Field Trip Numero Uno

The good thing about a blog is that I have an incentive to upload/work on my photos.

Anyways, Saturday was our first field trip to London, and it was timed pretty awfully. The staff wanted to let us sleep in, so we left Oxford at 11, arriving at the Tower of London at 1:30 PM. However, since we needed to enter St. Paul's Cathedral by 3:30 PM, this gave us just 2 hours at the tower, which is simply not enough time to explore an entire complex of buildings, 13 towers, and all the different museums and exhibits inside.

We did manage to hit up the more major ones, though. We saw the tower here the twin boy kings were murdered (actually, no one really knows what happened to them, but they disappeared here and their skeletons were later discovered here, so...), as well as the royal treasury (biggest diamond in the world?!) and the armory. The prior began to have a really long line at the entrance right when we left. No photos were allowed, and they placed escalator belts along the exhibits to prevent people from "oohing" and "aahing" too long at any one item. That was pretty smart, except I felt it was moving a little too quickly--I barely got a glimpse of some of the diamonds, and it was like, "Wait, come back, I want to stare at you some more!"

Afterward, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is a huge cathedral built in the classical style of columns and domes. But I hold a deep grudge against the place. One, their audio guides weren't working, so I know absolutely nothing about it other than the fact that it looks lovely inside. Two, I may know that it looks lovely inside, but I can't show anyone because photos weren't allowed. Seriously? I don't really understand why they wouldn't let people take photos. It's a great marketing scheme, it gets more people to go, and yet they don't allow it. Jerks.

I am really glad we got to watch Henry IV Part I at the Globe, though. I thought the play might be dry, but I actually understand many parts of it (though, at the intermission, a lot of people were asking about the overall plot, because it was a little unclear). The actors were superb, and it actually looked as if there was a lot if improv involved. During the sword fight, the prince dropped his sword on accident and start fighting with it while holding the blade edge, haha. Also, at the conclusion, all the minor and major characters came out to perform a line dance before bowing. It was legendary.

The Globe! To match the original, there is no roof. There are two ways to watch the play: standing in the yard, or siting in the gallery as we did. Only people sitting in the gallery have a roof, so if it starts pouring like it did last night, the people in the yard have to stand and bear it for the entirety of the play. No umbrellas are allowed to be open during that time.