Whew! What a morning. Don't try to install a wireless router without being properly caffinated by your morning coffee. That's all I'm gonna say.
Scott and I have done so much since our last post! Where to begin? ...at the beginning I suppose:
Two weekends ago Scott and I made our first trek to London. What a city! We took the rail into Paddington Station where we stepped onto the Underground. Gosh. What a maze it is. You have to go up, then down, then turn left and right then do the hokey pokey just to get to the next parallel platform. So confusing. Anyways... We made it to The City which is the financial district or old London juuuust fine. We emerged from underground to find we were right below The Monument which is the memorial to the great fire of London that ravaged the city back in 1666. It was under scaffolding, ofcourse. So it looks rather unimpressive in the photos. Scott informed me that if you were to lay The Monument on its side from where it now stands, that its top would touch the place where the fire first broke out (some bakery). Kinda neat. I guess he's read the guidebooks.
Our first real stop of the day was at The Tower of London. Yay! It has been my absolute favorite thing we've done so far. So interesting and steeped in history. We took a tour led by a Yeoman Warder (Beefeater), Mitch and he helped to truly bring our visit to life. What a kook he was. Very fun. His wife is a guard for the Crown Jewels there too. We happened to have arrived in London on the day that the Queen's birthday celebtation is held. So out of respect, the Beefeaters were wearing their special uniforms that they only wear twice a year. And today they were only wearing them before noon, so what luck that we actually caught them! The special uniforms they were wearing were red and gold. We were informed that the gold piping and trim on them was, in fact, REAL GOLD! And very heavy. I think that each of those uniforms cost $50,000! Yikes! Their everyday red and navy uniforms cost about $2,000 each in comparison. At the tower we saw Henry VIII's obscene armor, the execution block and axe, the ravens, the royal china collections, all the crown jewels, including all the crowns and scepters, and the 530 carat Star of Africa! We also saw some tourists almost get run over by marching royal soldiers. It was actually pretty funny. The soldiers had to yell at them. I have a video of it I hope to upload in the future.
At one o'clock we saw a 62 gun salute over the river Thames in honor of the Queen. They have had all ceremonial gun salutes in London at this location on the Tower wharf since 1707. It was really more of a cannon salute actually, with 3 cannons taking turns firing. Lots of pomp and circumstance. We watched all this from inside the Tower of London. Pretty cool. And loud.
Next, Scott and I went up in the Tower Bridge. The views were amazing and we could see the London Eye, the spires of Parliment, St. Paul's Cathedreal, the Gherkin, and all the London cranes. Next we went down into the engine room which was Scott's favorite part of the day, I think. Lots of gears and machine looking things. He loooooved it.
Then it was off the the British Museum where we saw, among other things, the Rosetta Stone, a part of the Sphinx's beard, and the Elgin Marbles. It was AWESOME. I could spend a week there and still not see everything. I hope to go back soon!
Then we got lost. I'm not really sure how it happened, as I don't think anyone ever really plans on getting lost. We ended up over in Soho with all of the hopelessly trendy cool kids. I felt like I'd just stepped out of a Laura Ashley cataloge and onto the center stage at a punk show. Kinda unnerving. But we soon found an indian restraunt to duck into, refuel, and regroup. (And look at our map). Ah, what wonders a full belly does for one's map reading abilities! After dinner we were easily able to locate the nearest Underground line, and were soon on our way home for the day. Needless to say, exhaustion ensured that we both slept very well that night. : )
Last weekend we went to Oxford. It was really cold and rainy when we left in the morning, but cleared up shortly after noon. We took a walking tour of Exeter College and the center of the University. We saw the Radcliffe camera, Christopher Wren's sundial, Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Shop" Edmund Halley's rooftop observatory, The spot where Bill Clinton did not inhale, and Christ Church where Harry Potter was filmed. I only mention Harry Potter because there were sooooo many "Harry Potter" tours of the University! It was really quite silly.
I think we're headed to Bath this weekend.
Last Sunday we attended our first Church of England service at St. John's just down the road. It's a pretty good size flint exterior church that was built in 1888. It has spectacularly intricate stained glass windows, beautiful wood floors and has lots of peaked stone arches throughout the nave. There were only about 35 people in attendance and Scott and I were by far the youngest ones there. I really think the next youngest person was a gentleman who we met after the service. He will be retiring later this year!
The sermon, we were informed at the start, was recycled from a wedding ceremony that the priest had preformed some years earlier. It was based on Dr. Who. No, seriously, it really was. I totally didn't get it. Something about Dr. Who encountering strange and marvelous alien creatures on his voyages, being similar to men and women being strange and marvelous alien creatures to each other, being similar to us coming to church to encounter the strange and marvelous...aliens? Who knows!? Silly Anglicans.
After service we were invited to have tea and biscuits with the congregation. We were not allowed to serve ourselves, as there was a little lady who let us know that this was her duty. Tea was served in delicate little bone china teacups with matching saucers and with a tray of assorted biscuits on the side. So Scott and I stood around drinking our tea and making polite conversation in the nave before departing the church after service. It was simply adorable and so very quaint. I hope to do it again next week! Maybe the next sermon will be more...usable?
Okay well I've tried to upload more pictutes here, and all it's letting me do is upload the pittiful Monument scaffolding photo. I'll try again next time. You'll just have to use your imaginations for now. I intend to start a Flickr account. That will probably work better.
Love you all!
Barbara
