It's aMAZEing

Apr. 10th, 2009 at 03:06 pm

Tuesday, the fam and I went to Hampton Court Palace. The train fare was way cheaper than I expected, and we also got 2-for-1 entry. The whole palace is half Tudor, half Baroque, which was an interesting mix, but it looked cool and was big, sprawling and difficult to navigate. We looked through a bunch of the interior rooms, which were cool. In one, Jan and I played a game called "The Fox and the Goose," which was like a messed up version of checkers, and I was able to sprawl on a comfy cushion. The chapel was gorgeous- we weren't allowed to take pictures though, which was sad, but the ceiling was a pretty shade of blue with stars all on it. In one of the sets of rooms, Gram asked the curator a question, and got him talking about all sorts of stuff. We got a semi-private tour of those sets of rooms, and he even told us all about the team of twelve that spent six years putting back together a crystal chandelier that broke in the eighties due to a fire. Gram really liked said curator's family heirloom- a massive garnet ring between two dragons.

The gardens were gorgeous. The fountain garden looked like it went on for miles- it was really one fountain set in front of a long pool of water, Versailles-style. There was also a Privy Garden, which I thought was the prettiest. The King and six of his favourites were allowed out there, and it would have been accessible only from the king's private rooms. We also saw the longest grape vine either in Europe, England or the World. Regardless, it was BIG. After walking through some other cute gardens and "the wilderness," we happened upon THE HEDGE MAZE! Huzzah! That was fun, though we sort of walked determinedly through it (Gramps was trying to get us out, I was trying to get us lost). I want to go back and just run through it like the little kids did.

We had an early dinner at Pizza Express, and then I went back to my room and got all my winter stuff together to send home with Mum. We hung out for a little while at the hotel, and then I went to sleep early.

On Wednesday, I met up with Mum and we settled my flight home- 1PM on May 24, I'll be back in Boston 6:30PM Boston time. We admired St Paul's briefly, and then returned to the hotel to hang out for another hour while we waited for their airport service to pick them up. After seeing them all off, I went to Genesis and saw "The Boat That Rocked." I don't want to talk too much about it, I'm always nervous about spoiling the endings, but it was definitely very very good and I laughed a ton, which is always a key point for me.

After eating at Nando's, Steph, Damien, Lee and I went to the acrobatics gym again. I epic failed in an attempt to do a front flip off the springboard. And by epic failed, I mean I ended up kneeing myself in the forehead hard enough that two mornings later, it's still sore to the touch. However, my water bottle was doubling as an ice cube that day, and I had ibuprophin with me, so I was able to enjoy more of the gym and even learned how to do a butt bounce on the trampoline.

Thursday was a day for sleeping in, and it felt awesome. After making spaghetti bologanese and chocolate trifle with Damien, Caitlin and I went over our friend Dave's flat to talk for a little while so he could record our accents and then transcirbe them for a class. The two of us met up with Vanessa and her two friends, and I accidentally talked Haider in to joining us for Brick Lane- delicious as always. After packing for my trip, I had an early night, and slept in this morning before running to grab some granola bars to bring to Italy with me. I'm leaving in about ten minutes to meet up with Keener in Venice before we railtrip to Torino, Genoa, Pisa, Livorno and Rome :-)