War and Peace

As you may probably be able to tell, my creativity for blog title posts has run low. Alas.

To give you an idea with where I am in the semester, this coming week is the last week of classes for the semester. On Friday, we begin a three-week spring break, and then a month of exams. Very exciting! Friday Mom arrives, and so will begin my three week travel bonanza! Many adventures await, of which I will do my best to record and update here. But for now, these last two weeks have been nothing to sneeze at, so I will begin here.

221B: the real edition!

Moffattt

On Wednesday (March 21st, for the sake of chronological orientation), Emily, Kristen, Devyn, and I went to see 221B Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes! There was a lovely museum (that we didn't go in), a shop filled with all the Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia you could ever desire (we did go in there, and I purchased a bookmark and a post card - alas, my dreams of getting a deerstalker hat were crushed by the £25-£40 price), and Mrs. Hudson's Old English Restaurant. Much to my amusement, on the door between these two establishments was a little plaque saying "Moffat Associates - Catalysts for Change." While I'm sure this was a perfectly legitimate establishment, it amused me that the name of one of the two infamous writers of the recent BBC series Sherlock (a fantastic modern adaption of Sherlock Holmes) was on the door. (And, the fangirl in me - who is very much familiar with how much Moffat enjoys messing with his viewers - imagines that he did it on purpose, as unlikely as it is.)

221B: the Sherlock edition!

Then we went to the site of the 221B door for the BBC Sherlock series, which was kind of awesome and surreal. Too bad there's no more filming until 2013...otherwise I'd totally stake it out to find Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. What?

Then we quickly perused the Beatles store next door, and headed to Brick Lane for some yummy beigels (pronounced bagel, of course...don't ask me why it's spelled differently, just know that they are delicious).

Thursday, we enjoyed some good ol' American Chipolte (what) and then went to the premiere of the Hunger Games! Truly a superb movie - I highly, highly recommend it. Though I would say, I recommend the books even more. But as far as book to movie adaptations go, I don't think I've ever been more satisfied. I mean, obviously there were some things I wished were changed, but overall I was extremely satisfied. And Jennifer Lawrence is a goddess. Just so you know.

Then, on Friday, Emily and I commenced the "war" part of my week - we got tickets to go to the Churchill War Rooms. Located just off Whitehall, the Cabinet War Rooms were where Churchill pretty much fought World War II, especially during the time of the blitz. They are underground, fortified rooms, abandoned as soon as the war ended and re-opened to the public a few decades later. Except for the added information plaques/statues of people hanging around, the rooms are almost exactly as they were left, preserved because no one entered them between when they closed and were re-opened.

Map in the aptly named Map Room!

The rooms themselves were really very interesting; we saw the Cabinet Room, where most important meetings were held, the Map Room, which was manned 24/7, the various small bedrooms/dining rooms for the officers and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill (who got separate rooms, Mrs. Churchill's being extremely effeminate - but most of the time they slept at 10 Downing). Apparently, when they first re-opened the Map Room, they found in one of the desks someone's stash of sugar (that they had saved up because of the shortage), hidden carefully in a drawer. They also had showing a cross-section of the Slab up at the ceiling, which was this five foot thick slab of concrete that they installed during the Blitz to increase the security of the building. It was kind of awesome.

One of my favorite things was a door disguised to look like a bathroom, but with the lock always "engaged" (as though someone were in it). Rumors said that the bathroom held the only flushing toilet in the bunker (as the rest did something with chemicals, I think? Well they didn't flush, anyway), and was reserved for the Prime Minister. In actuality, it was the room from which Churchill could make direct and encrypted calls to the President (very much in secret) whenever he needed to. How clever!

In the IWM

From the War Rooms we headed south of the river to go to the Imperial War Museum, an impressive collection of all sorts of war memorabilia (the first foyer-type room you go into is stuffed full of tanks, jeeps, cannons, and all sorts of airplanes hanging from the lofty ceiling - very awe-inspiring, to be sure). We weren't able to see the whole museum (as it is ginormous) but we saw the World War I and II exhibits (including the Trench Experience, which took you through these dark, winding trenches to simulate the experience), the modern war exhibits (any war or conflict since 1945, which was very interesting, as Britain has gotten into some fights that the US wasn't a part of that I wasn't aware of - the Falklands War against Argentina, for example) so that was informative. We also got the opportunity to go into a very large and very well-done Holocaust exhibit, which chronicled everything from the Nazi rise to power to the end of the war, and brought in many sociopolitical aspects of the Holocaust not usually touched upon in the exhibits (that usually focus only on the shock factor of the victims and the camps - which, of course, this had as well, but it was much more multi-faceted than just that, which made it even more fascinating and made much more of an impact). I highly recommend a visit to the IWM, even if you only have time to do the bare bones like we did.

