The Journey to Wales

After journeying to Cambridge for the day, we didn't that was enough.  So, on Saturday Libbie and I got up 6 and made our way to the north side of central London.  It wasn't easy because the Circle line was down for construction.  So, at 7 in the morning we got on the Piccadilly line and headed northeast until we hit Green Park station.  From here we transferred to the Jubilee Line and headed north until we hit Baker Street.  We than had to take a bus straight east to Great Portland Street.  This is where we had to be at 7:45 in the morning.  It had already been a lot of traveling and we hadn't even got on the coach yet.  Anyways, we got on a full size coach and headed west out of London with all sorts of different people.  Some from Virginia, Spain, China...etc.  It is a long drive to Wales so the coach makes a stop in the city of Gloucester, England.  This stop is about 2 and half hours west northwest of London.  It is a similar drive that our group as a whole did when we went to Stonehenge.  The drive is a lot of rolling hills much like you would expect rural England to look like.  So, therefore, having already seen it, I decided to try and sleep on the coach.  It is about as comfy, if not more, then the beds they give us here. We were woken up about 10 minutes out of Gloucester and told a little but about the history of the city.  It was inhabited by the Romans first because of the unique locations right on the River Severn.  This allowed for easy transportation and access to the river system.  Also in Gloucester, there is a Cathedral.  It seems to be a re-occurring theme: ancient cities=large Cathedrals.  This Cathedral was a lot like all of the other ones we have seen with great detail and time put into making it, but the architecture was a little different on the inside.  It was fun to see and compare with all the other ones we have seen since being here.  We went down and saw the supposedly "historic docks" that the city has to offer right on the water.  However, there wasn't much left of these "historic docks" but a present day marina and a couple of big warehouses.

This is a view of the Cathedral.  The tower is a little different architecture than other Cathedrals we have seen.  Still a lot detail seen throughout both exterior and interior.

A view from the back of the Cathedral towards the front.  What appears to be an altar in this picture is actually called a "rood screen".  I have mentioned earlier that it separates the common folk from the clergy.  It is common in all Cathedrals we have seen.

This a picture of the support beams in this Cathedral.  Usually they run along the outside of the structure, but these were different.  Made the inside look a lot smaller than it actually was.

This is the altar.  About as beautiful as I have seen.  So much detail and color it was very interesting.  It had a full size stain glass window behind it and it looked great.  

The "historic docks" we saw.  Pretty sweet right??

After seeing the city of Gloucester we headed back on the coach and made our way to Tintern, Wales. The drive was picturesque.  The farther west you get the more of a forest you entered.  On top of that, there is a plateau you have to climb in order to enter Wales by the ground.  So, we drove up the plateau over looking the rolling hills of open England.   It was supposed to be about an hour drive the way the tour usually goes.  However, on the usual route, we reached a bridge under construction and we were over the weight limit.  We had to turn around and take another route to Tintern.  After detouring we finally reached the small city of Tintern.  This city or village for a better word, is about the size of the city of Mendota.  However, it has a famous ancient ruin of a Cathedral in it.  It was very interesting that such a small village had this enormous ruined Cathedral in it.  

Climbing the plateau we start to over look some valleys.

Trying to show the height of the hills we drove through.

Picture of roaming sheep.  They are everywhere as you enter Wales.

Picture of the ruined Cathedral from the parking lot.  

View of what would have been the front of the Cathedral.  As you can see, it lacks a roof.

View of the inside of the Cathedral.  Looking from what would be the rood screen to the Altar I believe.

View of what would have been walls to the Cathedral. In 1536, Henry VIII abolished the religion of the Cathedral.  At this point, people starting coming and using the stone from the foundation for other tasks.  

View from what would have been the altar I think.  

The front wall of the Cathedral.  

Back wall. 

