Today was AMAZING! I woke up at 9:15 and Ashl
ey, one of the guys, and I left for Hampton Court Palace at 10:15. We took the tube to Waterloo train station and bought round trip tickets to the palace (about a 30 min ride). They were £6.50 ($9.62 with today's exchange rate - ick, it's gotten worse lately). Anyway, we took the 11:06 train and we thought it went straight to the Hampton Court stop, but apparently we were supposed to get off at Surbiton and switch trains. Well, we went one stop too far before we figured out our mistake, so we had to get off and wait for another train going back the direction we came from which was another 20 minutes. *sigh* But we passed the time pleasantly despite the freezing cold and the outdoor station. Once we got back on the train we switched at Surbiton and didn't have to wait very long for the next train to Hampton Court. Ashley had already bought us tickets for the palace online the night before
for £10.50 each which was quite a good deal because they were several pounds more at the ticket office there. And, our passes came with full garden, maze, and palace access as well as free audio guides and any tours. Too bad we were later than we expected or we may have actually had time to utilize the audio guides. However, we did go on a tour at 1pm (we arrived about 12:20)and it was pretty good. The guide told us all about the Tudor lifestyle (the palace was lived in by Henry VIII (the one who had 8 wives)) and his decedents - all together, the Tudors. There is this society called the historians or something like that who come and live at the palace now and then in 100% authentic garb, living conditions, etc. They even make food exactly the way it would have been made in the Tudor times, eat it that way, have it served that way etc. They were there yesterday and we got to watch them preparing meals. They aren't allowed to serve it to the public because of very specific laws about how food must be prepared when catered. However, when they sit down for meals the public is allowed to observe the way they eat, the way the food is brought in and out, and other customs. Unlike the things you hear about Renaissance way of life (like using lots of spices to cover up the taste of rotten meat) that sort of thing never happened in the Palace. King Henry would have only the best for his guests, and he had fresh meat year-round (which was quite rare). It also only took the servants 40 to 50 seconds to pick up the food from the kitchen and have it delivered to the table which means the dishes were never cold.
Water was not safe to drink in the 1500s because of disease, and though they didn't know why, they knew that the process used to produce beer and wine made them safe; therefore, people drank only those beverages. However, they weren't inebriated morning to night because with meals like breakfast one would have "small beer." Beer we drink today is beer after the first stage of fermenting, small beer was the 3rd or 4th stage and had so little alcohol content that by the time you drank enough to even get you tipsy you'd have exploded from too much liquid intake.
We also got to see a tapestry that Henry VIII had commissioned. There are 25 total, all still
surviving, and they are called the Abraham tapestries. They are made out of silk, gold, and silver thread and considered one of the chiefest collections of worth owned by the Queen (things like this technically get passed down to monarchy after monarchy and thus technically belong to the queen). Anyway, these tapestries may be worth a large portion of the royal jewels. I think the guide said at the time of Henry you could live quite comfortably off of £5 a year and these tapestries cost Henry about £3,000 (or maybe it was £300,000...I don't remember - but a lot!).Before the tour the three of us went to the gardens and there aren't words to express the sheer beauty of them! I felt like I had stepped into a scene from a Jane Austen movie - with perfect, huge, cone shaped green trees and acres of green grass and flowing fountains and swans. I was in absolute awe. That is when I decided I was born for that life. lol After the tour we went to the hedge maze, though it was a bit of a let-down since in winter you can sort of see through the hedges. Then we went to a cafe that was located next to the maze and I ate my prepacked lunch
and they ordered some food. I brought cookies for everyone though since we are still eating that batch Grandma B. sent me. Mmmm.After that we went back inside and saw some rooms lived in by King George II and Queen Caroline when they were there. When their son was 10 he was given his own "apartments" (i.e. - a set of rooms for himself) and we saw all of these. All the beds we saw looked so short but in fact they were all between 6'5" and 7'2" yet because of the width and huge tapestries hung above them they looked like midget beds.
The palace first created and lived in by Thomas Wolsey, then Archbishop of York and Chief Minister to the King, who took over the lease in 1514 and rebuilt the 14th century manor house over the next seven years (1515–1521) to form the nucleus of the present palace. Wolsey spent lavishly to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court, which he was later forced to give to Henry as he began to fall from favour.
The palace was appropriated by Wolsey's master (Henry VIII) in about 1525, although the Cardinal continued to live there until 1529. Henry added the Great Hall — which was the last medieval Great Hall built for the English monarchy — and the Royal Tennis Court, which was built and is still in use for the game of real tennis, not the present-day version of the game. This court is now the oldest Real Tennis Court in the world that is still in use. Also, the Great Hall was used by Shakespeare to put on performances for the royals and is also believed to be the first place where Macbeth was staged. (A warder, a person who lives and works in the palace, told me this when he heard I was studying Shakespeare). The warders were all very knowledgeable and happy to answer questions - the trick was getting them to stop talking!
After that I stayed while the other 2 went back home because Ashley was going to see a stand-up comedian and didn't want to be late. I went back to the gardens and by this time the skies were very blue with white fluffy clouds and sun just streaming down. While it was still very cold, I was so unbelievably happy and could not stop smiling. I shall never take advantage of good weather again!! I walked over to the Long Water which is basically a really long and narrow man made lake that butts up to the palace gardens. It is very pretty. I attached a google satellite image of the palace and you can see the Long Water butting up to the half circle shaped gardens.
There are gates behind the gardens and I behind the gates a giant heath (a tract of open and uncultivated land)with trees here and there. I didn't realize you could go past the gate, but these two women came through so I realized it was unlocked. There was no one around and it was such a beautiful day so I kept walking. In the distance I thought I saw some animals, and the closer I got I realized that they were deer - and they weren't behind a fence or anything. I kept
walking toward them expecting them to bolt, but they didn't. I ended up getting so close I could have touched them and I walked right through them. I was a little scared because I'd never been so close to wild creatures before and I guess if they'd had a mind to do so, they could have charged me. I later asked a guard what kind of deer were back there and he said the ones who let me get close were probably the roe deer because the red deer are more skittish. They had antlers that looked a bit like moose antlers. Anyway, I couldn't believe it - getting closer to deer than I ever had in London of all places! Once I got back into the gardens there were a bunch of students taking pictures and I heard
their American accents so I asked where they were from and they said California. They were absolutely freezing. When they left California it was 75 degrees. I think they must have just arrived in London because if you still aren't dressing warmly after a month here, you're just an idiot. I was wearing 2 pair of socks, 2 pair of long johns under my jeans, a silk long-sleeved undershirt under my sweater which was under my peacoat. And I never walk out without gloves! I also had my ear-flap hat. Anyway, I took some pictures for their group and one of them took a picture with me standing in front of The Long Water. 
On the train ride home an old gentleman was sitting across from me who was out in London for a special church service and was going all the way home to Plymouth in the county of Devon in the SW of England. We talked about the beauty of the day and his daughter in Germany who he's going to visit this year. He also told me a few places he thought I should go see while I'm here. He said many people go to Land's End (yes, it's a real place) to see the sunset over the water there. It looks like a lovely coastal town. Maybe I'll go there for a day or two at some point.
Anyway, it was an absolutely lovely day and I can't wait to go back to Hampton Court and see the things I didn't get a chance to see! Today is beautiful as well, but I think I will just stay in and get some homework done. *sighs* Oh that pesky school work ;)
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