British Landscape Field Trip #2: Hampton Court Palace

For my program's second field trip, we went to Hampton Court Palace. The palace was beautiful, the grounds were beautiful, and then it rained. Luckily, it wasn't until after we had seen the gardens (for the most part). The Palace was built by Cardinal Wosley, and used by Henry VIII (with his multiple wives). Here's some pictures of my day:

The Fountain Court. This fountain used to have wine flowing out of it.

The King's Chocolate. I tried some and it was disgusting! It was too spicy for my liking.

We even met Henry VIII. He was fascinated by us female scholars from the Spanish Colonies, as the US was known.

Perhaps my favorite place in the Palace!

The ceiling of the Great Hall.

The Queen's Staircase.

Astronomical Clock.

Guns. Guns everywhere. And knives. Who knew they could be decorations?

The Gallery, where Alexandra and I were tempted to waltz into.

My favorite place again.

The King's Loo!

As Oxford Scholars, we had to recreate the statues. I mean, isn't that what scholars do?

The view from the Gardens.

And again.

There were lots of beautiful gardens behind the Palace.

Self-explanatory.

As we were waiting for our group, we decided to take some pictures with the statues around the Fountain Court.

These are 20th century recreations, but I loved the entrance statues! One of them (not these two) is a lion with his tongue stuck out. 

It was a fun trip, besides the rain, and I learned a lot about Henry VIII and his wives. As a creepy voice behind the stairwell kept saying as we walked through:

"Divorced, Beheaded, Died. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived." 

A little rhyme to remember Henry VIII wives and how he got them out of his life.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about my trip. Next up: Portchester!

A "Wales" of a Midterm Break!

After my non-clever title, you might be excited with this post. For my midterm break, I, along with 15 others, went to Wales! We stayed near the town of Brecon in a place called Alexanderstone Manor. It was honestly my favorite house ever (besides my home, of course). It's taken me a while to write about this, but I had to get down to a few pictures (and believe me, this is probably around 5% of all the photos I took. It was hard to choose!

Our manor house!

Our first day there, a few of us climbed up the hill near our house. We had to climb a lot of fences.

The top was very "Wuthering Heights-ish."

Our home!

The 2nd day, we went into Hay-On-Wye, a town full of secondhand bookshops. My dream town! I loved this place.

They had all the classics for 2 pounds. I bought War and Peace and Great Expectations.

So many books!

On Sunday, we went for a walk to a few waterfalls.

We even got to go under one of them.

First stop of Monday was Caerphilly Castle.

You can't tell, but I'm on the edge of the top of the tower here.

The geese are gorgeous!

Next stop= Castle Coch.

On Tuesday, we climbed one of the Brecon Beacons, but had to turn around due to high winds (75+). It was a great view though!

On our drive back to Oxford, we stopped at Raglan Castle.

Panorama from the top. 

Rachel and I found a cat. It was amazing. She was sickly, had sores, and you could feel her spine, but on the better side, she was pregnant! She was so cute and friendly!

Final stop was Tintern Abbey. It was so beautiful!

Finally home to England. It was a fun trip, and I'm glad I got to experience Wales. Looking back on it now, I wish it had lasted longer!