hello again from a muggy day in jolly old england! i want to apologize again (this is mostly for my mother) that my blog posts are being kinda sketch. basically i have to upload the pictures overnight because the internet is sooooooo slow, so all my posts won't be published until the day after. but i do write them the day of.
so today! today was a very long day. i feel like this morning was forever ago! we started out really early because like i said yesterday we had to catch the coach really early. so we had our cute little breakfast of yogurt and toast and fruit just like everyday. i can already tell you i am gonna miss the yogurt here. the consistency is really good and it's not too sweet... so it doesn't give you a tummy ache like i feel some of the yogurt back home does. but now i'm gonna start talking about interesting things as opposed to yogurt... hahah sorry about that.
so we got on the coach and headed to Dover first! it was about a two hour drive even though it's only about 80 miles outside of london because the traffic within the city was so bad. i tried to look out the window to get a good look at the countryside but you can guess that didn't last too long. as professor jacoby likes to say.. our wednesday coach trips turn into the 'narcolepsy express' about 15 minutes into the drive. so one minute i was bobbing off in london and the next i am in a creepy foggy green place. seriously it was straight out of a movie. this fog was intense. i was a little freaked. pretty soon it was clearing out though, because it was super windy. apparently it's always windy in dover. we parked in the coach park then it was off to the castle!
notice the fog! kinda cool
this castle is pretty sweet. i tried to take some good pictures but it's really hard to capture all of it because it's so dang big! but to put it in perspective on a timeline... there are some parts that date all the way back to the time when the romans occupied england! that puts us at about 400 AD. that's a really long time ago. as of now there is only one tower standing (actually it might be the remains of a lighthouse, now that i think of it), and the rest of the castle was constructed around 1100-1400 AD, still a freaking long time ago, especially when compared to what we think of as 'historic' back in the states. so i guess this was kind of like the main crib for both henry VIII and henry II, and it was a good spot because it's right across the channel, so france is right there. so whenever france and england were in a bit of a tiff, (hahaha this wordage is for erika) dover became the 'key' to england because it was the first place they would hit on the coast. needless to say this means there were a lot of old barricades and military fortifications from various periods.. especially the napoleonic era because he was kind of conquering all over the place.
unexpected colors! at least i thought so
stained glass in the kings private chapel above his room
stone on stone on stone...not very glamorous!
the 'great tower' is the main part of the castle. this is where they had the major recreation of how it was back in the day. i have to say, i was super surprised at how brightly colored things were back then. there was a lot of cheery red, blue, and yellow. whenever i think of that era i think of deep greens and reds and velvet and jewels and stuff, but it definitely doesn't appear like it was like that! so yeah, wandered around the main part of the castle which had some neat exhibits for about an hour or so, then it was on to my favorite part of the day.
so like i said earlier, this place was really revamped in the 1790s (napoleon times) because the english were kind of scared of him, i think. so they started building these tunnels kind of below the castle in the soft chalk that makes up the famed white cliffs of dover. these things were pretty legit, and the english did work on them. they would have these pretty intense tunnels done within a year of starting them... which is insane when you think about late 18th century technology. they were used to quarter troops and for various other reasons until i think the 1890s, then they were kind of forgotten. then world war two rolled around. unbeknownst to the public, one of britain's major generals, general ramsey, set up his main post in these secret tunnels. they literally lived underground, made major war decisions, and tracked naval movement within the channel. from this location, ramsey also headed the rescue of over 300,000 british soldiers from the failed battle of dunkirk, where the germans basically spanked the allies. ramsey was a real hero because everyone expected to only rescue/evacuate 40,000 soldiers from dunkirk. so he saved a ton of people. but what makes these tunnels so cool (there was also a hospital tunnel, which i didn't have time to tour), is that the government kept them completely secret until the 1990s! a large part of them is still closed off to the public. as a matter of fact, the tour i went on today has only been offered since last year. it is freaking cool. after world war two, some large things were left behind, such as this table thing where they would chart naval movement across the channel. if there was a ship that didn't match the schedule on the board, the people in the dover tunnels would issue a warning to the ship, then give the call to fire on it. so a lot of intense stuff went down in there. another interesting fact is that the lowest and largest level, known as 'dumpy' (don't ask me why... sounds like a huge toilet to me), was actually designed to serve as a nuclear bunker for all of london and dover/canterbury. so it's pretty impenetrable. keep in mind this is assuming that the nuclear strike is on london, so the population would be significantly lower... but long story short this thing was freaking cool. dad it made me think of you a lot because i know how much you like the world war two stuff, i would love to bring you back here. this place also really reminded me of disneyland (i know, only i would say that) because it was set up in such a fun way. you went from room to room and a voice would come over an intercom and tell you what to do. all the doors were strictly automatic and you could only leave when this light over the door turned green. they tried to make you feel like you were a member of the military (WW2 era) and they did an excellent job. definitely highlight of my day.
oh and ps you can't take pictures in there so i am sorry about that! i did snap a few when my guide would disappear.. hehe
start of the tour. notice the red light over the door, meant we couldn't go anywhere yet
after that it was back on the coach and we were off to the white cliffs that i mentioned earlier! (wow guys, this is gonna be a long post. please bear with me. im sorry if you want to stab yourself by the end). okay so the cliffs! they were really lovely. we were crunched for time though, so we didn't quite get to the end of the trail like i would have wanted to. i guess there is also a 2 mile hike that takes you to a lighthouse and a little place where you can have tea and im sure that would have been really charming. but oh well! the view was super neat. (since when do i say lovely, charming, and neat in one paragraph? wow). where we were was right over the HUGE port and that itself was a sight to see. it was like it's own mini city of trucks loading stuff onto the barges that come in. it was really intimidating, i kinda felt like it could blow up or something at any minute. don't ask me why stuff like that freaks me out. so 25 minutes at the cliffs then back onto the coach! wahooo!
