Regardless, lets sum up some of today. Kyle had to go in to his first day of work (at his old high school), although he doesn't actually start work until next week. Sort of a preliminary, prep day for the summer. Anyways, his mom and sister had it in their good grace's to take me out to see Hampton Court Palace, the place where Henry VIII lived. If you recall, Henry VIII had 6 wives, and they got: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, and then had a lasting marriage with the 6th (all in that order), Queen Kateryn. This was the first time I'd really gotten to see the inside of a palace--they are like mazes. A big part of this is because a majority of it is closed off to the public due to construction and security issues, but the maps were terrible and we had a hard time finding out where we wanted to go. Regardless, it was still cool to just wander around and imagine what it might have been like to actually live like that. There are fireplaces EVERYWHERE. It's how they used to heat the entire place and its amazing how many of them there are. I didn't see any statistics but I'm sure it was well over 100. There was one hallway that couldn't have been more than 90 feet long and I think there were 5 fireplaces along it. One of the coolest parts of being there was a sort of re-enactment, play-type thing in which they had people dressed up in traditional garb relative to the 1500's. We got to see "King Henry VIII," a big portly fellow, and take a few pictures with him. I caught the end of a speech on video tape which was kind of cool. Also, there was another guy, Sir Thomas Seymore (I have no idea if he's actually a significant figure... I don't think so though, nobody had any idea who "he" was when he started his spiel in the courtyard). Today was King Henry and Kateryn's supposed wedding day, which is just an excuse for the people who run the castle to draw in a few more tourists and give them something to do. Thus, Sir Tom was a lowlier man than the king (uh, obviously?), yet he was madly in love with Kateryn. We heard his tale of what happened and he blended comedy, history, a tour, and adventure into a 30 minute piece of live entertainment for the large group of us who had been milling about the courtyard when he showed up. Pretty cool stuff, I caught a lot of it on video and I bet you'll find it interesting, whenever I end up getting it uploaded.
We ate at a cafe which was situation near the entrance to the palace, and I ate my first true British meat pie. It's pretty much just a stew baked inside of a crusty sort of bread. Quite delicious. They're also known as Shepherd's Pie (you've probably heard it called this before), and some other nickname that I cannot recall right now. OH! Fun fact for the day - we learned, while talking to one of the hosts stationed in the old kitchen at the palace, that matches, the ones that light fires, weren't invented until 1847. Fun little piece of trivia. Also, Kyle says that the lighter was in fact invented before matches. I completely disagreed at first, but after giving it some thought I find it totally believeable. The reasons I haven't verified this is because I haven't typed it into Wikipedia (if you count that as verifying.... I do), and because it really doesn't matter to me whether or not they did. I just hadn't expected to learn something like that.
On the way back from the palace we stopped at a local grocery story, Waitrose. We ran into one of Chelsea's friends and her mom, and I was mistaken to be Kyle by the girl's mom because she had only met Kyle a few times before, and we're both relatively tall, white college boys with darker colored hair. Honest mistake, although it was still funny and I think one of the first times I've been mistaken for someone else in such a way? Anyways, back to the grocery store. Food is expensive here! Most of the listed prices had numbers larger than what we see back home, and they're listed in pounds! That means that after you calculate in the exchange rate, things were WAY higher priced. However, I did get the feeling that this was a little more up-scale market, but not but much. It was organized in a similar way to the grocery stores here. The shopping carts are smaller (not as deep or wide), and they can power-slide much more handily that the ones back home here, making it much easier to get around corners. When you walk in the front door there's a big rack of these ray-gun looking things. Phasers from Star Trek, I swear. What they actually are are personal price checkers which you can borrow (or rent for a small fee? We didn't need one.... I don't really see why you would if you just look at the prices listed, they're all there. Whatever). There's even a special plastic holder on each cart specifically for that. Weird huh? I didn't actually see anyone using one, but somewhere around half the rack of them were missing so I'm sure people had them out. The cashier's also sit down the entire time they check your bags, and the counter felt like it was lower. They never bag your groceries for you anywhere here, that's your deal. There ARE lots of those re-use bags for sale there, and they all seemed to be very sturdy. As you get your receipt, you get a single little plastic token. There's a row of bins by the exit, each representing a different charity, and you get to drop little plastic piece. I'm not sure if they donate a certain amount of money based on the number of pieces in each box, or if they just donate a large sum to the charity with the most tokens. I'll have to return soon to find out, and to purchase a couple of those canvas bags. I'm tellin you, they're that good.
Well that's what I had going on for today. There aren't currently any plans tomorrow but I think we're riding the train in to London tomorrow to sort of bum around and see a few of the different big attractions. Any recommendations off the beaten path which you have heard of/been to that I should be trying to see? Let me know!
Ever-working on uploading those videos... stay posted.
Thorn - I figured out that the front part of the sole of my TOMS are starting to separate and pull apart. Not actually at the seam, but in a different (and what seems like worse), place. Just means I gotta get more :P
Rose - Seeing Hampton Court Palace and getting a comment on my TOMS from Sir Thomas Seymore. He was quite impressed, and his shoes looked incredibly uncomfortable.
Bud - LONDON! FISH n' CHIPS!
AT out
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