We ate lunch at the local pub right next to the ruin.  It was a fun little place right on the river that runs in front of the ruin.  It is called The Anchor.  Technology hasn't really hit this village yet.  The woman that was taking orders didn't, for the life of her, know how to use a credit card machine.  She continued to swipe the card with the barcode or magnetic strip up and complaining to the other employee about how it wouldn't work.  It was humorous and frustrating at the same time.  We headed back to the coach and journeyed to Cheapstow, Wales.  It was another small village with a historic Castle in it.  This castle was also a ruin but its foundation, for the most part, was still there.  This village borders England and Wales, so we decided we would go put one foot in each country.  We spent a while walking around this small village.  The people of Wales have really really heavy accents.  From here we hoped back on the coach and made the 3 hour journey back to London.  It was now dark out so it wasn't much of a scenic route home.
When we got home, the rest of the group was ready to go out.  After a nap on the way home, I was too!  We headed to the historic pub called "Ye Old Cheshire Cheese".  It is a fun place to see.  It was originally built in the 12th century and was used my monks.  A pub was built somewhere around 1500 but was destroyed in the great fire of London.  It was rebuilt in 1667 and is the same to this day.  The pub starts at ground level and has 3 floors up and 3 floors down.  The ceilings in the pub are around 5 feet in some points and it is a fun place to see.  On top of that, the pints there are about 2 pounds which is incredibly cheap.  Headed home at 11, not by choice but because the pub closed, and hung out in the flat.

Today we got up and headed to the grocery store because we were completely out of food.  After that I have been doing laundry all day.  There is only 2 machines for the whole flat, I would guess 150 kids.  It has been a long weekend.  Tonight we have church.

Hope you enjoyed

Cheers

Jimmy

Cambridge

Where to begin? We got up this morning and head up the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross where we met our directors.  We hoped on an over ground train that headed to Cambridge from central London. It was about a 45 minute ride and we went super fast. 

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We arrived in Cambridge and had a long walk to the actual University.  Back in the day, they put the railroad station far away from campus so that the kids couldn't go down to London on the weekends to party.  Anyways, we arrived to campus, but it is not what you think it would look like at all.  The best way to describe the University is a umbrella with a bunch of colleges under the umbrella.  In fact, there are now 31 colleges that fall under the University umbrella.  It is different than the U of M or Wisconsin in that every college at Cambridge teaches all sorts of subjects.  There is no specific college for law or medicine or math, very interesting.  The colleges are integrated all throughout the town.  There isn't like a set campus, just random colleges all throughout.  Anyways, we went on our tour with our guide Mary where we walked through the town looking at a bunch of colleges and seeing the chapel.  After our tour we went to find where Mrs. Roberts attended Cambridge and found some markets to walk around in.  We stopped at the famous pub called The Eagle.  It is said that James Watson discovered the double helix DNA structure.   Than a bunch of us, lead by me, went to the Zoology Museum.  This museum has so much to offer and see it was so interesting.  I loved it, others didn't like it as much.  After this, we stopped by the chapel where we went to the evening service.  There is a school right across the river Cam that breads children to sing.  They apply to get in at age 7 and they come sing in the chapel most nights.  It was a great service with readings and prayers. We made the trek back to the train station and headed home.  Here are some pictures of the trip.

Great Chapel from the north.

Entrance to the King's College which also provides entrance to the Chapel.

Ceiling in the Chapel.

Original stain glass from 1500's.  Each panel tells a story of Jesus.  Starting in the back and working its way around the Chapel to his death.

View of the front of the church.

View of Kings Cross courtyard.  

Building where the electron was discovered.

Skeleton of a Sea Turtle.

Rhino.

Lion

 Off to Wales tomorrow morning.  Up in 6 hours!

Cheers

Jimmy

Cirque du Soleil

Today we had class in the morning and than came back and made lunch.  After that, we went to the show Cirque du Soleil.  The show was about a mile north of our apartment on Queensgate at Royal Albert Hall.  It is right by the Imperial College.  We went with everyone from our group including Scott and Shirley, our directors.  The show was amazing, simply stunning.  First of all, the Royal Albert Hall is about the nicest and most advanced venue for the show and secondly, the acts of the show were breathe taking. The acts ranged from olympic rings to unicycles to acrobats to singers.  There were some very impressive acts that words can't explain.  They didn't allow pictures to be taken but, I took a couple but they didn't really turn out because it was incredibly dark.

