Not All Who Wander Are Lost: Dresses and Heights

Well after four months abroad I'm back in the states and finally have time to finish recording everything I've been up to in the month and a half since spring break. When we got back from break I stated doing an internship three days a week instead of classes and between that, the two classes that were still running, and trying to see everything I possibly could before leaving I didn't have any time to record what I was seeing. But now that I'm home and have nothing I repeat absolutely nothing to do, (seriously after London I'm board out of my mind stuck in the house everyday) I have plenty of time to write so here it goes.

March 16

On Sunday March 16 I decided to go explore Kensington Palace for a few hours. I'd seen the outside of the palace several times while walking through Hyde Park but I hadn't gone inside yet. Kensington Palace is a lot like the White House in that part of it is a private residence, Kate and Will live here along with several other members of the royal family, and part of it is a museum that's open to the public. (Buckingham Palace is also like this, but the museum part is only open for two months during the summer while the Queen is on vacation so while I saw the outside several times I wasn't able to go for a tour.)

Kensington Palace

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, so the park was full of people picnicking, riding bikes, and laying out soaking up as much sun as possible. (Englishmen are a bit like reptiles in that as soon as the sun comes out they immediately find a convenient location to lay down and soak in as much as possible.) The area around the Palace is one of the most popular parts of the park since it's near a entrance, the duck pond, refreshments, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, and bathrooms, and like the rest of the park is simply stunningly beautiful.

Inside the Palace once you buy your ticket you are given a map that shows the different sections of the palace that are open for visitors. Each section is dedicated to a different era in history, which I thought was a really cool way to set up the tour. You don't have to visit them in any particular order, generally the people working point you to the area that is least busy at the moment to prevent lines and insure that you get to see everything, instead of just looking at a wall of tourists. As part of this system the first area I visited was the section dedicated to the life of Queen Victoria.

Note: The British are obsessed with Queen Victoria, it is impossible to go a day in London without encountering something named after her. A pub, a museum, a street, anything. For goodness sake one of the lines on the Tube is called the Victoria Line, so it comes as no surprised that a section on Kensington palace is dedicated to her. In all fairness she was born and raised here, but so were dozens of other members of the royal family over the centuries, and she just happens to be one of the four or five discussed in the tour.

Sorry the picture came out so blurry, I was using an iPhone camera through glass in a dimly lit room. This is the dress the then Princess Victoria was wearing when she first addressed her Privy Council the day she became Queen, and it is displayed in the room where she addressed them. The dress used to be black because she was in mourning for her Uncle the former King but the dye has faded over time. Also she was an incredibly tiny women. The dress is on a pedestal that's close to a foot high and even then the shoulders of the dress where barely even with my shoulders when I stood next to it.

The room pictured on the right is where Victoria was born as described in the plaque on the left. Now it is home so some of her childhood toys, such as the doll house in the picture and a diagram of her family tree pictures her and all of her children visible in one the back wall in this picture.

Even the wall paper is pretty!

There were four or five rooms talking about her life, which were very interesting. Sadly since I only had my phone with me instead of a real camera, and they keep the lights fairly dim to protect the artifacts on display I wasn't able to get very many good pictures though.

After Victoria's husband Albert died she went into mourning for the rest of her life, meaning she only every wore black for the rest of her life. She also made most of the members of her court do the same thing while in her presence. This is a picture of one of her mourning dresses and the mourning outfits that she had two of her children wear.

The next section was on William and Mary. They were the monarchs who came to the throne after the Glorious Revolution which was the only point in time where England was not ruled by a monarch, this didn't work out so well for the country though and in about a decade they decided to put a monarch back on the throne.

This part was really cool. During this period there wasn't even more court gossip than was usual for the time. If you sat on the windowsill you could different rumors being whispered between court members from speakers in the walls.

The third section was on style through the ages, specifically the last few decades. This section had dresses that had been worn by the Queen, her sister, and Princess Diana over the last several decades.

The fourth and final section of the palace is dedicated to one of the many Kings of England, I can remember which one for the life of me though. Anyway he liked big parties and his section of the palace is amazingly opulent and beautiful.

Velvet, fur, and cloth of gold coronation robes

This is the room where dances were held

That concluded the museum aspect of my tour of Kensington Palace.

This is a sculpture that's on display in the entrance, it kinda looks like a giant spider web but the strands are glittery and I think it's really beautiful.

And finally this is how the bathrooms are labeled, which I probably enjoyed more than I should have.

March 18

One of the several events that I was able to purchase tickets for through FIE was a ride on the London Eye. For those of you who don't know the Eye is a GIANT ferris wheel over the Thames. Shira and Morgan had tickets too, but I was running late because of class so they went ahead without me. Each of the capsules is made of glass so you can see out from every angle and fits about 15 people. Luckily since it wasn't too busy that night they were only putting about 8 people in each one so it wasn't too crowded. The ride takes about 30 min and is really cool. There are four iPads in each capsule and you can use them to pull up pictures of the skyline that will tell you the names of the building you can see. All in all it's totally worth doing if you're ever in London.