so now we were off to canterbury for a scheduled tour of the cathedral! this cathedral is a big deal because it is where the first archbishop of canterbury, thomas beckett, was killed by four knights during the reign of henry II. the title of archbishop of canterbury is a big deal because when england was under rome (aka when england was catholic), the archbishop of canterbury was the main bishop in england, the only person he answered to was the pope. then when henry VIII went protestant, the archbishop of canterbury became the head hauncho of the church of england! so he is kind of equivalent to the pope. except not really because the catholic church is ginormous and ancient and the church of england... not so much. but in modern days he is important because he has to marry all the royalty! so when william and kate got married he was the guy that did it. kind of cool.
the cathedral is really really really cool. i kind of have a thing for cathedrals. i have always liked them. they are really peaceful, and obviously beautiful, and i really like the smell of the stone. i'm a freak i know. this cathedral was pretty old. it was built on top of the site that was given to st. augustine back in the time of the anglo-saxons (sorry if that's not right, my brain is kind of mush right now). it has burned down a couple times though, and even now it is undergoing restoration because the foundation is starting to sink. they had a lot of really cool burial sights. it was interesting to see how a lot of them had been defaced by the puritans. they would literally chop off the heads and saw down the faces of the little figurines. it was very sad. also a lot of the famous stained glass had been shot out by some cromwell guy who came in with a bunch of muskets... not cool mr. cromwell. some was salvaged however, and it was really neat to see how it tells a story. i love stained glass. speaking of stained glass this was another highlight of my day. so in one of the chapels they have some stained glass windows that were done by this hungarian guy in 1957. as soon as we saw them one of the girls was like "that girl kind of looks like jasmine from aladdin..." turns out this same guy actually worked for disney and did some animation for snow white! how cool is that! so i loved that. back to the people defacing the cathedral, though. there used to be all this stuff for thomas beckett because he is kind of a big deal there. but thanks to henry VIII the one who left the catholic church, all of it was removed and destroyed! it was really quite sad. the only thing they really have was this ring down in the crypt treasury which was actually kind of creepy. i guess the archbishop that succeeded beckett wore it, and it actually has a piece of beckett's bone in the ring! how eerie is that?
roman tower used to pump water... so the monks had flushing toilets like a million years ago!
disney stained glass!!! yay :)
so that was basically the end of our tour with our cute old little guide lady. after that we had about an hour in canterbury and i was pumped. canterbury, especially the main square just oustide the cathedral, looks like it's straight off of a movie set. it's adorable. i went in some kitchenware shops because i am really hoping to find some china, but nothing really caught my eye. then i started to head back to the coach park (aka the parking lot, but don't say that here because they have no idea what you're talking about) because i knew i was gonna get lost. on the way i found the cutest place. it was called the shake shack. it looked like something people would line up two hours for in new york. i walked past it twice and resisted... but the third time got me. the menu was insane.
please tell me this doesn't look insanely good...
my parents are probably gonna disown me but i totally caved and got a shake. i did get it skinny though! wee hooo. but i got the pots au chocolate something? i don't know but it tasted amazing. apparently they don't believe in making thick milkshakes here, however, so that was a little disappointing. so i had that and was just a very happy camper. we didn't really have much of a lunch or dinner plan so i figured i'd get a sandwich. i like baguettes so i started looking for that... sadly they were out of the good ones and i ended up getting an egg salad sandwich again. hahaha what is up with that? it was really good again but i think i'm gonna find another go-to food because i can have those whenever in the states. so anywho i keep walking towards where i think the coach is and i am definitely lost. i am not good with directions. it didn't help that i asked like 3 different groups of people and they all told me different things. finally one lady was like just go in a pub and ask, they will help you. welp, couldn't find a pub, so i just went in the first shop i saw and didn't really pay attention. so this is my funny story: so i walk in the shop and the guy kind of rolled his eyes at me. i was surprised because i didn't really look like a tourist so i was wondering why he was bothered by me. i asked where the coach park was and he looked really relieved and answered my question. while he was answering i realized how strongly the shop smelled like pot. as i looked around i realized i was totally in like a hookah marijuana drug toy store. hahahahahaha. there was this huge sign outside that said 'no one under 18' so i think the clerk guy was worried that i was some kid coming looking for drugs. hahahah i thought that was funny though, and also hoped no one from my group saw me! wouldn't want to be sent home from byu study abroad for illegal drug use. woops.
so i miraculously made it back on the coach and wasn't left to fend for myself in canterbury. yay ali. i slept most of the way home and was woken by the bus driver pointing out the olympic park/stadium. dang that thing is HUGE. holy holy holy. can't wait to go there! but this place is gonna be a freakin zoo. once we got back a lot of people went out to dinner because we didn't have anything here at the centre. i reheated my curry from a few nights ago and got straight to studying cause i had a lot of reading to do. and now here i am in my cutest little bunk.
instagrams from today!
tomorrow is class day, along with another lecture from slover. tomorrow night me and the girl i share a bunk with are going to see the lion the witch and the wardrobe in kensington gardens! i am super stoked. updates on that tomorrow! yahoo. until then! see ya guys!
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