Shakespeare and a Rooster

After Cardiff there was about a week and a half where I didn't go on any big adventures, but I did lots of fun smaller things around the city, since none of these things really warrant their own post I'm going to combine them all into this one. Enjoy!

March 24 - Shakespeare's Globe Theater and Blackfriars Bridge

As part of our British Life and Culture Classes about a hundred students at FIE went on an outing to Shakespeare's Globe Theater for a tour and a lecture on how the plays were preformed then, how that differs from today, and the construction of the Globe Theater that is standing today. The theater itself is really cool but as someone who isn't a huge fan of Shakespeare I found the lecture on the differences on how things are preformed to be a bit long. I did get some very cool pictures however, and the talk about the building actual construction was very interesting. For example, as you look at the pictures below you'll notice that most of the walls in the theater, with the exception of those closest to the stage, are white, this is not historically accurate, in Shakespeare's time all the walls would have been painted, and that was the intent when they built this theater, but they ran out of money during the building project. The plan to one day finish painting everything but in the list of repairs and improvements that need to be made it always seems to come last since it's not necessary to order for the building to function.  

Outside

The benches 

There was a performance of the Merchant of Venice later that
afternoon, hence the sign. 

This is above the stage, it's viewable form the standing room
in front of the stage

This is the seating area as viewed from the standing room

After the outing finished, it took about two and a half hours, I headed over to the near by Blackfriars Bridge. One of the many things I enjoyed about London was that I got to see so many places that I've read about in books, and this was one of them. In the series The Infernal Devices two of the characters are cursed so that they can only meet once a year for close to two centuries, and the meeting place they choose was Blackfriars Bridge, so naturally I had to go visit it. 

 

March 30 - Columbia Road Flower Market

My professor for British Life and Culture was by far the best one I had while studying abroad, apart from being a fantastic teacher she was always happy to point us in the direction of something interesting to do in London and one of the things she suggested to me was a visit to the Columbia Road Flower Market in the East End. She said it was a nice place to go on your own and wander around for a while so I took her advice and got up early one Sunday to go check it out. The market turned out to be incredibly cool. Columbia road is probably about a quarter of a mile long and every possible space if filled with every imaginable type of flower. One thing that I found really interesting/ironic was the fact that most of the flower vendors where these really tough looking middle aged guys yelling out in thick East Ender accents "This ones a fiver, this ones a tenner" over and over surround by some of the most beautiful flowers I'd ever seen. Additionally this market might just be the best smelling place on Earth with literally millions of flowers packed into such a small area. 

  

March 30 - Le Mis

This next day I was able to achieve one of the goals I had set for my trip, seeing a live performance of Le Mis on the West End, specifically in the Queens Theater where it holds the record for the longest running stage performance and after seeing it I understand why. One of the other girls from my flat, Eva, ended up having tickets for the same day, just different seats so we made our way to the theater together and stopped for a Cinabon on the way home so all in all we had a amazing night. The show was amazing and the way they set up the stage was so clever. The entire stage was a giant wheel and what they would do was only light the front half so that while the back half was in darkness the crew could assemble the set for the next scene, then when it was time for the seen change the floor would just rotate. This way the crew had up to 10 min to assemble a scene and since they had a lot more time than usual the sets were much more complex and detailed than most shows I've seen. The actors where amazing, and the singers were fantastic, and all in all the show was just amazing! 

April 1 - Trafalgar Square and Harrods Department Store

You know the saying "The third times the charm"? In the case of this particular adventure across London that happened to be true. Sarah and I had planed to go to Trafalgar Square and Harrods two times previously, the first time we woke up to pouring rain, and the second time I woke up sick, so we had to scratch the plans, but on April 1 things finally fell into place. 