View of one side of the Hall.

Our view of the stage.  The turtle looking shell was a giant jungle gym with olympic "uneven bars" where they fly back and forth on and swing like monkeys.  The floor was a giant trampoline so they were jumping all over the thing.

The ceiling of the Hall.  Apparently these are used to acoustics.  It prevents echos.

A view down the "nose bleed" seats where we sat.  Turned out they were great seats.

Tomorrow we are off to Cambridge which will be fun and interesting to see.

Cheers

Jimmy

Jan. 25th and 26th

On Tuesday we don't have any class so that is usually the day we go and explore the city of London.  So, yesterday we went off to Oxford Street which is a huge tourist attraction of shopping.  We took the Piccadilly Line to Green Park and then transferred and headed north to Bond Street.  As soon as we got off we saw tens of thousands of people walking up and down the street.  This street has the really nice stores that are expensive but the reason there were so many people is that there are a lot of reasonable stores.  It is hard to find any sort of clothes that are reasonable here and even when we did...well...lets just say the XL size here is a LOT different  than the XL in the US.  I didn't buy anything for obvious reasons.
Last night we went out for a girls birthday to a new pub around here.  It was pretty fun and I tried a new beer.  It was called Kozel, imported from Czech Republic.  Very good.
Today we had class, but it was a tour of the east side of London over by Embankment and Covent Gardens.  It was a tour based on Charles Dickens novels that relate to London, but it was still fun to see.  Tonight we have our theater class, but don't get to see a play, which is very rare.  This weekend is going to be very busy.  On Friday we head to Cambridge and than on Saturday we go to Wales.  Good updates will be coming.

Cheers

Jimmy

Back to the school work

Sunday we woke up and went to the grocery store (seems to be a re-occuring theme).  We have to walk about 1 mile to get to the grocery store that has the good prices, otherwise you pay way to much.  So, it was about a 2 hour trip.  Got back, made some good lunch and than started some homework.  Reading, reading, and more reading.
After our homework, we headed over to watch the Bears and Packers game at a local pub that shows the games.  Surprisingly, there was a pretty good turn out to watch the game.  There was actually a girl wearing an Aaron Rodgers jersey. We enjoyed a couple of good pints and finally some American football.  The pub didn't really care about American football.  At the climax of the game(right when the Bears were kind of mounting a comeback) they rang the bell for everyone to leave.  Everyone looked up as if they were crazy, but they were not joking by any means.  So, we ran home and tried to catch the end of the game on the internet.
Today had class all day. Monday is a day that we don't really have time to get out and do much because it is our longest day of classes.  Tonight we booked our trip for spring break.  A bunch of our group is flying to Barcelona on Thursday the 24th of February.  It costs us 3 GBP(Great Britain Pounds) which is about $5!!! This is exciting because I am going to meet up with my cousin Louie who is staying in Barcelona for the semester.  Should be very fun.  We are there for 4 days with Flash Lash and then get on a flight headed for Rome.  There are some people that are not going to Barcelona from our group in London and we will meet up with them in Rome.  We will be there for 4 days and then head back to London.  Should be a fun trip.

Cheers

Jimmy

Cantebury Cathedral and Dover Castle

Today was a day full of events that amused me beyond belief and I hope that I can try and portray that to you in some way, shape or form.  I think the best way to do that is to just list a ton of pictures and give a little caption for each because words can't describe the history that we saw today.  So, I will tell you what we did, and than give a huge list of pictures and say something interesting about each one.  It will take a long time to get through for both me and you, but I think this will be the best way to try and express the history I saw to you.
We were up early and got on the coach where we had just under two hours until we hit the city of Cantebury which is southeast of us if you look on the map.  We arrived and had a short while to look around the town before we went to the Cathedral there.  It is the major tourist attraction in the city, which otherwise wouldn't draw a huge crowd.  Anyways, we toured that and it was a fantastic site.  Something I would have never seen if it wasn't for my director bringing us here for a day trip.  The pictures later will show you what I mean when I saw it was fantastic.  After the tour we had a short amount of time to spend in the city before we got back on the coach and headed even more southeast until we hit the coast and the city of Dover.  It is a famous port city dating back until around 100 AD.  It is still very popular today.  In Dover, there is a huge Castle, which is also famous dating back almost as far as the port city.  Again, the pictures will do more justice than my words can explain.  So, here we go with the pictures, starting in Cantebury and ending at the Dover Castle.

