January 13, 2012

Runnymede

JFK Memorial in Runnymede

So today we had a class field trip to Runnymede and Windsor Castle. Basically I am in LOVE with Runnymede. This is what I've been wanting since I came to London. The city is fun, fast paced, interesting, and busy. But it reminds me too much of New York, LA, Sacramento, San Fran, and every other big city. I've been wanting to get away to the country and see the "real" England. Runnymede was in this quaint little town where there were open fields of grass and trees to the side of the road. We stopped off to see the JFK memorial and where the Magna Carta was signed.

TreeFriend

LOVE the countryside

But basically I was in love here. When mom comes to visit me at the end of my program I'm basically planning on only visiting places like this and going on walks around the countryside. I want to see the Lake District and to explore places like Derbyshier and Chatsworth. I want to see the 'wild and untamed beauty of the Peaks' where 'wildness and artifice' live 'all in the one perfect country.'

Windsor Castle

Then we went to Windsor Castle, which is where the Queen lives when she's not at Buckingham. Windsor had little we could actually see, because the castle was undergoing deep cleaning for the next 2 weeks. We got to walk around the castle premises, and it was a really quaint, cute little castle town. Exactly what you’d expect. We went inside the castle grounds, saw a changing of the guard, and looked around some places we could go inside the castle. Inside the castle I got to see Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, which was this sweet huge dollhouse the people gave to Queen Mary. It’s a scale of the actual castle, has real wine in the wine bottles, the vacuum really works, the bathroom has real hot and cold running water, and the books in the library are the actual books scaled down (like if you looked inside one it would have all the real pages and words of the real book). We also saw a room filled with pictures of the royal family, sketches from da Vinci, a room full of the royal family’s china, oh and a full-grown, man-sized metal grasshopper that was actually a wine cooler (a gift to the prince, because what do you give to the man who has everything but a wine cooler grasshopper?).

Guards actively working in sweet platform tap dance shoes

I also checked out the cathedral at Windsor Castle where several monarchs are buried there (they have the choice of being buried there or in Westminster Abbey), and they hold services there and royalty comes occasionally. King George III was buried there, and the guides kept telling us to go over and walk over his tomb so we could step on the last king of America. Haha, they seemed to think that we still have this vendetta against him for taxing us all those years ago. I did walk over it, but only because they were so adamant about us doing it.

Windsor Castle view

We also walked over to Eaton College. A guide told us that it’s an all-boys school, and you only go there if you are a millionaire. All the princes go there. So I was expecting to see a freaking awesome school where hot millionaire British college boys lived. Wrong. Apparently “college” in England actually means “middle/high school.” Fail. There were all these little boys running around in black suits or football uniforms (going to practice). It was actually a pretty adorable scene, but I was kinda ticked with the British people and their dumb different English language. I felt like a pedophile for going over to check out all the little boys. I spent about ten minutes there and then headed out to check out the village.