Ok, yay!! So my internet was behaving long enough for me to actually put some pictures up on here, yay! So here is the rest of my update from this last weekend.
Mine and Larissa's plane left on Thursday night around ten, so we took our stuff with us to work so we could meet up when we got off and then head straight to the airport. We landed in London at about midnight and then met our friends and drove to Cambridge where we were staying which was about an hour's drive away.
Our friends were all working on Friday so Larissa and I just decided to go into London and do all of the touristy thing. That is when we saw Platform 9 3/4, first thing in the morning. Here are some more pictures from King's Cross.
This is basically it. A wall right next to Platform 9, labeled with a Platform 9 3/4 sign. There is a cart that looks like it is going into the wall like it would if you were trying to get onto the Hogwarts express. So nothing super fancy....but I still loved it. And honestly, what more is there to do?! Harry Potter is still fictional....unfortunately :(
This is me pushing the cart into the wall!! Really nerdy, but whatever! I'm a nerd and I was excited that I was finally at Platform 9 3/4!
Nothing too much, but I still loved it. So after we had our fill of goofing around, Larissa and I made our way to the "tube" (underground subway) and took a train down to Westminster so we were able to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace at 11:30. Luckily we got there early enough to get some pretty good spots around the palace fence - that place was super crowded!!
This is a picture of a guard standing at his post outside the castle before the actual changing of the guard happened.
Unfortunately the Queen wasn't there this weekend...because the flag was flying. And there were only two guards outside the castle - if the Queen was there, there would have been no flag flying and there would have been four guards outside instead of just two.
So after about two hours of standing there and waiting for it to start, it finally did! It was basically a lot of ceremonial marching and band playing and more marching back and forth. It was really great to witness in person though, so I'm really glad that we were able to get the chance to see it.
We had some really great spots by the fence so we were able to get some really great pictures through the fence. See!! Look at that! So close!!
After the changing of the guards, Larissa and I walked down to go and see Big Ben and all of the cool historical buildings around there. That was really interesting to go and see. Because it's basically this historical district with amazing buildings that have been up for ages.
We could see Big Ben from the Queen's Gallery (which is right next to the palace) and so Larissa and I just walked down there to get a better look at the famous clock tower. It was really really gorgeous. And it's really great to see these things in real life...people always know what they are and that they exist, but it never really felt like they were real, you know? So being able to actually witness these famous buildings was really something else...and I'm so lucky I was able to do it. Yea, my trip to London was a little more expensive than I wanted it to be, but I am SO glad I was able to have the chance to go and see all of these historical landmarks. And London/UK is just so rich in history it's almost surreal to be standing in the city that has been around for hundreds of years. Very surreal.
Larissa and I then walked across the Westminster bridge and took some pictures of the view around the Thames. Then we walked to the other side and took some pictures looking back at Big Ben on the other side of the Thames. Again, really really gorgeous. And I actually saw all of this stuff! I have officially been to the place that I have learned about it every single one of my history classes throughout the years! It IS real!!
After spending some time walking around the city and taking time to look at everything, we decided to head to the British museum. Another surreal experience, definitely! That place is HUGE. H. U. G. E, HUGE. And it is just FILLED with artifacts from everywhere. It's hard to even begin to comprehend that this stuff is still around for us to look at, and that a lot of it is in the possession of the British (which obviously makes sense).
So the museum has different areas for each country, but we only had about three hours in that behemoth of a place, so we had to pick and choose where we wanted to go. So we went to go see Mesopotamia and ancient Middle Eastern time, Ancient Greece and Rome and Ancient Egypt. My favorite areas were Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt. In Ancient Greece they had all kinds of things...but my favorite was the head of Socrates!
It took us forever to find him. And I was going to be SO angry if the British museum didn't have a statue of his head. I mean, where else would a statue of Socrates be?! In Greece, yea, but they literally had everything else! There was no way that they wouldn't have had his head on display. So thank goodness for that!
They also had a bunch of vases from Ancient Greece like this one.
This vase depicts the Judgement of Paris from the Trojan War. I really liked these because I love Ancient Greece history and Greek gods and all that kind of stuff. But these kinds of vases also remind me of one of my favorite Disney movies of all time...Hercules! The singing muses from that movie are all portraits on these kinds vases, and I really really like the music in that movie, so I was pretty excited to see those! Really cool!
We also saw the Rosetta stone and a bunch of other cool statues, and just about everything you can imagine. They also had hieroglyphics from Ancient Egypt, and a LOT of mummies. And a bunch of them were out of their sarcophaguses. There was this one mummy, whose bandages were so intricately bound around him, that you could distinguish each individual finger and toe - all perfectly preserved! And some of them had been x-rayed and a picture was on the glass case, so it was really cool to see what was actually "inside" the bandages.
So we made it back to Cambridge around ten that night, and then the next day we all went to the horse races in Newmarket. And that was pretty cool. I definitely haven't done anything like that, so it was cool to participate in something like in England. The place had a dress code, and they wouldn't let you into the Premier Enclosure unless you looked nice (no jeans or collarless shirts, stuff like that). And there were a bunch of pictures online of women wearing crazy hats! It was awesome. Larissa and I wanted to go shopping and get a dress and hat for the occasion but we ran out of time :( But oh well, it was still fun even if we weren't wearing crazy big hats! We couldn't get into the Premier Enclosure anyway though, because the boys were stupid enough to wear jeans!! So we couldn't even have gotten in had we been wearing big hats.
It's funny, because the only horse race I have ever been to was in Wyoming at a rodeo, and that was Indian Horse Racing - which is ENTIRELY different than the kind of horse racing that they do in England (believe it or not).
This track was just a straight shot, and the horses just....raced (weird, right?!). Larissa and the boys bet on a couple of horses, but none of them won. One of them did place though (fourth place, but nonetheless).
Because we couldn't get into the Premier Enclosure we didn't have the best spots...although we were right next to the finish, which is what this picture is; the last race of the day.So overall, a really cool experience. If I ever get the chance to go again, I am going to get a really awesome outfit to wear! We'll see if that ever happens!
After the horse races on Saturday afternoon all of us went to a pub for dinner and some drinks, and then we had to get up entirely too early to catch our flight back to Dublin. I really enjoyed London though. The city was A LOT different than Dublin - very busy, pushy people who are all in a hurry, and a lot bigger, but it was fun to visit. And then next time I go, the first thing I am doing is booking a Harry Potter tour in a black cab. Yes. That's the plan.
Whew! That took forever to finish. Sorry for the delay...the internet at the apartment complex is just horrific because everyone gets on right after they come home from work and then the internet is just bogged down from everyone on it.
But I need to hit the hay...I got a long day of work and researching ahead of me tomorrow! But I'll post a good update tomorrow about Dublin shenanigans okie dokie?!
Until then.
;)