The keep

So that was Friday!

Saturday, Kristen and I were up nice and early to catch a coach to Cardiff. We spent the day there, and what a beautiful day it was! We spent some time exploring Cardiff Castle, an impressive structure with ties to many parts of history. In the center was the old Norman Keep, the oldest section. All that remained of it was the outside wall and stairs up to the top, but it was still very cool. We walked around the battlements and went into the war tunnels (since every structure seems to have them...) which were pretty cool. Then we went into the Victorian-era manor, which was incredibly elaborate in a style that is pretty uncharacteristic of the Victorian era, to be honest; apparently it was early Gothic? Some of it seemed to have an Arabic influence, though...but one way or another it was impressive. Unfortunately, the card on my camera (a 4 GB) decided it would be more fun to only record forty pictures instead the usual 1800 or so, so I have regretfully very few pictures of this trip. Fortunately, the problem is fixed!

In the Manor

Millenium Center

From Cardiff Castle we then walked (about a half an hour or so) to the bay area, where the Millenium Center is located. Of course, this was the weekend of the Doctor Who Convention, so we were surrounded by Dalek balloons and people dressed as the Doctor, and they were playing the music and people all around us had the Convention bags and such, and it was torture. But tickets were something like $200 a pop, so...oh well. But the bay area was definitely very nice! Kind of a tourist-y, vacation sort of vibe, which fit well with the nice day. We got some lunch and ate it looking out at the bay (and trying our best to soak in as much Vitamin D as possible! We wandered around the bay area for a bit (found the BBC studios!), got some ice cream, and lay in the grass for a while. Very relaxing, very nice! Then we trekked back up to the center of the city and walked around the high streets (shopping/restaurant areas) and to the bus!

BBC Studios

The bus took us to Bristol, where we were picked up by simply the loveliest people ever - Kristen's family friends, Naomi and Jeremy. They took us back to their house in this little village called Stone, and Naomi served us the most British meal she could think of - cottage pie with leeks, and (of course) a lovely cuppa! It was absolutely delicious.

Their church

Then, the next day, we were treated to an equally delicious breakfast of fruit, toast, and cereal, and Naomi and I tried characteristic foods of each other's cultures. That is, I tried Marmite, and I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For those who have never experienced Marmite, it's pretty much just a yeast extract. It has a very odd taste, and apparently it's famous for either being absolutely loved (usually by those who have eaten it their whole lives) or completely despised (usually by those who haven't). Apparently I broke the rules when I was pretty much unaffected by it - I didn't mind it so much, it was fine, but I'm not sure if I'd look out for it in a grocery store or anything. Very ambivalent. Naomi was very excited, and proceeded to tell everyone we met.

Bell ropes - the fuzzy bit is the part pulled second.

We then went with Jeremy to see him ring the bells at his church. In England (pretty exclusively so, apparently, according to Naomi and Jeremy) bell-ringing is something of an art, and something that people do very much by hand. It was absolutely fascinating. There were (if I'm remembering right) six bells, rung in turns by Jeremy, the pastor, two middle-aged men, two middle-aged women, a young girl (probably around 13 or 14) and a boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old. They stood in a circle, and the first person (the treble bell, I think? I could be remembering totally wrong) would usually start. Then, they would ring in a pattern, until someone called out another pattern (something like "4, 4, 5" or "3 to 2") and they'd all smoothly switch to whatever the person called out. Jeremy tried explaining some of the physics of it to me - the bell moves all 360º, and are moved by a wheel (that's what the rope is attached to). When you pull the rope down initially (the handstroke), the bell winds on the rope, going up to the balance, and then they pull a different part of the rope (the tail), this is the backstroke, which brings the bell back down. That is an extremely over-simplified version, but rest assured it was very cool and more complicated than I could understand.

