Day Trip: Broughton Castle

On the Tuesday after our Stratford trip we took a relatively short drive to Broughton Castle. It is not so much of a castle as a really old, really large house, but we were told that it is a castle because it has a turret. So for anyone out there looking to build a castle keep that in mind. The first thing that I noticed about Broughton Castle is that it seemed colder inside then it was outside. The place seemed like a refrigerator. I feel bad for the people that would have lived there a long time ago.

In the first large room the lady let us try on some of the armor. I don't remember the exact year that it was from, but the helmet was neat and I got to hold a sword. I think the sword was a little bit newer than the armor, but still old. It seems like it would have been tough wearing all of the armor because the sword alone seemed pretty heavy.

The other day Beth and I were watching Shakespeare in Love and noticed quite a few of the scenes that were set in Broughton Castle. I think it made me enjoy the movie more because I could recognize the places as being places that I had just recently been standing on.

We were lucky and ran into Lord Saye at the end of the tour. He offered us tea, but we were running behind schedule and had to meet some other people for lunch. It would have been neat to have tea with him. One of the rooms that we were in had a bed from 1990-something which was funny because you would expect it to be really old. Broughton Castle was one of the most enjoyable places that we visited in my opinion because there was a mix of new and old.

Day Trip: Stratford

Today we went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the birthplace and burial site of William Shakespeare. It was pretty neat, but the cold wet weather made walking around slightly less enjoyable. It was nothing compared to weather and temperatures at home though so it really isn't much to complain about. It was cool seeing everything, but one thing that stands out is that a lot of it was not 100% positive on it being correct information. They would say this is probably the site where this happened, so if ten years from now when we discover that it actually wasn't, the money you gave us will have been to see something that isn't actually what you wanted to see or what we advertised it as.

We began at Anne Hathaway's house, went to the Shakespeare birthplace, Nash's house, Hall's Croft, and to the Holy Trinity Church where his bones and the bones of some of his family are buried. It was a very nice and very old church dating back to 1210. It is a church of England now but I think it used to be a Roman Catholic place.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Broughton Castle. It is nice to not have to worry about studying for exams or writing papers anymore, but there are still lots of books and plays for this semester that I have not read yet.

Brief Relief

Exams are now finished so at this point we are 50% done of all of the work that we will do over here. I feel like I did alright on everything, but we will see how I actually did when the marks get back. I had a super productive unproductive day. I made some serious progress on Pokemon HeartGold, finished Portal finally, and watched Black Swan with Beth. I wasn't the biggest fan of Black Swan because it was strange and I could also see the ending coming by about halfway through.

Tomorrow we are going to have a games day at the church and we will get to try Beth's version of ice cream cake as she attempted to make it the way that my mother told her to. She has already given me a warning that it wasn't going to be exactly the same, but I am sure that it will still taste good. It is going to be sad to have to actually do work again whenever our two new classes start. Hopefully they are interesting. I think we have more courses at RPC this time so classes will hopefully be less noisy than when at the church.

Finished, sort of

6967 words later all of my papers are finished for the first half of the program. I have decided to take the night off and relax until tomorrow. Friday and Saturday I have exams to do so I cannot relax for very long.

We are facing a bit of a dilemma because tomorrow the only reason to go to Oxford is for lunch and everything is already paid for, but that requires going in to Oxford and wasting precious study time on travel. My left ear bud has been cutting in and out recently so I might try to look for a new pair of headphones while I am there.

I think I have written enough today and in the past few days...

Looking forward to: Day trips to Stratford-upon-Avon and Broughton Castle

Crunch Time

Wednesday at 9PM is the deadline for all things for the first half of the program to be finished. I almost finished my first paper today. I only have to write 300-400 more words and I will be completely finished of it. Monday and tuesday I will be writing my other 2500-3000 word paper. Wednesday until 9PM I will be working on the other two short essays that I have to write. It should be tight, but if I am efficient then it will all be finished on time and be of a good level of quality.

Also it is my birthday tomorrow.

On a strange unrelated note I have been testing out IE9 and it seems surprisingly good so far. It has been a long time since I have used internet explorer and this likely won't change me from chrome, but it is worth noting that internet explorer actually isn't horrible.

Goals for tomorrow:

-finish shakespeare paper

-write 1000-1500 words in drama paper

London

Just got back from London last night. It was a pretty good trip and got to see lots of cool places. Last monday at the SA meeting Beth hit her head on a ledge at Gill's house and gave herself a mild concussion so that was interesting. She wasn't sure if she was going to be able to come to London or not because her head was still hurting, but she came and was feeling much better as the days went by.

On Thursday we traveled to London and went to see the Tower of London. We spent most of the afternoon there. Got to see the crown jewels and where famous old people were buried or executed or imprisoned. Apparently the imperial state crown has 2868 diamonds on it, which seems crazy, but that is the number that I read on one of the information signs. Thursday night we went and saw An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre. We were pretty high up and far back, but it was a decent play anyways.

On Friday we went to see the Globe Theatre. It was kind of small, but I think it was basically what I expected it to be. It would be cool to get to see a play there, but they don't start their season until after we are gone. Plays in the winter don't go very well there I guess, because they have no roof to cover them. After that Beth and I ate lunch and then walked over to the Palace at Westminster to get a tour of the place. The walk over was nice (very windy). We got to see the London Eye, something that Beth wanted to go in, but it was expensive. Big Ben was as the title would suggest: very big. I have been to Parliament in Ottawa, and it was cool, but nothing compared to this. Mainly because it is a palace and everything is made of either gold, or shaped like a monarch. It seemed like every inch of space was incredibly detailed and nothing was very plain. The House of Commons was a bit plain, but it was bombed and rebuilt after WWII so it makes sense that they may not have had enough money to make it pretty. That night we went and saw The Rivals at the Haymarket Theatre, it took a little while, but I got into it and enjoyed the play.

On Saturday we checked out, went to Trafalgar Square, went to the National Portrait Gallery, had fish and chips for lunch, and then saw The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre with Beth. The Phantom of the Opera was very entertaining. After supper we just kicked around trying to figure out where people were and then we left for Charlbury. Overall it was a good trip, but it was slightly annoying that everywhere we went there was construction going on.