Not Home Quite Yet: My Week in England!!

By now you all know that I have returned to the one and only America. I (literally) hopped off the plane at LAX last night (I’m not kidding—as I was getting off the plane I did a little hop, just to say I did), and a few hours later I was back in the tan stucco structure I call home. Before all that, though, I spent a wonderful 10 days in England visiting Roni and travelling around the country, which is what I’m going to tell you about now.

On my first day I explored Oxford, with Roni as my experienced tour guide. When she asked what I wanted to see, my response was “Harry Potter stuff”, so we went to several places where exterior shots were filmed as well as the dining hall in Christ Church college, where they filmed the Great Hall and a different room which they used for the Hospital Wing in Hogwarts.

We also went to several other colleges, including Exeter where Roni goes, all of which have beautiful chapels and courtyards and just gorgeous buildings in general. The entire city is picturesque. That night Roni had a birthday/promotion/Champions League final party which was great for me because it meant meeting all her friends in one place. I finally was able to put faces to the names I’ve been hearing about and understand first hand why she loves her life in England so much. Her friends were great! And Barcelona played a beautiful game of soccer to win the final, and we ate delicious food….so it was a good first day/night in Oxford.

The next day Roni and I went Windsor Castle, the oldest and largest castle in the world that is still lived in today. You all know how I feel about castles, and this one (although not as medieval-feeling, which is what I really like) was no exception. There was this incredible doll house display that was huge and impeccably detailed with hundreds of rooms. We also spent a long time wandering through room after room and hallway after hallway inside the castle itself, filled with extremely elaborate furniture and decoration: tapestries, paintings, carpets, mirrors, statues, suits of armor, crests, shields. They were quite a sight to behold (unfortunately pictures were not allowed so you’ll have to take my word for it).

Roni had to work during the week so I went on the next few journeys on my own. On Monday I took the train to London to meet up with the lovely Melanie, who has been my friend since Kindergarten (since the first day of Kindergarten, in fact, when she famously sat down next to me and asked to be my friend….and I agreed). Melanie had been studying abroad in London so she took me to some of her favorite markets (including the one in the movie Notting Hill which I geeked out about). We spent the day gallivanting around the city, eating delicious food, and catching up. It was pretty awesome having the chance to see an old friend in a foreign country.

The next day I went to two places, the first of which was Stratford-upon-Avon: the home of William Shakespeare!! I am a big Shakespeare fan but was unfortunately unable to go to Stratford last time I was in England. The town itself was very small and adorable, just like what you would picture and expect a small town in the English countryside to look like. The house Shakespeare was born in and grew up in has been made into a museum with an exhibit about Shakespeare's works, life, and the impact of his plays on popular culture and society. There were also several house-museums around it in other parts of Stratford, including the home of Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna and the house he lived in during the last two decades of his life, after he came back from London. I learned a good deal more about Shakespeare and thought the historic bits were really well put together. In one of the houses they had several costumes used in Shakespeare productions, including an outfit worn by David Tennant when he played Hamlet, so I naturally enjoyed that.

After Stratford I went to Warwick (the second w is silent, by the way), home of Warwick Castle. Now, Warwick Castle is not just a castle (which would be awesome in and of itself)…it’s much more than that. It’s an entire experience. This medieval castle is an amuseument park of sorts, with live shows and exhibits and tours. I went on the Castle Dungeon tour which took me and the rest of the group of 9 frightened individuals through the dungeons and told us all about/quasi-demonstrated medieval torture devices and prisoner execution techniques. It was creepy to say the least. Each room had a different actor in gross make up creeping us out and jumping out at us and squirting nasty liquid that was supposed to be blood or some other bodily fluid at us. I was so glad I wasn’t first or last in our group because I would have been even more creeped out. It was just the right amount of scary to still be enjoyable. I explored the rest of the castle on my own. One section had a whole bunch of rooms each with wax figures showing the different stages of preparing for battle. There were horses, knights, blacksmiths and other workers, seamstresses, and other essential people. Probably my favorite “exhibit” was set up in a Victorian (or maybe a little bit later time period) theme and was devoted to royal secrets. The concept was that guests were invited to a “dinner party” thrown by the Earl and Countess of Warwick. Throughout the various rooms we learned all about scandals mostly involving the sexual rampages of the Countess of Warwick and the many guests at their home. I found it hilarious. There were kids in there who were being told very censored versions of the story. It was pretty funny. I also watched a joust and sword fight, visited a peacock garden on the grounds, walked the ramparts, and climbed to the top of the towers in the castle. I explored literally every inch of the grounds and loved every second. I highly recommend a trip to Warwick castle if you go to England.

In a very spur-of-the-moment fashion I decided to spend my next day on the Isle of Wight, which turned out to be a wonderful decision. I took a train and then ferry to get there, and spent my entire day walking around the island, on a public footpath that brought me from Yarmouth, where the ferry docked, to the Freshwater Bay, on the other side of the island. The first half of the path followed an estuary, through a meadow and a forest until I emerged from the trees at the end of the estuary near a bridge. At this point I took a detour to an adorable apple orchard where I had the most delicious apple juice I’ve ever tasted. This detour also took me through a residential area where I noticed that all of the houses had plaques with names on them!! I love that in places like this all the houses have names like in Pride and Prejudice (or Lexington, but that's a very different concept). It was very cute. When I got back on the path I ended up in a field of very very tall grass, and then after I passed through a gate I found myself literally in a person’s backyard. The rest of this public footpath consisted of segments separated by gates where I was honestly walking through people’s private gardens, but I guess they’ve given permission to have this path go through their land. I thought that was very cool. It was especially cool because each time I passed through a gate I felt like I was in a new little world. I also walked through a sheep farm and cow pasture (I’m sure you know how excited that made me). When I finally got to the bay I was absolutely awe struck. It was a little cove with a pebbled beach surrounded by really high white cliffs—simply stunning! However I don’t know where the name Freshwater Bay comes from because I tasted the water and it was definitely salty. I mean, it’s the ocean after all.

My last alone day in England was spent again in London. I started in Greenwich, where I stood on the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory (where I learned a lot about compasses and longitude and telescopes and other nautical things), visited Greenwich Market, strolled through Greenwich park (which had tall hills with an incredible view of London), and enjoyed the beautiful beautiful sunshine.

After that I took to the tube to the center of London and visited the Churchill War Rooms. This is a museum that has been made out of the actual Cabinet War Rooms used by Churchill and his cabinet during WW2. It was really really awesome to see the exact room where the Chiefs of Staff met with maps on the walls, pins in the maps, and everything exactly as it was the day the war ended in 1945 (someone had the genius foresight to seal off the rooms right after the war, knowing they would be viewed one day as historically significant). My favorite part was a blackboard in the “Map Room” that showed the “score” during the Battle of Britain. They used it to keep track of the progress during the battle. It was all just so so cool.

I spent the rest of the day wandering the classic sights of London, all of which I’ve been to, but don’t get old: Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, the parks, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, etc. I used to say “oh I don’t really like London—it’s too big, busy, crowded, blah blah”. Well, that’s a blatant lie. I love London. It’s a really great city.

My last day in England I spent relaxing with Roni. We took a nice long walk through a meadow by her house, down the canal, stopping at a very remote pub with a beautiful outdoor beer garden where we could sit and enjoy the gorgeous weather for hours. I was blessed with incredible weather the whole week. I’m so so glad I decided to tack the extra week onto my study abroad time and spend some time with Roni. It was a wonderful wonderful 10 days!!