Days 33 & 34 (Saturday, October 23, 2010 & Sunday, October 24, 2010):
Weekend trip away with the girls to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick and Windsor!
Our Saturday started out extremely early - I think we were up by 4am! To add onto the stress, we had some trouble getting our tickets; in addition, Elmira and I had to get our 16-25 railcards so that was really hectic. The ticket booth wasn't open when we got there because it was too early, so we had to wait around. In the end (as always), things all worked out and we were finally on our train!
I took this picture on our train trying to emphasize how dark it was outside, but it's hard to tell because of the reflection from the inside:
Everyone looked really tired in the pictures we took, but as this blog is set on public mode, I don't put up pictures of people...Anyway! Alisha did pretty much all the navigation on this trip, so kudos to my roommate! :) I was astonished at how many times we had to transfer trains...
I can't remember now how we got to Stratford-upon-Avon (we transferred like 4 times, literally), but I remember at Birmingham, we had to walk from one train station to the other - we were huffing and puffing the entire time with all our bags.
 |
As the sun came up... :) |
I realize how much I'm going to miss traveling on trains when I go back! It's so wonderful to see the beautiful landscape...
 |
You can't have a landscape picture in the UK without SHEEP! |
We finally arrived at Shakespeare town...:
We were at Stratford-upon-Avon for only about 2 hours, but I fell in love with the city. It was so cute!
 |
Shakespeare's Birthplace!! |
It was really surreal to see Shakespeare's birth house and the house he spent most of his childhood in. We even got to see the exact room that he was born in; unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures. I really couldn't believe that...it was just right there. Having extensively read Shakespeare due to my AP English Lit class during my senior year in high school, it was really fascinating to see that he was there and just...real. I'm not sure if I'm making much sense, but anyway, it was really cool. Little did I know back then that in less than 3 years, I'd be making a journey to where he was born... :) It's funny how life turns out sometimes!
Afterwards, we grabbed some 'butterbeer' from this 'magical' store:
It tasted...interesting. It was kind of cool though because on top was this sticky foam!
We then headed to Warwick on a bus from the train station!
We had a lot of memorable moments on this trip, but one of the funniest moments came on our way from the train station to Warwick Castle. Alana and I really needed to pee badly, so we were pretty much in hysterics trying to look for a toilet! There was one point when we had left the other two girls behind and screaming "We're TOILETING!" across the street and pointing (because we had found a toilet)...yeah, people were definitely looking at us. And then we ended up not using the toilet at the end because we thought it was nasty! Ayy...
We spent most of our time in Warwick at the Warwick Castle:
Warwick Castle was DEFINITELY worth a visit! There were sooo many people there (it reminded me of Disneyland) but lots to see as well. Unlike other castles we've visited, Warwick was more geared toward children and had lots of activities for us to be engaged in. We spent a good 5 hours there.
Since it was close to Halloween at this time, they had a special Halloween theme going on:
The gaol was really interesting in particular because we got to see where prisoners were actually kept and tortured. Some of the torturing devices still remained - one particular striking one was on the ceiling, where prisoners were kept hanging until their bodies stretched/rotted or something like that...O_O
We also went into this exhibit called 'Secrets and Scandals' where we were greeted by these two ladies dressed in costumes. They treated us as if we were special guests of a house party - as the name implies, the party showed how scandalous those times were. Basically we found out that everyone was sleeping with each other's married partners...
 |
 |
Even the men were gossiping! |
 |
Some more views of the castle |
 |
This was like the 'backyard' of castle grounds... |
We went to the Peacock Garden:
We climbed to the top of the tower - over 500 steps!
The main house:
Afterwards, we grabbed dinner at a pub and then were on our way to Hounslow, where our hotel was...little did we know then that we were about to embark on a ridiculous adventure trying to look for it!
I think we got incorrect directions like literally 3 times from different people! We had to transfer over a bunch of times...I can't remember why, but I think we had issues at the Reading Station, so we decided we didn't like Reading (haha). This REALLY confused us as well:
The instructions told us to go from Reading, get on the London Waterloo train, get off at Straines, and then get on the London Waterloo train, then get off at Hounslow....
We were all very confused as to why we needed to get off the Waterloo train and then get back on! After asking the conductor on our train, we figured out that there were multiple Waterloo trains....
When we (finally) got to the hotel via a taxi (from a number we read on a sticker stuck to a bus stop), we were all pretty much drained. We had a 'family room' in our hotel - we had had no idea what it was going to be like, but it was actually awesome (kudos to Alisha, again).
The hotel had a couch and two double beds. I ended up sleeping on the couch - it was really, really comfortable :)
We woke up early in the morning and headed to Windsor.
 |
At the station in Hounslow.... |
We took a picture of the Hounslow stop sign because we struggled so much to find it!
We got to the Windsor Castle without much trouble. It's the biggest castle in the UK and is still used by the Queen as a residence. The line was quite long:
We even had to go through metal detectors and put all our stuff in x-ray machines before going in! Craziness...
We were really disappointed, though, because the State Residences were CLOSED on the day. We were told that someone of the royal family was in Windsor when we visited...we later found out that the Queen was there! Blah. It was cool and not cool at the same time; it would have been very nice to see the State Residences. We didn't get to see the chapel either because it was Sunday =( I hear it is gorgeous inside...
We were able to go into only a couple of the rooms that were open - we got to see Queen Mary's Dollhouse, which was magnificent (no pictures allowed). There were such intricate details for each of the rooms. Apparently, the plumbing inside the doll house works!!!!
"The carpets, curtains and furnishings are all copies of the real thing, and even the light fittings are working. The bathrooms are fully plumbed; that includes a flushable toilet and miniature lavatory paper."
I would have loved to 'flush' the toilet...but of course we couldn't do that, haha.
 |
The State Residences..which were closed that day, booo... |
Afterwards, we went on a boat tour of Windsor on the Thames River...
A view of the castle from the river:
We then had dinner at this really cute cafe and headed back home!
I think the difference between Warwick Castle and Windsor Castle really speaks volumes about how each castle has its own personality :)