At the deer park

Then after the bell-ringing, we went on a walk through a deer park, which gave us fantastic views of the surrounding area (including the castle of the area, which is still resided in by the family! How great would it be to live in a castle?). Unfortunately, Naomi and Jeremy told me that hedgehogs are generally nocturnal, and very, very shy, so unlikely to be found when walking around in the daytime. They did tell me a story about how one summer Jeremy was cleaning out the backyard and lifted up some compost, to find a nest of baby hedgehogs! Worried that he'd disturbed them he put everything back, but later that day when they were out in the yard, they saw a mommy hedgehog carrying the babies (one by one) across the yard to another nest. Adorable. Naomi also (very thoughtfully) found me an article about hedgehogs, which I will bring home and give to Emma. Know that I did try!

After our walk, we were treated to a lovely tea at the house of some more people Kristen used to know - they, too, were absolutely the sweetest people. It was an older woman, Judy, and her husband (the pastor, whose name I have forgotten), their son (who is friends with Naomi and Jeremy's sons, who were - in turn - friends with Kristen and her brother, which is how they all know each other, for those of you who may be curious). Also there were Judy's brother (celebrating his 70th birthday!) and his wife, who live in Canada. They were all very interested in Kristen and my studies, and in our life in the United States. I very much do hope to see them all again, though I don't know how likely it will be.

Kristen, Naomi, Jeremy!

Naomi treated Kristen and I to yet another delicious (and huge) meal - a lunch of salad, delicious breads, salami and ham, many different cheeses, and tomato with mozzarella, with a glass of wine. Then Naomi and Jeremy took Kristen and I back to Bristol to catch our bus back to London! I was sad to leave, but we'll be seeing Naomi again when she comes to London to go shopping with us!

Now, to recap this week! (Almost done, I promise!)

Ice bar!

On Monday, ISA took us to the musical We Will Rock You, a Queen musical which was not what I expected. It was unfortunately not very good (despite its long run time and standing ovation at the end). Of course, the songs were good (can't go wrong with Queen, and the singers were extremely talented) but the plot was threadbare at best, and very preachy (basically the whole thing is set in a future where all music is made electronically and nobody has any originality or emotion because of the internet, controlled by the - of course - Killer Queen). You got the message very early on, and it continued to be pounded in your head throughout, accompanied by an attempt at meta-theatricality that came off very cheesy and ill-contrived. Oh well. At least we got to listen to Queen, right? Can't complain much! (But I wouldn't recommend it, despite how appealing a Queen musical sounds...)

Then on Wednesday, we went to the Icebar! It is pretty much as it sounds - a bar made entirely out of ice, kept at -5º C. You have to wear these fantastic blue parka things (gloves attached), and you drink out of ice glasses, and the ice is imported from Sweden! This is something I definitely recommend - despite its relatively high price.

And here I am! Looking forward to a weekend of lots of studying and writing, as I have a goal to get everything (all my essays and such) due next week done by Sunday night. We'll see how it goes...I have high hopes!

Thanks, as always, for reading...sorry for the rambling length of this one, but not so sorry that the next post will be any different. :)

Cheers! <3

Bonus photo - fun in parkas!

March Madness

First, a sincere apology for the lag between posts; the last one was almost a month ago! Terrible.

Second, a warning - this is going to be a long one.

Well, where to begin? Where we last left off, I had just returned from Paris, and was eagerly awaiting the arrival of all my visitors. Well, all of them have come and gone, and I've had some grand adventures in between. So let's get going!

The innermost part of Windsor Castle

On Saturday (March 3rd) ISA took us to Windsor Castle. Windsor is the largest inhabited castle in the world, and the Queen's favored residence (over Buckingham Palace). So it goes without saying that the castle was very, very large, and our self-guided (relatively unhelpful) audio tour didn't even show us half of it. But we were able to walk around a bit, and toured the State Apartments. In the first room was this humongous doll house, which displayed an incredibly lush and detailed home. It was originally made for Queen Mary, and was really really impressive. Apparently, artists and designers from back in the day donated little miniatures of their paintings/clothing etc. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but I included a picture found from a quick search on Google.

From there we moved into a room commemorating 60 years of photographing the Queen, who is just the cutest woman in the world. Then we moved into the next room and saw an incredible amount of sets of china (my favorite being the one with all the pieces shaped like pineapples). Then the tour took us into the rest of the state room, which were all very lavishly decorated and featured various works of art by various noteworthy artists. We even got to see some of the rooms where the Queen does her entertaining! Very cool.

