WAY too many photos. i apologise. but its better than reading my drivel

(photos, what photos? you say: laura and I are pretty excited to be at warwick castle; the castle! ; british longbow man in front of the castle; our knight friend in the courtyard; the trebuchet mid-fire ; on our way up to the tower; place we did not go up into but looked pretty: “The Mound”; I am on a tower, everybody come look at how tall I am; view of castle from tower; we all took photos in the castle with the silly hats and fake butler; another old library I want ; “I’m henry the eight I am” ‘; shakespeare’s house in stratford; jenna, laura, and I in front of shakey’s home ; the street art knight conversing with a biker; the gate and shakey’s house; ice cream in Stratford mmmmm; jenna and I have decided to wave and speak in person rather than call each other due to cheapness)

We woke up early and headed down to meet laura, who would accompany us on the trip. After a quick breakfast in the refectory , all 20 of us climbed aboard our half empty bus. This trip for some reason did not sell very well, people are silly. My advice to you: if you have a chance to go to a castle, go. For there is nothing doing that can be better than a castle.

I unfortunately could not sleep on the bus, as most people did, but those that were awake liked to take pictures of me making faces for some reason. So there are many photos of me looking ridiculous on a bus in existence.

About an hour and a half after our departure we alighted at Warwick Castle, which was beyond fantastic. Besides being an amazing castle complete with historical interpreters, they also had a working medieval trebuchet. Which, in essence, is a terribly large catapult operated by people running in a large hamster wheel. A lady came up to us in the courtyard at the beginning of the day and said they were looking for two more people to run in it if we were wearing trainers. Since I was, I very much wanted to take part, but I knew that we had less than two hours to see the entire castle and if I chose to be a human hamster, I would miss the rest. So I politely declined, wept a bit, and went on my way.

We caught the tail end of an archery demonstration where a costumed man shot a longbow into the center of the target with ease. Once we went through the actual castle wall, we saw a man dressed up as a knight and I promptly insisted we take a photo with him. He was very witty, and he ensured that we go see the trebuchet ( I later found out our new friend was the man who had to give the entire presentation to the audience as they prepared the trebuchet on the other side of the lake).

We did a quick tour of some of the rooms starting with the torture chamber and the dungeons. Very happy stuff. I have been in a few dungeons now, and for the first time I felt fear being in one. It was a poorly lit, dank, smelly room, with manacles on the wall and a tinytiny window letting a smidge of light in. The thing that I found very eerie though, was the oubliette in the corner of the dungeon. Oubliette, which means “forgotten” in French , is the place you toss people into and forget about them. For those of you who have seen the labyrinth starring the amazing david bowie, the large oubliette with the magic door in it is NOT an oubliette. This oublietter was a miniscule hole in the floor covered by an ironwork gate; I suppose this was so you could breathe and prolong your own torture. There was about enough room for one to curl up in the fetal position; which is the position you want to be in as you wish for death to come release you from this torture. In a matter of days, the victim becomes entirely insane.

So…yeah.

We then went into the castle’s exhibit called “kingmaker” which had a number of life size figures cavorting about in beautiful stately rooms. They also had display with a blacksmith that was ever so reminiscent of the farm, as well as a large animontric war horse that looked like Gus.

Laura, Jenna, and I then made off towards the grounds and arrived just in time for the trebuchet display starring our "chevalier" friend (i am becoming fully english by throwing french words into everyday situations). It was pretty awesome, I must say, definitely worth seeing. Perhaps I am uneducated, but I actually never knew that people used to catapult dead disease ridden animals over castle walls in order to try to besiege those inside by spreading infection. The whole Monty Python frenchies' animal launching makes a lot more sense now.

When at a castle, one must go in a tower. So we clambered up the 500 plus stairs and went up in Guy’s Tower, which had a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. I proceeded to take many photos, then we quickly and carefully descended the spiral staircase so that we had enough time to run into the “Royal Weekend Party” set up in the state rooms , as well as the Great Hall. In the Great Hall was a special exhibition of costumes from Shakespeare plays worn by people like ian mckellan, jeremy irons, and judi dench. At this point we had 5 minutes to get on the bus, so we walked at a quick clip back to the bus to head off to Stratford- upon- Avon.

At Stratford, we stopped to get sandwiches before going to Shakespeare's birthplace. I found out many things about willy , including that he was married to Anne Hathaway ( once again I am just uneducated, but I had no idea who she was til this trip). We got to walk all around the Shakespeare family home which was one of those English timber framed houses one often sees in photos. What I really enjoyed about the interior was the painting cloth walls, an early form of wallpaper. There were very elaborate and skillfully done. We were not allowed to take photos inside the house so I only have photos of the exterior, but that’ll do.

Walking down the quaint little street, we saw many fun stores, as well as King Edward VI s Grammar School, where Shakey went. We stopped in at Holy Trinity Church, and saw Shakespeare’s grave, and the famous marble bust of him that we kept reading about at the birthplace museum. Jenna, Laura, and I, then met up with some of my other friends on the trip and we went to get ice cream cones, because it is necessary. Jenna also got fudge, and we made friends with the fudge lady who let me try “Turkish Delight” since I had always wondered what it was. It is not spectacular, but I was pleased to have tried it. We sat on a little wall outside Shakey’s house, eating our ice cream cones and enjoying the glorious day, until, sadly, it was time to get back on the bus and return to school.

Jenna, Laura, some friends from school and I went to the Metropolitian Pub five minutes away on Marylebone Street for some fairly cheap food and watered down drinks. Good times were had, and we returned to school so that jenna and I could get 3 hours sleep before waking up at 4 to catch the bus to stanstead. She did in fact get on a bus, get to the airport, get on the plane, and safely land, so that was all well and good.

I promptly went back to sleep around 5:30/ 6:00, only to wake up, do two loads of laundry, and meet the parents - who had just arrived - for dinner in the refectory. I took them for a quick walk around Regent’s Park, and then they went back to their hotel, and I did a bit of homework before calling it a day.

I bought one souvenir at Stratford. It is a magnet with a quote from twelfth night which states : "Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit."

I concur.