The smoke stains on the wall are from when the hall was used for banquets and trials. In the middle of the roof there was a hatch which used to lead to a chimney where all the smoke from the huge bonfires necessary to stay warm in the English winters went.
This is a picture from Day 32 as Barnaby led us to the Tate Britain. Fairies exist in Britain, and apparently they're badly-behaved.
On Day 34, we woke to a cold and misty morning and trooped, grumbling, out onto the pavement in front of Bedford Place, where we were met by a psychotically happy bus driver named Robert and a Dr. King who already bore the look of a man driven to distraction by incessant rambling. I took a seat near the front of the bus and tried valiantly to stay awake to stare at the passing English countryside, but my exhaustion and the somnolent effect of travel took their hold on me. I spent time trying to find a comfortable position in my two seats and failed, but managed to drift in and out nonetheless, listening to Robert's tales about his ex-wife and his friend who was a cop with half an ear. Outside the bus, the rain drummed down without cease.
Anyway, after two hours (far more than the one hour and fifteen minutes the ACORN person said it would take), we arrived at Stonehenge and fell out of the bus into gale-force winds that drove the rain sideways into our faces along with such cold that our breath steamed in the air. Still, the allure of Stonehenge was such that we weren't the only ones there. Dr. King and I walked around the monument together as he explained different parts of its function and history to me. They've figured out how the top stones stay on; there are notches cut into the bottoms of the top stones, with posts hewn out of the supports that slide into the notches to hold it on. However, they still have no idea how Neolithic man got these several-ton stones up onto the support stones, much less how they got them the forty to fifty miles from the quarry where they were cut. The best current theory is that they rolled them on logs. The rest of the group walked around it as fast as they could and dove back into the bus, but I took a more leisurely route, enjoying the driving wind and rain in a sort of masochistic, very British fashion.
There were sheep grazing all around Stonehenge, unruffled by the weather.
Stonehenge itself. You used to be able to go and walk amongst the stones themselves, but the National Heritage group stopped that in the Seventies due to people spraying graffiti on the stones. They still open them up for the solstice and equinox though, so that neo-pagan Druids can engage in rituals. Also, you might've heard of this; a few days ago, Druidism became officially a religion in the British Isles.After Stonehenge, we all piled back in the bus and took a thirty-minute ride to Salisbury, where Salisbury Cathedral, home of the tallest cathedral spire in Britain, is located. The pictures of the Cathedral will be in the next post. The Cathedral was enormous, but we didn't get hardly any time to wander around on the floor, as Claire, Erin, and I were the first victims of the Spire Tour. Our guide was a rotund, short old man who hadn't stopped talking since the day he figured out how; every little thing he said reminded him of something else that was also vastly important, and so our tour was overtaken by a group that had left fifteen minutes behind us both going to the top and coming down.
I, being not a great lover of heights, didn't enjoy the climb, especially the bits where one was forced to descend a wooden spiral staircase with only one railing. However, once we got to the top of the spire and were able to step out onto the small stone balconies to be thrown about by the wind and the rain, I enjoyed it much more; when I could see the horizon, shrouded in mist though it was, I didn't realize how high up I was. It was also the only respite I got from the guide's constant theorizing about minute aspects of the spire that only he cared about. Anyway, we descended and were given little badges memorializing our achievement in spire-climbing to pin on our chests like low-budget merit badges, and then were forced to go sprinting back out into the storm to board the bus, since our guide had taken so long that we were now late.
The bus ride back to Bedford Place took well over three hours, because the ACORN person who had set up the trip miscalculated the London traffic. It was okay once the bus driver shut up, though, because Dr. King and I were able to have a very nice conversation ranging from music to the progress of technology to life on other planets and the ethics of having the President of Rwanda speak at graduation. We also sung along to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2." Anyway, it turned out that Robert wanted to be our driver for our four-day trip to the West Country, which made Dr. King whisper to me, "I'm not sure I can stand him for four days."
I agreed. We arrived back at Bedford Place, and I sat around and did nothing memorable before going to bed.
Day 35 was also very unmemorable. I got up at ten, had breakfast, and went out to a cult entertainment store I noticed on the bus ride out of London. It was huge and sold everything a geek could want: walls of comic books, trade paperbacks, and graphic novels; bookshelves dedicated to science fiction and fantasy novels; even more bookshelves for obscure British movies and television shows; dice and tabletop roleplaying source books; and a comic book signed by Alan Moore on sale for seventy pounds which I stared at with the glazed eyes of an addict. I was so tempted to buy it in the hopes that some of his insane- literally insane- genius would rub off on me, although I don't think I'm prepared to become a magician and worship the fictional Roman snake god Glycon - fictional even to the Romans- like he does in order to attain the same level of skill. After spending two hours in the store, I went back to the apartment and had lunch. By myself. Because none of my roommates get up before two o' clock. And even when they got up, they weren't interested in going out and doing anything. So I went out by myself and had a constitutional around the neighborhood, browsing through the windows of the antique shops on Museum Street, where you could buy an ancient Roman oil lamp for fifty pounds and a Ming Chinese dagger for several hundred. The rest of the evening was uneventful.
The only exciting things to happen on Day 36 were that Erin, Kate, and I went and browsed Oxford Street for several hours and a bunch of us went out and had Chinese food. Oxford Street was fun because of the amount of stores, allowing us to try on lots of clothes. I found a pair of boots I loved for only thirty-five pounds, but didn't buy them; I'm going to keep thinking about it. I did get a hat for twenty-five pounds, which I'm very pleased with. And I'm also glad that dressing androgynously is a current trend; as I said to Kate, "It's the only time in my life when the way I normally dress is a trend."
That evening, Erin, Kate, Hillary, Chase, Claire, and I walked down to Chinatown on a quest for Chinese food. We found a restaurant and gorged ourselves on rice and various dishes, and then, replete, staggered back to Bedford Place. Then it started to rain. Biblical amounts. And I didn't have my umbrella. So I resorted to ducking into a Chinese dessert shop and begging a plastic bag, which I wore over my head like some terrible attempt at a superhero mask. The rain continued to pour down, but it mattered not to Baghead and her brave posse, who patrolled the streets with the hedonistic smiles and street-clearing belches of the truly full.
As for today, I've spent most of it in Senate House Library, which doubled as the Ministry of Love in the movie version of 1984. So you can probably imagine how cheery it feels inside. I've gotten my outline of my final paper done for British Life and Culture and sent it off to Susie, so the only things left this week are our explication for Shakespeare and our exam for Dr. King. Once those are done, we can all go haring off in various directions to explore Europe for ten days. Exciting!
And tonight I go see War Horse in the West End. You should look it up on Google, if only to get a glimpse of the amazing puppets they use. Anyway, that's the details of the last few days.
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