St. George's Chapel

Then it was back outside and into the breathtaking St. George's Chapel, where the Royal Family celebrates Easter every year. It is also where the Queen Mother and King George VI (the current Queen's father) are buried in a chapel (along with Princess Margaret). A great number of royalty are buried here as well (including Henry VIII and his third of six wives, Jane Seymour), and the church itself is yet another breathtaking example of that famous Gothic architecture. As many churches as I see with that style, they'll never become any less impressive, I think.

From there we popped over to Eton College for a second, though we couldn't go in. Eton is one of the most prestigious secondary schools in the world, and costs a hefty amount to attend. It was founded all the way back in the 1400s, and the boys all have to wear tailcoats and waistcoats as their uniform!

Rosetta Stone

The next day (Sunday, March 4th) I was up early to go get Diane from Heathrow! We headed back into London, dropped off her luggage in my room, and I dragged her shopping up and down Oxford Street in an attempt to keep her awake (though she kept nodding off on the tube...not that I could blame her!) We made a delicious dinner of pasta and she passed out early (around 7) and slept all the way until I got back from class at 12:30 on Monday! But I got her awake and we went sightseeing at all the major places (Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey Buckingham Palace...etc) and Harrods, and then to a pub! You'll have to ask Diane how she thought it went, but I certainly enjoyed being the tour guide.

Then Tuesday we went to Abbey Road and were tourists, then to Covent Garden to look around that area and stare at some wonderful clothing items so far out of our price range it was depressing, and then to the British Museum! Afterwards we went to get Indian at Aladin's, which was delicious as usual!

At the BBC

On Wednesday we were invited to go to Esher to spend some time with the ever-hospitable and lovely Mount family. I dropped Di off at Waterloo to get her there around noon, then went back to my room and did some laundry (ho-hum). Then ISA took us out to White City to go on a tour of the BBC which was very very cool. At the start of the tour (after going through security and posing next to the TARDIS they have just hanging out right outside the building) they warned us that we might see some people we recognize, and asked us not to freak out or ask for autographs or pictures with them if that happened, which totally got my hopes up to run into David Tennant. We didn't. ...disappointment.

But the rest of the tour was still cool! In the first room we watched a little montage video explaining all the different aspects of the BBC (in it were many clips of Doctor Who and Merlin and Miranda and all sorts of great shows) and a good amount of it was narrated by John Barrowman, which made me laugh. The conference room we were in had glass walls, so we were able to look into the news headquarters for the BBC, and showed us a news anchor practicing for the segment he had coming up. They also explained to us how they didn't have ads on their programmes because of the tv licensing tax citizens have to pay, which was interesting.

Among other things, we saw a recording studio (no longer in use), and they explained the process of recording for a show - how a set is dismantled and put back together every week, and that every day the floor is washed off and then repainted (and that if it's a sit-com or something that needs a carpet, every day people painstakingly paint on a carpet design because camera equipment can't wheel over carpet). It was fascinating.

Then we were taken to see how the weather reporting works - it's one weatherman or woman, by him or herself, in a tiny little room, talking to a blue screen. Everything runs automatically, and the reporter can see what's being played on a screen in front of them (so they can tell they're pointing in the right place). Kristen got to demonstrate what that would be like ("rain here...and here...yeah, rain all over, pretty much...") and then they put a blue cloth around my body so that it was just my head floating around a weather map to demonstrate the blue screen affect.

They then took us into a dressing room/preparation room type thing, and told us two ridiculous stories; the first was about J.Lo, who was dissatisfied with how "small" all the rooms were and demanded a conference room to be her dressing room, but wanted it to be made over all in white (white drapes, white furniture, white candles, and so on). Since the BBC accommodates for anything celebrities want, but doesn't pay for it, J.Lo's manager agreed to spend £10,000 to refurbish the room...which she only spent forty five minutes in. Ridiculous!

Then they told us how Madonna requested a cardboard cutout of Pope John Paul (this was obviously a while ago) and when they couldn't find one, they requested the extra wax model of him from Madame Tussauds. They agreed, and put a wax figure of the Pope in a taxi and brought it from central London all the way out to White City, where it was set up in the dressing room. Upon seeing the figure, Madonna believed it was really him and started genuflecting and praying and so on, and then when she realized he wasn't real thought it was hysterical. Just goes to show that celebrities really are as crazy as you think!