Harrods is one of the oldest department stores in the world and I have to assume one of the most opulent. Picture Macy's on steroids, lots and lots of steroids. The place is five stories tall and a full city block long, and sells everything you can imagine, at prices you don't want to imagine. While we were walking around I stopped to check the price of an infants shirt out of curiosity, it was the equivalent of one hundred American dollars. For an infants shirt, that will be covered in drool and God only knows what else the two times the baby wears it before they grow out of it! Needless to say I was a bit horrified/disgusted.

That being said their toy department is a magical place that I would have killed to live in as a child. They have one of the costumes from the West End production of the Lion King on display, live sized models of Captain America and the Hulk, and the first Iron Man sit worn by Robert Downey Jr. in the first Iron Man movie. 

Extremely fancy elevator 

From Harrods we made our way to the significantly less opulent Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square is one of the most iconic landmarks in London and even if you don't know the name of it I'm sure you've seen a picture of it somewhere or seen it in a movie or TV show, and if not here's several pictures of it so you'll recognize it next time you see it. 

Part of the square is a rotating art instillation and the day we
visited the sculpture on display, for reasons unknown to me
was what Sarah has named "The Big Blue Cock". Why someone
decided to display a giant blue rooster in one of the most
popular tourist destinations in the city is beyond me.

On top of some very cool, and very strange, statues there were several very talented chalk artists in the square the day we visited. And, possibly the least expected of all the things we saw, a man with several hawks teaching people about birds of prey.

This guy was a very nice old hippie who we chatted with for
several minuted. He works on the same piece for several days
at a time coming back and adding more each day.

Several people worked together on this one drawing all the flags of the world and people put coins on the flag of their home country. The details and accuracy were very impressive. 

Sarah was the first one to spot the birds of prey on top of the street lamps, and for a while we were very confused seeing as hawks aren't exactly common in the middle of large cities, but a few minutes later we found the guy teaching people about them, along with two more of the birds who were staying closer to the source of food. 

Doctor's and Castles

So as I'm writing this I've come to the realization that I don't know how many people reading this are family members and how many are friends and because of that this post comes with a warning.

To my nerdy friends, you are going to love this post. To my less nerdy friends, well you should know what you're getting into dealing with me at this point. And finally to my family members, I'm just kinda hoping you don't judge me too harshly after reading this.

Well now that that's out of the way, on March 23 Shira, Sarah, and I hopped on a National Express bus (kinda like a Peter Pan bus in the states) and headed to Cardiff. Cardiff is the capital city of Wales, but more importantly it's also THE LAND OF ALL THINGS DOCTOR WHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

As most of you have no doubt noticed over the last few years I kinda like a BBC show called Doctor Who, most of the filming for the show takes places in Cardiff, and a few years ago some wonderful human being had the marvelous idea to build something called the Doctor Who Experience which is part museum and part 4D theater ride type thing. Before we get to the frantic fangirling part of this post here's some pictures of Cardiff itself. The city is really beautiful and easy to get around, the town center has a nice little shopping area and a castle (we'll get to that later) and the city buses are easy to use. 

The Welsh flag as you can see has an incredibly cool dragon
on it, so dragons are everywhere in the city.

I have no idea why this was in the town center
but it's super cool regardless.

Even though not many people speak it anymore
everything is labeled in the traditional Welsh
language, and even some advertisements like this
one are printed in it.

The Doctor Who Experience 

If you don't feel like reading a long fangirling rant about a 50 year old sci-fi show I suggest you skip to the part of the post below labeled Cardiff Castle where there will only be one or two references to science fiction, I promise. 

So for those of you still reading this is the Doctor Who Experience, also known as one of the most wonderful places on Earth.

This is the outside

This is outside of it too 

Look! The Doctor crashed (again)

This is outside too!

Then you get to enter through the Time Vortex!

Once you see all the awesome things outside you get to actually go inside and see even more amazing things. Warning, from here on out I will be speaking at least partially in quotes and references.

Lego Dalek

Bessie

"Dinosaurs, on a spaceship!" This is the one they rode. 

