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| Warwick Castle |
Then there was something that I have only seen in movies. A
working trebuchet!! I was able to see it fire a 28 kilogram rock! It was really
cool! It is a complicated war machine and it is the only working one in Europe,
I believe. It was fantastic. There were two things that I did not have time to
enjoy and also cost some extra money. Their was a short show based on BBC’s
Merlin series that sounded really interesting and also a haunted tour of the
dungeons. The entrance to the dungeons you go by a witches cauldron through a
tent with heads and torture devices. While walking the ramparts you can see
behind the tent and there was a cart with limbs inside it. It looked exciting!
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| The trebuchet right before launch! |
The ramparts were really fun too. There were more stumble
steps and just a great view of the entire castle. We also saw a birds of prey
show and I was startled to know that they have bald eagles! It was absolutely
beautiful to see these majestic birds fly. There were also peacocks wandering
around the grounds. Unlike the ones at Lake Maggiore they did not open their
tails for anyone, but they were quite vocal and talked to each other all the
time.
Madame Tussaud’s also took an interest in this castle. There
is an exhibit of wax figures showing how the castle prepared for the War of the
Roses. I finally got to wear a knights helmet and seen more wax figures than
ever before. It was actually a really cool way to feel like the castle was
still lived in. Even though they lost the battle, they chose the wrong side.
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| Picture from the Ramparts. |
Overall, the castle was really fun but as always we had more to do. We had
to go to the home of Shakespeare. We started with Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. No,
not the actress, its Shakespeare’s wife’s name. The cottage was really cute but
most of its story actually has nothing to do with Shakespeare or Anne. It had a
really cute garden and was a cool thing to go through. Then we went to
Shakespeare’s birthplace. The cottage was fun but the best part was the actors.
There were three Shakespearean actors that performed tibits of different plays
for us to hear. It was really cool.
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| Anne Hathaway's Castle |
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| David Tennet!!! Apparently he was in a Shakespeare performance! |
We then traveled to the church where Shakespeare and Anne were buried. Their
graves are clearly marked. It is rumored that Shakespeare helped with the
English translation of the bible and in Pslams 46 on Shakespeare’s 46th
birthday he placed his name in the bible. 46 words down in verse 3 you find the
word Shake. 46 words from the
bottom in verse 9 you find the word Speare spelled just like that. In the King
James’ Version of the Bible you can find the words but speare is spelled spear.
It was still really cool. Also in the corner of the church they had costumes of
what people used to wear to church. Hence the picture below. It was really fun
and I looked fantastic in that hat!
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| Ready for church! |
After that we just wandered Stratford-upon-Avon. Fun fact: Avon means
river so the name just means Stratford on the river. There is a river and I walked
over it. So we did some shopping and ate in a tasty pub. We were supposed to
see Twelfth Night while we were there but a miscommunication happened and the
study abroad people in Provo did not purchase the tickets. However! There was a
huge silver lining. We now have tickets to Chariots of Fire AND we watched She’s
the Man on the way back! We have been talking about this movie since we arrived
in London and we all watched it together. It was fantastic! Overall, we had a
really fun day and I enjoyed it! Hope all is well for you! Love you all and
thanks for reading J
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