Hampton Court Palace = Awesome

On Thursday we had class in the morning, and then a long break until our religion class in the afternoon. It was Ashley's birthday so between classes we went to Primark and she and Mikelle bought some clothes. After that we went to Harrod's and walked around for a long time. We wandered around the high fashion brands for a while and felt like grubby nasty ghetto white trash. We found an incredibly beautiful dress and looked at the tag... 12,530 pounds. We thought about buying it but...... After that we had to get back to the Center for class, and then we hung around and talked in the...parlor? Until dinner. We had dinner and although I'm not really sure what it was (I rarely ever know what it is), it was actually very yummy.

Ashley wanted to go ride the London Eye, so a group of us headed over there. We rode the bus, which turns out to be really enjoyable actually and possibly my new favorite thing. We got there and found out the Eye is closed for maintenance until the end of this month, sad day. :( So we decided to go get some dessert instead. We tried to find a good place, wandering around for a while. However, everything we tried was closed and so we ended up at Pizza Hut. Before you judge, you need to know something about London. Their American fast food restaurants that are trashy for us, are way nice here. McDonalds has sweet couches and chairs and they are decorated all fancy. So we walk into Pizza Hut and they seat us in a nice booth, we have a waiter, a salad bar, and all that fancy shmancy stuff. We got a delicious pizza, and then some yummy desserts. We came back to the Center and at that point Mikelle and I remembered that we had bought Ashley a birthday cake the night before. Haha. We were super sneaky and we got it all ready and lit the candles. A group of us sang Happy Birthday, but when Ashley tried to blow them out we realized we'd accidentally bought trick/relighting candles...oops...there was a ton of smoke, and the smoke alarm goes off really easily here, but half of us opened the windows while the other half put out the blasted candles in my water cup and laughed our heads off. Basically, it was amazing and hilarious.

The view from by the London Eye at night...I love this. So much.

Friday = The Best day ever! We took a trip to Hampton Court. We arrived and it was a very cold day so there was practically no one there. We took shelter from the cold wind in the information place and got audio tour things and then went off to explore the palace for ourselves. We (and by we I mean Mikelle, Ashley, and myself) started out by going through the story of Henry VIII. They take you through and in each room there are chairs to sit in that represent King Henry himself, Katherine of Arygone, and Cardinal Woolsey. They progressively tell the story through the descriptions and positions of each chair and other media things. (There was a video of Henry as his “young, charming, strong, confident” self...and let me tell you in that movie he definitely was all of those things....and super attractive. How he turned into a gross fatty is beyond me). So of course we took this as an opportunity to take on their identities and take pictures. In this presentation Henry will be played by Mikelle Benfield, Cardinal Woolsey by Ashley Chipman, and Katherine by myself.

Our Introduction

The King and I are in love...and Woolsey is doing a Dory impression.

The King is happy about our firstborn child...Its in a purple and black blanket bundle.

Then our baby died (Woolsey temporarily switched roles to be our dead baby...its for dramatic effect)

King Henry was upset that our son died...we have no heir now...so he started sleeping around. Woolsey isn't pleased...

I am hurt, lost, forlorn, disappointed, etc etc etc Why can't I bear a son?!

The King wants to divorce me because I can't bear a son but Woolsey isn't supporting it so he hides from Henry

King Henry sends me into exile and I'm pulled from the thrown...jerkface.

After we had our fun there we went to the kitchens. They told us all about how they had to feed 600 people at all the feasts and how they managed it. It was interesting, but the highlight was the roaring fire that we stopped by for a while, because it was freezing.

Dinner anyone?

Afterwards, we were looking for the royal apartments (a worker guy there told us this secret cool thing to look for involving a painting of Venus on the ceiling of a room in there...he told Ashley she looked like Venus too...daaaaaang girl). We got lost and misread the signs which took us to the Great Hall...the Great Hall was closed though but due to our confusion we tried very hard to get the locked door open resulting in the person on the other side rattling the door and terrifying us. Then we realized our mistake and quickly got out of there and found our way. We walked through the apartments looking for Peter Pettigrew...(Peter Pettigrew's stunt double from the movies is one of the workers there and some of our friends in the group met and took pictures of him and told us to go find him), but he was on a lunch break and so we were just looking around at all the rooms and reading things when we walked into this large room and freeze suddenly. King Henry is sitting across the room in a throne and his steward guy is closer watching us. The Steward begins talking to us and asks if we have any questions for the King, where we're from, etc. It was one of those awkward but hilarious moments where we all just froze and wouldn't talk and then he came and pushed us forward to the king making up some story about how we were all looking for husbands for each other and our sisters and asking the King if he knew of any worthy men in court. It was hilarious and the King called Ashley, aka our spokesperson to come closer and explain. We talked to them for a long time and then took pictures.

Us with the steward. He was choosing a new wife but then said "I have two arms." I guess Mikelle and I are sister wives...

Hey there King Henry

He left the room and we stole his throne...the Steward came back and this was the picture taken as he was coming towards me with his sword about to run me through...

After that adventure we found the gardens. It was freezing outside...coldest day yet, but it was beautiful and so worth it. We took a ton of pictures and then we headed back to the center. Basically Hampton Court was the best.

This is Hampton Court Palace...Its gorgeous. Love it.

Alexander...my pet swan

Alexander is my buddy and I love him

Oh well, ya know.

 We're starting a band, this is our band picture.

Saturday: We slept in, which felt amazing by the way, and then got up and ready fast. Every Saturday they have a bunch of huge markets that open up on the street and sell really cool stuff for pretty cheap a lot of the time. We decided to check out Portabello Market and headed off with a big group. We walked along looking around and found some really good cheap stuff (I hadn't gone to the ATM yet so I didn't buy anything...next week though... :)). There are all these street performers there that set up and play as people walk by, and we found this guy who was amazing. We stood and watched him for about an hour despite the cold weather (which just goes to show how good he was), and we are gonna try to find a gig of his we can check out sometime. Ashley and I were pretty in love with him (Robbie Boyd Band, Check him out. He sings better live and acoustic and his music videos are cheesy but he's really good, promise), while Mikelle was just wanting food and trying to get us to leave. Haha. We finally did and ended up getting caught in the rain and going back to the Center looking like wet rats. We cleaned up, got some food and were ready to go back out again. Ashley, Mikelle, Kaylee, and I then spent the rest of the day riding buses. Our oyster travel cards make them free and so we played a game where we'd get on a double decker and ride on the top and inch our way to the front seats as people got off and ride that particular one until it terminated. We did that honestly all day. It was awesome. We made some quick stops to get some cookies and go to Poundland but thats pretty much all we did all day. We finally headed back and then watched 10 Things I Hate About You with practically the whole group (We are reading The Taming of the Shrew, and that movie is based off of it...who knew? Okay probably a lot of people did, but I didn't).

Sunday/Today: Went to church, did homework. Its been fairly uneventful. But hey, I'm in London....its better to have an uneventful day in London I'd say :)