A shrine to River Song

Handles! (Insert tears here)

Clara's book and leaf

Cool murals

More murals

More murals

Seriously look at these amazing murals!

And all this is just the stuff they have on display in the lobby for you to look at while you're waiting for your turn to enter. We were there a bit before our time slot so we have plenty of time to take pictures and say "Oh my God this is so cool!" several dozen times each, luckily everyone around us was doing the same thing so we fit right in.

Also as a side note the people who work here are incredibly nice. We purchased our tickets online a few days before so we had printed them out already but we noticed that the people who bought them there got these really cool looking tickets that were perfect for scrapbooking, one of the employees overheard us saying this while we were in line a brought us each a blank version of the tickets everyone else had which was incredibly nice of her.


Ok so once we had freaked out over everything in the lobby and the nice lady gave us our pretty tickets it was our turn to go into the experience. In the experience part of the building you aren't allowed to take any pictures, so you're just gonna have to bear with me rambling on about everything the happen during that wonderful half an hour, but you can take as many as you want in the museum part and believe me I did.

Warning number two, as many of you know I don't care about spoilers and suck at keeping them secret so if you haven't gotten through all the current episodes of Doctor Who, up to and including the 50th Anniversary and the Christmas Special, or plan on going to the Doctor Who Experience at some point and want to be surprised by what you see stop reading because I plan to gush about how amazing everything was and I refuse to listen if anyone does read this and then tries to complain to me/scold me later about spoilers. Now that we've cleared that up back to the interesting part of this post.

The first stop on the experience tour is a small theater where the show you a video recapping most of the 11th Doctors adventures, at first I was a bit disappointed that they only included him but it makes sense later I promise. When the movie ends the screen splits in half along the same pattern as the crack in time and you walk through it into another room. This room is full of a random assortment of props, there were pieces of Daleks, the Telescope from the episode about Queen Victoria and Werewolves, and one of the Talking Head things from the Silence in the Library. The Talking Head starts talking (who would have guessed) and points out some of the props in the room to you, but she gets interrupted  when the Doctors suddenly appears on a screen near the ceiling going on about how he's stuck in the Pandorica again, how unoriginal it is of his enemies to put him in the same prison TWICE, and how he needs your help. At this point stops talking long enough to realize that you are not in fact Amy and Rory, however he can't see to contact them so he decides you'll just have to do, as long as you follow his instructions very carefully. At this point you hear the TARDIS sound and a light comes on in a previously dark corner revealing the  TARDIS door and the Doctor orders everyone in.

You then enter a perfect replica of 11's TARDIS and the Doctor appears on several screen around in the inside so everyone can see it. Basically he tells you that he needs the TARDIS to free himself and that you have to bring it to him, he then instructs that the youngest people in the TARDIS make there way to the control panels and do what he tells them while saying that the TARDIS doesn't like adults very much. The entires room then begins to shake and the consul lights up so you feel like you're actually flying in the TARDIS. After a few minutes you "land" and are instructed by the Doctor to exit through a different door.

This door leads you down a dark corridor and when you round one of the corners you are confronted with a human sized Dalek screaming "You will be exterminated!" at you. I was not prepared for this a swore, which wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that one of the aforementioned children in the group was standing right behind me, so from then on I kept my fist in my mouth so prevent any more swears from leaving it, which turned out to be a very good plan. After encountering the first Dalek you emerge from the corridor onto the bridge of a Dalek spaceship where the TARDIS has apparently crash landed. (The Doctor didn't get where he planned? What a shocker!)

The Doctor then appears on the Dalek screens and manages to kill them and save you. You then somehow end up on the ground in a graveyard (think you teleport or use a escape pod I can't remember exactly). Unfortunately this grave yard is, of course, infested with Weeping Angels. And naturally the lights in the room are flickering so it's impossible to watch them and they're moving closer and closer to you as you make your way across the room. Assuming you reach the exit alive, which we all managed to do thankfully, the helpful employee hands you a pair of glasses for "radiation protection" as you enter the final room of the experience.

