Today was incredible. I woke up 5 minutes before I was supposed to be down for breakfast, but we ran down there, I forgot my brit rail pass and key and Becca forgot her breakfast, so we went back up and walked over with Dr. Beck and Dr. Rosenbaum. Breakfast not nearly as good as the hotel's in Dublin. The tea came in little flimsy dixie type plastic cups. We then walked to the train station. We skipped along in order to make the train and keep up with Dr. Hank's hat lifted up in the air. The train ride was wonderful. I read LoTR RoTK on the train as I watched British countryside go by.
In Canterbury, we walked along the wall, and watched the nightclubs on the right and the historical monuments and parks on the left. It was a great contrast as we walked the line in history laid down by the Romans. Eek! So old. In the underground part under the roundabout, there was a great mural of Canterbury's tales on the wall. I wanted to spend longer to go through each story and meet each character on the wall, but I'll leave that for another time after I have actually read Canterbury Tales in its entirety.
We first visited St. Martin's, basically where Christianity in England started. Part of it was there before 400 AD. Pope Gregory found out that King Ethelbert got a Christian wife, Bertha, so he sent Augustine (a reluctant dude.) Apparently, there is a spring underneath that flows to the Canterbury Cathedral into their water system thingie. I thought the connection through water was cool. However, the infamous "they" think that the water may have been a water shrine for the Roman version of Poseidon. Eek. Connections are so cool.
Next was the Abbey where Augustine was at. It was in ruins, but still absolutely beautiful. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Archbishops of Canterbury were buried lower down in relatively venerable looking mounds, but Augustine was just sort of out there with a very small mound. I saw where Augustine may or may not have been buried. I also saw millennia old tile that still had its red color.
Then it started to rain. Hard. This was the first day I forgot to bring my rainjacket. Alyssa let me share umbrella, but my left sleeve was soaked, half of my dress was soaked, water sloshed around in my socks, and water dripped off the umbrella down my neck. I kept thinking about tea and how wonderful it was. Thankfully, I just had to follow and I wasn't lost or anything.
After a good ways and many British children laughing at us, we found a pub. With a tea shop across the street. About 9 of us girls and Dr. Hanks quickly crossed the street. We walked up a black spiral staircase into a red room upstairs. There was a lady with some tea and she looked out the open window at the rain pensively. I felt as if I were entering some Victorian novel. We sat down. I ordered tea, crumpets, and a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. I took off my shoes, removed my books from my backpack and fanned them out so they could dry out as well.
Ke'leigh, Maddee, Brooke, and I discussed how wonderful tea was and planned many tea parties for the upcoming semester and our time at Oxford. I felt as if I had entered heaven from a rainy Hell. I told the waiter this, and he just smiled. We tipped, so I am sure he did not mind our silly American tourist sayings. As soon as we got our tea, we quickly used up our vessel of sugar and brown sugar cubes, and had to borrow from the table next door. I bought a present for home...
I was in complete euphoria. The tea shop was 500 years old, and we had infinite tea, and I got to discuss everything wonderful with good friends. Life is good.
After that, we went to Canterbury Cathedral. I took pages upon pages of notes there. Maddee, I will get you a more detailed version later, but for now, it's a quick summary for the sake of laziness and procrastination. Our guide was awesome. He was an octogenarian man whose name was John Jeffries. Since I took notes, he would look at me piercingly when he spoke a name hard to spell and spell it out twice. I greatly appreciated it. It's fun being the scribe, or else I get bored. The same reason why I take notes in class, I hardly look at them more than one quick glance before a test, but just taking notes is relaxing and entertaining and keeps me engaged.
Anyways, construction started in 1070 AD. They imported the limestone from Normandy, France, and in 1176, William Saint-Seaens (sp?) completely took the thing apart and raise the ceiling later on to make it look more gothicky and pointy to God. There are 860 coats of arms in the cloisters, a world record I think. Congrats, Canterbury. You've got the most shields on your ceiling. Apparently, there are green men that masons just carved in for funsies. They just have greenery for hair.
Henry VIII stinks and closed the library.
All the monks had to sing 8 times a day. One of them had a sundial that worked with a pen that would let them know when to pray and all that jazz. It's tiny and absolutely beautiful and somehow in perfect condition after a thousand years. Even the crypt was beautiful and showed how Sir Thomas of Canterbury had very large hands (like Rachmaninov).
One stained glass window shows the 6 stages of man, but there are really seven including death. Way to screw that one up Canterbury. Still pretty though.
There was a cool clock whose pendulum swung every second and a quarter.
Edward Plantagenet or the Black Prince had a cool tomb, with a silly looking dog at his feet and a lion at his head. The epitaph around his grave was in badly grammared Norman French, which he wrote before he died. His name the Black Prince is because he died before his dad and also he murdered many women and children in the South of France.
We then got lost on the way to the train station, so we had to take the 5:02 train, but that gave us time to be silly. Ke'leigh and I climbed the mount that was built ages ago, but was also used in battle in the English Civil War. So old.
We sat with Dr. Beck on the way back and discussed everything with her: jobs, LoTR, religion, movies, music, Heifetz, and Harry Potter.
Short story: Ke'leigh and I watched Billy Elliot when we got back.
Long story: We went to go see if Wicked had tickets. One left. We got turned around and went to the bathroom in a little cafe down the road a bit. They told us where Billy Elliot was. We went there, saw they had tickets, but we were supposed to meet up with Maddee and Brooke, but we had no cell phones. Back to the train station. No Maddee or Brooke. Back to Billy Elliot. Bought tickets with restricted view for 19.50 pounds. Realized I lost my metro pass. 10 minutes before show starts. Sprint past Wicked and train station to little cafe. Cafe closed. I open the door anyways and ask if I look in the bathroom. I look. No ticket. Check trashcan. I accidentally kind of pushed the trash around with my hand because I was desperate, and the worker was majorly disgusted and told me how unsanitary it was and that they don't even take the garbage out themselves. I wash my hands, thank her profusely for her help, and run out the door, down the road, across the street, when the other worker flies out the door and starts yelling, waving my ticket. I could have hugged her. I may have and just forgot it. I took it, thanked both of them with all of my heart, and sprinted even faster back to Billy Elliot with my spirits higher than before. I flew. I found our seats. We stole some better ones once we saw that people weren't there because we couldn't actually see half the stage unless we pressed our faces directly in between the metal bars in front of us. The cool metal actually did feel quite nice.
Anyways, it was amazing. I cried three times, but I also felt like I was flying other times. Kids dancing and talking in British accents are adorable and heartbreaking.
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