Yesterday we got up early to make sure and get to the bus by 7:55. Just as I predicted, thanks to the Tube Strike, traffic was horrendous and our bus got there over an hour late. So, while we were waiting my darling roommate, Betsy, and I...
...decided to stroll down the street to a little place called Fais Maison to get some French pastries! (I wasn't exaggerating when I said that most of my budget is going toward food here!)
The best part was that our waiter was an actual French guy with an adorable accent, so that was fun. I asked him what his favorite pastry was, and ended up with a chocolate almond croissant thingy, which was quite tasty! After that we went back to Metrogate (the home base for our flats) and waited until the bus came. We drove out to a little town by the name of Warwick and began our tour of Warwick castle.
After taking stock of our surroundings and getting some silly pictures, we headed into the fortress!
Unfortunately, shortly after I took that last photo, my camera batteries died, and the two sets of spare batteries I brought with me also died after I took one picture with each of them! So, I had to take exceedingly low-quality pictures with my iPod for the rest of the time at the castle (which can't hold a charge anymore and didn't last for very long either).
There were a couple of us who wanted to take a picture lying on the bed, but we weren't sure if that was allowed, so we just snapped a couple of these really quick, haha.
The castle was sold to Madam Tussaud's some years ago, and now the castle is filled with (her specialty) an abundantly creepy collection of wax people all over the place. There were a couple of instances in which I walked into a room and almost jumped out of my skin to see someone standing there, only to realize it was just a doll.
So there was this thing up on a hill called "The Mound," which was like the treehouse of this castle. When I climbed up there I was totally alone, and experienced the most powerful wind I've ever encountered in England! The view was gorgeous because it looked out over miles and miles of green fields and gardens that rolled off into the distance. I can't imagine why in the world the last Earl of Warwick would have wanted to sell this place off!
After I climbed down from the mound, I went across the courtyard and climbed up into the tallest turret of the castle and got an even more spectacular view of everything in all directions for miles and miles. There was some pretty wicked wind up there, which made me nervous about leaning out too far over the edge to see everything - lean too far and you'd tumble right over to your untimely death! Still, I felt pretty epic running around up there and crossing from there to the other turret because they were blasting Pirates of the Caribbean music on the grounds! I feel like the right music can make any adventure ten times more fun!
After the castle we traveled to the nearby town of Worcester ("wooster") where we got to explore a British Civil War Museum (which was a house from the middle ages that had been added on to throughout the years, so it had a lot of awkward platforms and rooms and doorways and such, as well as floors that sagged down into corners and walls).
After the museum we explored Worcester Cathedral down the street, and then Lindsey and Andrew and I all went in search of a pub, because we had a hankering to try some bangers and mash. Unfortunately, we didn't find any pubs until it was too late to sit down to a meal. Lindsey and Andrew got some dinner at a pizza place, but since I am stubbornly against eating any American food while I'm here, I settled on a sausage pasty and a little pack of jelly donuts from a local bakery instead.
Well, that was pretty much it for the evening. After we got home, most of the girls gathered in our flat to watch The Bachelor (which we've all been watching together), but I was so tired that I went to bed partway through it.
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