From the tour, I too took a train from Waterloo to Esher, and was picked up by the gracious Carron and Diane and taken back to a delicious, home-cooked dinner of hamburgers and salad. So good. AND I got to sleep in a real bed. God bless the Mount family. Anyway, the next day, Carron took Diane and I to Hampton Court, a nearby royal palace. It is probably most famous for once belonging to Henry VIII, and so is half made up of Tudor-style architecture. However, when William of Orange took the throne about 80 years after the end of the Tudor dynasty, he and his wife Mary began to renovate the palace, and much of the Tudor architecture was lost. But when Mary died, William stopped renovations, which is why the palace is half and half in terms of architectural design. Pretty cool!

Hampton Court

To make the trip even better, when we first entered, we were approached by a kind volunteer who asked us if we needed any directions, and gave us a brief introduction about the buildings. Carron joked that it'd be nice if she just came everywhere with us, and she gave us a surprised look and told us to come find her after we got our audio guides and went through the kitchen. When we did, she actually left her position and led us around the castle! She was a phenomenal guide; she showed us all the things that visitors usually miss, and was even able to get us sneak peeks into areas not even open to visitors! It was so interesting, and everyone was really nice and helpful. One man told us all about how roses were an extremely expensive commodity, as they used to only be grown in two countries, one of which only allowed them grown in the royal palaces. One stem could cost a million pounds! Then he told us how not having teeth was a sign of being rich, because that meant that sugar had rotted your teeth and since sugar was expensive it meant you could afford sugar. In fact, rich husbands would have their wives' teeth pulled out when they got married, because it would be an embarrassment to the husband if his wife had all her teeth!

Cousin love! <3

After touring some more rooms (including the huge dining hall that contained these massive tapestries) and a really beautiful little chapel, we then went into the extensive gardens and out the door! Carron bought a BBC documentary about Henry VIII and his wives and we hung out at their house and watched it until the boys came home from school, and then went to watch Lee row down the Thames in a pub! Then after a scrumptious dinner of French toast and Annie's mac and cheese, Diane and I were back to London!

The following day (Friday) we went to Camden Market, and shopped around for a while, which was a lot of fun! Then we had a delicious dinner at Salvador and Amanda's (mmm, sangria!) and went to pick up Lizzy. This is when the disaster began.

Lizzy and her friend, Katie, were supposed to get into Victoria station at 10:15. Now, there are two Victoria stations - the coach station, and the rail station. Not knowing which one she'd pull into, Diane and I ran back and forth between the two after it was clear that Lizzy hadn't come to the coach station when she was supposed to. But as the bus was "delayed, without any further information" (thanks a bunch, Victoria) we weren't sure if she'd still be coming to the coach station. At 12:15, we finally had to give up and head home, because the tubes were about to close. Worried sick (since Lizzy hadn't called) I arrived home to a facebook message that Lizzy had got a different bus than originally planned. Of course, this didn't help us much now, and we had still been at the station when she should've been.

Tired and worried, we went to bed. At 2 am, we finally got a call that Lizzy was still alive (THANK GOODNESS) and had somehow gotten herself to an internet cafe in Piccadilly Circus. I got Lizzy and Katie bus directions to me, and they were finally asleep on my floor at 4 am. Of course, then I had to be up at 6:45 to get Diane to the airport, but it was all good. In the morning (and after a smooth-sailing but sad goodbye to Diane) Lizzy, Katie and I went to Katie's hostel to check her in for that day. There we met up with Nick and the four of us headed off on adventures! Once again I took everyone to all the tourist hot-spots, and once again to the British Museum, where we had a very good time. We enjoyed an evening at the pub and a relatively early bedtime, before waking up the following day for more adventures. We went to Harrods and the Camden Market, and all would have been fine, except that the Camden tube station closes randomly during the day on Sunday, which prompted a frantic run back to my flat and to Victoria to get the girls to their coach to Stansed on time. Unfortunately we didn't make it, but fortunately there was another coach right after that which had room. So Nick and I bid them goodbye and wandered around Hyde Park for a while, before I then unfortunately had to say goodbye to catch up on my homework!

Monday, I met up with Shelby and Brittany and Shana, and we went to the Portobello Market! Shelby got this really really cool ring that covers her whole finger and looks like a piece from a suit of armor - I swear, she's the only one that could make it look as awesome as it did. It was great to see them, but also pretty weird, I have to say. Weird in a good way though!

