A Life Changing Experience

And now, after much anticipation, I get to my account of yesterday's day trip.  Be excited.

We left at 7:30 in the morning and all hopped on to the coach.  True to Aylea Stephens Tradition, I sat only a few rows back, window seat.  It felt lonely without my sister, though.  There were so many trips where we would sit together, almost always in the same row--third, usually.  This time I sat by myself and I missed her so much that I admit I cried a little on the way home.  But anyways.  On the way there I worked on my passage from Shakespeare I have to memorize and cite tomorrow.  It's a charming scene from Hamlet that I've really grown attached to.  I also looked out the window most of the time because I love looking out and seeing England!  We passed by a huge green field with nothing in and the bus driver mentioned to Dr. M that it was because that was the pit where the buried all the bodies during the Black Death.  Since we'd just been studying that, including a really long book about it that I'm also supposed to have finished by tomorrow, he wanted to wake everyone up over the microphone to tell them but they decided most people wouldn't be too pleased about that.

Two hours later, we were in Kent, England!  I gasped when I caught my first glimpses of the white cliffs of Dover.  They were so beautiful!  It's amazing how nature has been able to create something over such a long time.  We stopped at Dover Beach where the English majors paid a mental tribute to our good friend Matthew Arnold.  The beach was rocky!  It was also cold from those ocean breezes but I was loving it.  We weren't close enough to see the famous part of the cliffs that everyone always takes pictures of but I could see it out in the distance.  I hadn't been so close to the ocean before, so I went up to the water and touched the foam and just grinned.  It was so cool!  Cold.  But very, very cool.

We got back on the bus after twenty minutes or so (y'know, after everyone was pretty dang sure we were freezing to death) and we went to DOVER CASTLE!

Dover Castle was really a dream come true for me.  Windsor was cool... a little too fancy for my taste.  White Tower was cool... in too much pain and I thought it was too much of a museum to thrill me quite so much.  Hampton Court was neat but for some reason I just wasn't as into it as I thought I would be.  But DOVER CASTLE!  Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

First of all was the moat.  You could see where it had been!  And the big beautiful walls!  And the amazing view of the Ocean (and the city, but let's not count that).  And there was a drawbridge!  Guys, I walked over a drawbridge!  It was everything I ever wanted castles to be.  I walked through the large kitchen.  I looked down the well.  I saw where they collected rain water.  I walked down the hall to the toilet.  I saw the knight's room.  I wish I remembered all the technical terms for these.  I sat on a bed in the solar and looked at the games.  I plucked the strings of the musical instruments on the table.  I walked through the Great Hall and almost sat myself down to join them for dinner.  I admired the tapestries.  I shivered because these buildings weren't made for comfort, they were for defense!  I hung out in the guard's room.  I went up and down the winding stairs.  I stood in front of the throne.  I spent time touching all the swords, bows, and arrows in the armory.  I walked along the creaky wooden floors.  I started out the narrow windows built for shooting arrows with least amount of area of open possible for enemy weapons to go through.  I touched the coins in the treasury and held the cloth made to make clothes. It was exactly what I always expected a castle to be.  I cried a little in the Great Hall.  To think that I, little Aylea, was standing in a real castle!  I walked through the courtyard.  I went to the chapel.  I went inside the old Roman lighthouse, one of the oldest structures you can see here.  They had hologram/video things of people doing their jobs so you could either see the lord talking about business going on or hear the people doing work in the armory talking about the great tournament that just happened.  I was so grateful for all of my years studying and dreaming about castles because I knew what all the things I was seeing was for.

The girl who took this gets to be my official photographer from now on.  Even my windswept hair looks good!
Also see how my shirt is light blue?  Yeah... used to be white.

Hangin' in the Knights Room

One of the best parts was when I climbed all the way to the top.  For those who don't know, I am deathly terrified of heights.  So scared that if I get about two inches off the ground I start to panic.  But I was at a castle.  Was I really going to let a silly thing like that scare me?  No.  No, I didn't!  I went right up on to the battlements and hung over it to stare down at the ocean and the city.  I climbed on to the towers and looked at the view there.  I went back and leaned over as far as I possibly could to look at all the people who looked so tiny waaaaaaay down there.  I felt the wind blowing through my hair and I wasn't scared of falling.  I wasn't scared at all.  I felt exhilarated.  I felt alive.  I was loving it.  Most people probably think this isn't a very big deal, but you haven't seen me pale and sick because I was on a glass elevator or too scared to even walked within feet of a balcony.  This is a huge deal.  It was one of the most fantastic moments of my entire life.

They have tunnels there that were used during the world wars to save lots and lots of people and other great historical stuff but we didn't get to go in so I can't remember the history about it.  Bummer.  I also skipped out on the medieval tunnels but I'm not sad.  I was busing taking in the part of the castle I did see.

After we were done at the castle (well, actually, when it was time to go because the buses leave whether you are ready or not.  In fact, just to freak people out we started to pretend to leave before the last three or four were on.  The looks of panic...) we went to see ruins of the St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury.  It was really interesting to see what walls were standing and which were very gone.  I don't think I've ever been in ruins ruins before.  It was really cool.

After the abbey, we headed off to Canterbury to eat lunch.  I bought some hot chicken soup to get me warmed up.  Delicious.  We also enjoyed having a couple of attractive British boys sing to us ("No dating!"-Nick's response to our grins and giggles) before we went in.  We went in to our tour and learned some really neat stuff there.  This cathedral was a site of pilgrimages for many many pilgrims in the middle ages Europe wide.  They came because this is where Thomas Becket was murdered by some knights of King Henry (II, I think?).  To have the archbishop not just murdered but in his own Cathedral... that's a pretty big deal.  A few years later he was made a saint and the pilgrimages began.  When Henry VIII as king and wanted to get rid of the Catholic church he had the altar where he was killed destroyed and his grave in another part of the cathedral taken up, burned, the bones crushed, and then scattered to the wind to leave any trace.  Now a candle burns where he was buried and a new altar is there.  You can see where the floor is indented because of how many people knelt there.  You can also see how worn out the floor was.  When the knights came to destroy all traces of Becket, they destroyed several of the windows so the Bible stories they were telling were different.  They wanted to keep the same old glass there so it stayed all built in the same year.

After our tour we had a few minutes to wait and then we went to an Evensong.  It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.  I loved it.  I loved the little choir boys who couldn't quite keep still, especially the one who kept poking the boy next to him in the back, but still sung like angels.  I loved the priest who looked at all us little BYU students and smiled and winked at me.  I loved that they officially welcomed the group from BYU!  I loved the ceremony of it.  I loved the scripture readings.  I loved the amazing music.  I loved being part of a worship service with my fellow brothers and sisters even if we don't believe the same things.  It was really neat to see these people who put their whole lives into serving God.  I felt a little worried that I would stand up/sit down in the wrong spot or do something to offend someone but everything was fine.  I hope to be able to go to worship services for other religions because it was really fantastic.  It's a very different point of view than I have religiously. It was wonderful to be a part of it for an hour and still feel the spirit there.

Afterwards we drove home.  We were all hungry and we don't get food on Saturdays so I went and tried out Nando's, a restaurant that's very popular here among the students at least.  I had a giant Mediterranean salad.  It's the spiciest salad I've ever eaten--also the most expensive--but it was worth every bite.

Winner winner, chicken dinner!

So what was the life changing experience?  All of it.  The castle.  The ruins.  The cathedral.  The Evensong.  Nandos.  Being here.

Oh my gosh.  It's so worth the hard times!  Yesterday was amazing.

AMAZING, I said!