Castles, Cathedrals and Palaces Oh My! (haha)

Howdy Ya'll!! I thought I'd bring a little home to this post because I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!! I've got about two weeks left and time is flying! I've been doing so much and I apologize for not keeping up on the blog after I finished my big travels. I've still been doing super cool stuff so NO FEAR, KYRA'S STORIES ARE HERE! The order of my recollections may be a little scewed because it has indeed been a while since I've shared and a lot has happened, but I will attempt to do my best.

I'm going to take you back to the beginning of April when a PLU friend came to visit for the weekend who is studying abroad in Spain. This gave Paula and I the opportunity to go out and do a lot of the touristy London stuff that we had been wanting to do but hadn't quite had the time... or ambition to be perfectly frank. One of the first things on the list was to watch the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace. This ceremony takes place depending on the time of year but at the moment every other day at 11:00 a.m. I think. I'll admit, it wasn't a life altering experience, but I'm really glad I went none the less. It was a very nice day so it was very crowded and a very long ceremony I was surprised to find out.

There are gates in front of the Palace, of course, so you can only get so close and get so good of pictures on account of EVERYONE else trying to take pictures and video record. But the ceremony basically consists of one group of guards (like in the above picture) marching into the Palace and replacing the previous guard. This process is much more than just switching out the the famous guards that can't smile and just stand outside of the Palace. The "guard" from what I understand it is a huge group of soldiers that take on responsibility of guarding the Palace for two days.

The above picture is the previous guard marching out of the Palace grounds back to wherever they came from. The ceremony includes a lot of marching and even a marching band that plays lots of music. There's a lot of standing around and not a lot that happens, but you gotta love watching the cute men in red jackets and big furry hats march around anyway.

While our friend, Natalie, was visiting we took her on a walk on the Thames (pronounced tems) which is the famous river that runs right through London. There's not much to say about that other than it was fun because there was a whole group of us and we crossed the Millennium Bridge (the bridge that gets destroyed at the beginning of the sixth Harry Potter movie!!!) and then later we crossed the Tower Bridge (the famous one that everyone thinks is the London Bridge) Below is a picture of the wandering crew with the Tower Bridge in the background!

My next topic of interest is visiting yet another..... Cathedral!! But not just any Cathedral, more specifically the Canterbury Cathedral! This probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you but it is the oldest church still in use in England so it was a very sobering experience to visit this place so old and full of history, dating back to even before Henry VIII. This Cathedral is famous for the death of Saint Thomas Becket, murdered by knights of King Henry II after a row about the amount of power the church has over the King. If I could make this more significant for you I would but the history is overwhelming and I'm afraid I don't have a grasp on it all so I wouldn't want to mislead you. But it is my understanding that the Arch Bishop of Canterbury is the highest power in all of the Church of England. I saw tombs of Kings, Queens, and knights. It was amazing. Below is a picture of the outside of Canterbury Cathedral!

Now moving on from Cathedrals and Palaces I'm also going to briefly tell you about attending the London Coffee Festival! It has been out of my control to hinder my love for coffee so this was really fun for me. I only had to pay 6 pounds (about $10) for admission to a Festival dedicated to free coffee!! Coffee places from all around, both locally and foreign, came and set up camp in this facility and I had the pleasure of trying all the coffee I wanted because I had a pretty pink wrist band on! I tried all different sorts of coffee, most of which I can't recall anymore, but it was just one big comfortable chair short of Kyra-heaven.

Here's Paula and I taking a break from the coffee craziness!! We even tried little espresso shots (which are very popular in Europe) and as much as I love coffee.... WOW. I hate to say it but it was kinda disgusting... I'll take my shots with milk and sugar from now on, thanks. As lame as this might sound, one of our favorite parts of this festival was getting free Starbucks coffee and treats. The whole idea of unlimited free coffee is brilliant and by the time we left, Paula and I felt sick but it was worth it!! (Coffee shot below :D )

So I have spoken about visiting a Palace and a Cathedral, so it's only appropriate that I visit yet ANOTHER famous Castle right?! My host Mum Jan was so nice to take my roommate and I to Windsor Castle, residence of the Queen of England when she's not at Buckingham. Quiz time. Do you know what the Last name of Queen Elizabeth is? I realized a while ago that I literally had no idea so I found out that it is... Windsor! Makes sense huh? But here's the catch- This Castle existed before Windsor rule of England, that's because King George V changed his family name from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor because of anti-German feelings of the British people during World War I. I was very interested to find this out, and now you know! The picture below is me on Windsor grounds in front of the tower where the flag flies when the Queen is in London.

Now just going back a week to Easter Sunday, I went on a short little day trip with my host Mum and her family (daughter, son, son's wife, grandchildren) to a Saint George Day Festival. Saint George is celebrated on April 23 as the Saint who saved England by slaying a dragon hundreds of years ago. This festival was a blast!! Basically it had Roman soldiers and English soldiers and a few other side shows and you could go around to different tents and area's to see the way the people used to live; the way they cooked food, made clothes, made weapons etc. Below are Roman soldier re-en actors.

I also got to see a jousting match!! That was probably my favorite part of the day. And it can get surprisingly heated watching two guys on horses charge eachother with big sticks... very fun to watch! I was rooting for the guy with the red sheild below! Aaaaand he won :)

And finally.... the man of the day, Saint George! The following is him defeating the ugly terribly horrifying dragon!!

Okay... so the dragon was not terrifying at all and actually walked slower than a snail. The re enactment was hilarious actually, all a part of the fun!! My host family is most enjoyable to be around and spend time with, and it's so fun mixing our cultures and learning new things from one another. After we got back from the festival we sat around for a couple hours just talking about the differences in speech in American and in English, SO very interesting!!! I'll have to write more about that when I'm done getting you all up to date on my recent adventures. Brief and to the point, I hope you enjoyed reading about all this. I have much more to share with you including my experience with the royal wedding between Kate Middleton and Prince William that took place today! Tune in next time for more of that and also for some more of my Shakespeare experience. My next blog will be posted soon so I hope you look forward to it!

To end this jam packed blog the picture below is of Paula, me, and our host Mum Jan!

I miss you all and like I've said, I'll be posting again soon! All my love to you!
Cheers!

-KYRA:)