This is the entrance to the Cathedral.  You have to walk through this in order to see the Cathedral.  It was built about the same time as the majority of the Cathedral.  Very intricate detail on this.  Very similar to the Cathedral itself.

Statues of influential people that are built right into the side of the Cathedral.  It must have taken a long time to do each one.  This is a small section and it lines the majority of the outside of the Cathedral. 

View from the very back of the Cathedral.  Looking forward, estimation of the length is 150 yards.  It is huge to say the least. This is the "less holy" section of the Cathedral known as the "Nave".

Huge stain glass window that dates back 800 years.  One of only a few original that still stand today.  It is the whole back wall of the church if you are inside.

This "screen" as they call it separates the "less holy" part of the church from the "more holy" part.  The farther west you were in the church, the less holy you were.  The farther east you went, the closer to the altar you got.   

Place of Thomas Beckets death.  This statue is as close to the exact place he died as experts can imagine.  

View of the "more holy" part known as the Quire.  I am standing on the farthest west part of the Quire and at the end of the picture lays the Altar.

The altar with the place of Thomas Beckets place of burial behind it.  As the most influential character in the Church, he was buried in the far east.  

The farthest east part of the church.  If you look close, there is a single candle burning in the middle of the open area.  That is a memorial for Thomas Becket.  Beyond that is the Quire or "holy part".

The Altar.  Enough said.

Front view of the Cathedral.

Dover Castle

Our group entering the Castle.  

View over the city of Dover and the English Channel.  It was an amazing view from here, but even better in the Castle.

Secret War tunnels I illegally took a picture of.  We got a tour of these.  It was 7 stories under ground, built into the side of the hill.  It was injured soldiers basically, with some barracks.  There were multiple layers of tunnels.  We only got to see the one channel of tunnels.  It was no more than 7 feet tall and at some points less than 6.  No cameras could be used down here, so this is the best I could get.

From the look out tour over the English Channel.  This is a place flying over the channel....

Just kidding, it was a picture of a plane! The window in this picture had examples of what the look out tour would really see during WWII and D-Day.

View from on top of the look our tour.  Before we were enclosed, now we are on top.  The wind up here was over 50 mph and it was freezing cold.  On a clear day, you can see France from this spot.  

Original light house built before any of the Castle was.  Some time around the time of Christ it was built.  The church next to it was first started in 100AD and completed shortly after by the Romans.  They were ordered to spread the Roman empire and it was built a long time ago.

View from inside the Church toward the altar.  It was blocked off so I could go see the altar.  Neat little church for being 2000 years old.

Great Tower in the Castle.  This picture does not do it justice.  It is so big and so cool with so much to see inside.

View of what would have been the kitchen.  Very interesting to see the kind of stuff they used back then.

They even drank back than!!!

View of the church and light house from the top of the Great Tower.  Gives you an idea on how big the Great Tower is if those buildings look tiny.

Court yard on top of the Great Tower.  In the distance it over looks the city of Dover.

Flag flying high and free at the highest point of the Castle.

View of the descent downwards to war tunnels, not to be mistaken of the secret war tunnels I mentioned earlier.  

Well room.  This is where be drew their water from the well the Castle was built on top of.  We dropped a penny down it and timed it.  It took just under 9 seconds.  We estimated it to be just over 300 feet to the bottom.

Old school catapult that was used to shoot out at the channel.  

As always, I have plenty of more pictures from both sites. Let me know somehow if you want to see any more.  I took just shy of 200 today.  

Tonight, briefly, we went to Tottem Court Road.  Piccadilly line to Leicester Square and transferred to the Northern for one stop.  We went out to try and find a college pub or place, but all we found was a huge selection of pubs with loads of English men that love to talk to Americans.  Fun night.  Came home kind of early.  

Time for some sleep.

Cheers

Jimmy