I finally have a little bit of downtime to upload pictures. Sadly, I only have the downtime because I ran out of ribbon and am waiting for my wonderful fiance to arrive with more. It's downtime nonetheless, so pictures it is. This first one is on the plane to D.C. I wish I had a better picture of the shirts we made. The front says "Team Frederick" and the back says "'You pierce my soul!'" Five of us Austen geeks made them in honor of Persuasion, which we finished reading right before leaving.
The first day in London was rough because we were all suffering from jet lag. We mostly wandered around looking at gorgeous things I barely remember, but they let us take a nap before going to Piccadilly Circus. I was really disappointed with Piccadilly, though, because my first impression of it was a really romantic swing song. In actuality, it's more like London's Times Square. We did get to see the Thames at night and take our touristy London Eye at night pictures, though.
The next day was our first opportunity to try fish & chips before visiting the Tower of London, which was my favorite part of the trip. I only tried chips of course, but still exciting. Anything about that day was made more exciting by the fact that I was going to get to see ravens. The tower ravens mostly live next to the White Tower, which is the palace part of the Tower.
And here's a raven! A REAL LIFE RAVEN! I was just a little excited.
Or a lot. I wanted to touch it so badly, but they bite, so that would have been a dumb move. But it was still really tempting. I did buy a plush raven from the souvenir shop. Its name is Merlin because one of the yeomen told me a story about one of the current Tower ravens named Merlin. They found out too late that Merlin was actually a girl. She hangs out in this courtyard often, so the raven I'm pointing at could very well be her.
The next day was our day tour to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath. The first stop was Stonehenge. Not very exciting, but still my second favorite part of the trip. I've been dreaming about seeing Stonehenge since I was eight. I walked around it, but I didn't listen to the audio guide because it was really chilly, so I missed a couple of things. No regrets, it was freezing!
The next stop was Salisbury. We ate at a little restaurant called The Cloisters and then headed to Salisbury Cathedral. This is a picture of the actual cloisters.
The cathedral houses the world's oldest working clock. It's over seven hundred years old! I took a picture for Nick since he loves all things medieval. Isn't it cool? It's been working almost continuously since it was built. The only exception was a sixty year period around the nineteenth century when they dismantled it and replaced it with a clock that sounded half hours in addition to hours.
The final stop was Bath where we saw...wait for it...the Roman baths. Plot twist, right? They were really gorgeous, but really disgusting. The water was full of algae, pumped through lead pipes, and supposedly a favorite swimming spot for rats and pigeons. We were specifically told not to touch the water, but our group passed one mother encouraging her kids to bend down and play in it. Great parenting, right? I was all the more irritated because I twisted my ankle on one of the cobblestones. I was so glad I brought a wrap!
We also went to go see Westminster Abbey. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so hopefully you watched the royal wedding this past April. It was so cool to stand in between the choir lofts and think "I saw the choir singing here on TV! And that's where they had the altar!" It was even more gorgeous in person, though.
Check out the view we had when leaving the Abbey! Big Ben and the London Eye! And the sky was perfect for a picture. The group that went my sophomore year was so jealous we had sun!
Please ignore all of the time stamps. My camera crudded out my freshman year after our trip to D.C., so I was using Mom's. It didn't like me very much. I'm going to find a way to creatively crop or cover the signature when I scrapbook them.
