gritty win over LA in the midst of our current injury troubles. Jesus.
Lights out!

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Friday, February 11


Busy day: Lectures 9am-12pm, studied for a bit, exam at 4pm, followed by a lecture until 6pm. The exam went pretty well - 12 problems: 8 multiple choice (some definition-based, some requiring calculations), 4 free answer. Wasn't too bad at all! Came back, ate dinner and relaxed. That night, went and grabbed some beers and the local CostCutters, then just hung around one of our flats for the evening. A good, relaxing night!

However, while catching the Pens game is usually a good thing, the Pens game tonight pretty much ended the day on a terrible note. A 9-3 loss to the Islanders in what I can't even call a 'game', but more of a grudge match. Disgusting. Islanders showing their true colors in getting 'revenge' against Talbot and Johnson for cleanly kicking the crap out of them in the last game. Cheap shots, brawls, fights, injuries, over 100 penalty minutes. Oh man, just absolutely horrid play from the Islanders. The Pens still struggling through injuries as it is. Did I even mention Malkin's out for the season requiring surgery on his knee? Things are looking dim. Hopefully everybody, including Crosby, can come back soon.

With a day trip to Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle in the morning, I headed to bed. Goodnight!

Good music of the moment:
Bright Eyes - "Four Winds", off their fantastic album "Cassadaga"
Another gem from one of my favorite writers of all time, Conor Oberst. One of several great albums, this one with a beautiful folk feel.

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Almost there with the update! I figured I'd stop before the Saturday day trip as there's a bunch of pictures from that to go up. Pretty good weekend though, so keep posted for the update!
Cheers!