Tuesday Emily and I navigated ourselves back out to White City to explore the Westfield mall there. It was like being home! Except this Westfield was about ten times nicer (and three times bigger) than the good ol' Trumbull mall. But being in a mall in general, I feel, is a pretty American thing, so that was nice.

Wednesday I once again met up with Shelby and co., and we went to the Camden Market to enjoy some food and explore. That market is, I think, one of my absolute favorite places in London. I think it's somewhere I'm really going to miss. There's just so much life, so much to see and do, and so many people from so many walks of life congregate there. It's just fantastic.

Then Thursday I met Robie at Westminster Abbey! We headed off to Trafalgar Square and grabbed a traditional Pret a Manger lunch (hahahaha oh London) and headed off to the British Museum! I have to give Robie credit for dealing with me as I dealt with Douglas being in the hospital yet again, which is always good. But Robie joined us for an unsuccessful hunt for a pub around Trafalgar Square, and we wound up eating dinner at a nice restaurant-ish place on the Strand. Then we headed back and Emily, Robie and I chilled for a while, and then I got to talk to Doug (hooray!). I suppose I should actually extend credit to everyone who was with me on Thursday night as I am sure I was not the most fun.

Then Friday I dropped Robie off at the National Gallery and went to class (uneventful) and then picked him up again when it was over. We enjoyed a lovely pasta lunch made by a master chef (yours truly) and I got Robie to St. Pancras without incident! Then Friday evening Emily, Kristen, Devyn and I had a wonderful time watching Mean Girls and being ridiculous, then on Saturday we were up bright and early for an excursion to Canterbury and Dover!

(I promise, this is almost done. If you've lost track of what day this is, it's yesterday - Saturday, March 17th.)

Canterbury Cathedral

After an extremely early start to the day and a bus ride to Canterbury (about 60 miles southeast of London), we were treated to a lovely walking tour of the city. It was kind of a dreary day, but luckily the rain held off for the most part! We also got to go on a boat ride down the river, and learned quite a bit about Christopher Marlowe and Geoffrey Chaucer along the way. (For those of you who don't know, Marlowe was a playwright in the time of Shakespeare, and many theorize that he faked his death at a relatively young age in order to escape the law, and continued to write under the pseudonym "William Shakespeare." Just a theory, though! And one way or another, he was still an impressive playwright.) On the river tour we also saw the dunking chair, where the townspeople would bring lying businessmen, witches, and nagging wives to be dunked in the sewage-filled river as punishment. Lovely.

Misty Dover Castle

We also got to go to Canterbury Cathedral, which is the central location of the Anglican church. It is the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the leader of the Church of England. It was a massive, beautiful cathedral, made all the more impressive by the huge choir/orchestra that was rehearsing there while we visited. It is also famous for being the site of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, an Archbishop in the time of Henry II who was killed for not giving the state judiciary power over the church. It is also where Edward, the Black Prince, is buried!

Roman Lighthouse

From Canterbury (and after a traditional excursion meal of pasties - scrumptious) we were off to Dover. Here the rain unfortunately picked up, and it was so misty that it was actually pretty difficult to see the famed white cliffs. But it was still very cool! We got to see Dover Castle, which has served as the first line of defense for England since the middle ages! Dover is right on the English Channel (it's actually where those crazy people who swim across start from) and there have been structures there since the Romans first came to England, and possibly before! There are still remains of a Roman lighthouse on the site - which is incredible. Most of the castle was built by Henry II, though. Throughout its history, the castle withstood a siege by Louis VIII of France, and the Napoleonic invasion, and also was an integral part of World War II.

Some White Cliffs!

During World War II, the secret wartime tunnels were converted into a military headquarters and a hospital. It was from these tunnels that the miraculous retreat at Dunkirk was orchestrated. We got to tour the tunnels and while no photography was allowed, I assure you that it was fascinating. They still had the original table and maps that were used during World War II!

English Channel

From the castle and tunnels we went down to the pebbled beach and saw the cliffs (of course chucking some rocks into the water while we were there, and picking up all the prettiest ones as keepsakes) and headed back into London. Phew. Now, today, I am once again at work on homework, and doing my best to relax. This week should be relatively tame, though! Then next weekend Kristen and I are up to Cardiff and Bristol, where I will hopefully find Emma C. a hedgehog. :)

Until next time! Cheers <3