Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ castle!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Okay, so I recognize that the subject of this blog doesn’t make sense…but in visiting Dover today I kept thinking of that scene from My Fair Lady. Awesome.

Dover is beautiful! The castle/keep is ginormous and there are all these underground tunnels that were used in WWII and some from medieval times and stuff. Castles are boss. They say that on a clear day you can see forever…or at least to France. Unfortunately it wasn’t clear enough to see all the way to France. But it was still beautiful. I have to admit though, I’m getting a bit museum-ed out. It’s just so much information to absorb all at once. Eek.

In the museum at Dover, however, we did find some gems. Jess told me to come look at this little room behind glass. I looked in, around a corner, and there was this creepy Indian guy looking back at me! It was a wax figure, naturally, but it scared me so bad I screamed (see picture). And then, in the next room, we found this weird frightened little wax boy…not totally sure what he was there for, but there he was. It was entertaining to say the least.

After Dover we traveled to Canterbury to see St. Augustine’s Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral. The Abbey is just ruins now, but there was plenty of opportunity for climbing and photos. When climbing on one of the pillars I accidentally dislodged a rock…I felt really bad so I stopped climbing…and posed as a Greek statue instead! We pretended to sacrifice Jess on an altar, and I learned that Anglo-Saxon kings have sweet names, like Ethelbart and Dragostonic and stuff like that. Awesome.

Canterbury Cathedral is the place where Sir Thomas Becket was killed by knights of Henry II. We kinda loudly re-inacted his martyrdom…in the cathedral, on the very spot. Let me tell you, it was epic. But afterwards one of our fellow students chastised us and now I feel kinda bad. The things we’ll do for art. That video should be up on facebook soon too. We were kinda in an irreverent mood today, like almost rebelliously irreverent…I don’t know quite what it was. Maybe we’ve seen too many ruins and castles and cathedrals and it all just was too much – we exploded! In fact, half the time we were trying to find someone to ask if there was a Primark in town. There wasn’t…but we did eventually find a Waterstones (bookstore) where I purchased Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone! Woo! I may eventually have to get them all from here. But the first one is enough for now. I’ll just have to make it back to London 6 more times J

We ate dinner at a pub around the corner from the Centre tonight – such a fun place! And such great food! I seriously loved it. And it was relatively cheap for a pub too, which made it even better. I would like to go back. So tasty. I’m going to miss pubs when I’m back in the states. You can find them everywhere here, and they always have the best food and chips (fries, for you Americans).

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