The final room is the cave under Stonehenge where the Doctor appears on yet another conveniently placed screen yelling something about sending his enemies through the crack in time. The "radiation protection glasses" are really 3D glasses and with them on it looks like all the Doctors enemies (Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Silence, you name it) are flying by you and into the crack in time that's on the wall in front of you. After this happens to Doctors manages to free himself from the Pandorica, says he's going off to find Amy and Rory, and says goodbye.

This completes the experience part of the tour and the museum part begins. The first floor is dedicated mostly to the Doctors, TARDIS's, and their companions. The second floor is for monsters and other props from the show.

Classic Who TARDIS 

Classic Sonic

Another Classic Sonic

Sonic Cane

9 and 10's companions. (That middle one
touched John Barrowman!)

Amy and Rory

Big Amy and Little Amy

Clara 

River (I want that dress!)

This is incredibly cool, it's every Doctors main outfit in order

The room from the top

Sarah, Shira, and I in the TARDIS used for filming with 9 and 10. After
filming wrapped they took it apart and reassembled it here as part of the exhibit. 

Now here's 9 and 10's TARDIS from every possible angle.

Look at the post-it notes in Galifrain

I love all the little details they included!

After we had taken pictures of everything on the first floor we moved on to the second.

Peg Dolls

Doctors cradle 

The Silence 

Cybermen

The Face of Boe

Oods 

You can kinda see me, I'm inside the Dalek, you
can move the arms up and down, Sarah tried to
hug me and I beat her up, but I don't know where
the pic of that went.

They had every version of Daleks ever
used in the show

Davros 

Weeping Angels 

The three TARDIS's from the 50th

Timelord battle plans

The Pandorica 

How to build an Ood

And that concludes our adventure at the Doctor Who Experience. From here we made our way to Cardiff Castle, but first for one last nerdy note, on the bus ride to the castle we passed the entrance to Torchwood and freaked out just a little on a public city bus like the nut jobs we are.

Cardiff Castle

For those of you who skipped the nerdy part of this post, welcome back! There are still going to be some sci-fi references in this part but there will be significantly less, I promise! While in Europe I visited lots of palaces, but this was the only castle I got to go in. Palaces were built later, in the 1600-1800s where as castles are much much older and, in this case, look like something out of a Disney fairy tale. 

When you get to the Castle the first thing you see is the surrounding wall, pictured below.

Once you go through the gate you immediately feel like you've been transported into a Disney movie. The inside of the wall is a huge green lawn, with a "modern" palace against the left wall, and in the middle is a small hill, covered in daffodils, and surrounded by a moat with a small ancient castle on top. 

You can't see the palace in this, but it's all the way to the left

The people who work here are really nice too, as soon as we bought our tickets and went to watch the introductory video one of the works noticed the bags we had from the Doctor Who Experience gift shop and told us about how the library in the palace had been used as a set in Doctor Who. The film was about 10 min ling and kinda strange, it showed how there's been different fortresses on the site of the castle for centuries but the way it presented the information was kinda strange and not well done. Anyway after that we headed off to explore the castle.

The walls 

The green, complete with catapult 

Look at the pretty castle! Look at it!

After walk around the walls we got to climb the castle and took some awesome pictures from the top of the tower.

On the stairs

From the inside

This is an ancient toilet

After this we went inside the newer castle. The rooms here are perfectly maintained and breathtakingly beautiful. Here's a few different examples. 

This is the entrance to the library where Doctor Who and
Torchwood were both filmed. 

And here's us in the library where they were filmed

I'm almost done I promise, here's a few last pictures of the palace grounds, and the peacock that they randomly have.

They have very fancy rain gutters

After taking these we made our way back to the bus station, but yelled at by a crazy homeless man, and bought the bus back to London completing our first day trip around the UK.