The White Cliffs of Dover

Well, here’s another update on us:  Online classes started for me this week, and Spencer has been busy at work.  (Now that we have the boring stuff out of the way, here’s what we did last weekend.)

Friday night I met Spencer at work for dinner at a Japanese noodle place, then we went on the Jack the Ripper walking tour.  For those who don’t know who Jack the Ripper is (I’d heard of him, but didn’t really know details), he was a serial killer that brutally murdered 5 prostitutes in London in the 1880s.  I don’t recommend you Wikipedia him, because he was a creep (and definitely don’t look at the Google Images).  On the walking tour, they walked us around to different sites of the murders, and where a piece of evidence had been found.  Unfortunately, Jack the Ripper was never caught, so we didn’t get to solve the mystery. Overall, it was creepy and fascinating.

Saturday, we had a disasterous day of travel that included missing buses, running through train stations, sitting in an airport waiting for 3 hours to catch our connecting bus (the first bus dropped us off at an airport), and ultimately led to us getting to Cambridge several hours behind schedule.  Cambridge was amazing though!  The buildings were beautiful!  There are 31 separate colleges that make up the university; we went on a guided walking tour that showed us some of the highlights with lots of fun facts. Every single building on their campus is like Old Main except a lot older, a lot fancier, and with a lot more history behind it. I can’t imagine what it would be like studying in a place like that.

Kings College is the most famous (and arguably the most beautiful) college at Cambridge. You'll also notice we finally got to enjoy some wonderful English rain.

Me with King's College again.  Spencer with the Senate building where they hold graduation and post your grades on a bulletin boards for everyone to see!

The buildings on the left are different colleges main buildings and grounds.  The clock on the top right cost over one million pounds and is only correct every 5 minutes.  The creepy bug on top symbolizes your life being eaten away. The bottom right is punting on the river, which we were cheapskates and didn't do.

Monday was a “bank holiday”, which is similar to Labor Day, so Spencer had the day off.  We went to Dover, which is on the south tip of England, bordering the English Channel.  On a good day, you can see the coast of France from Dover.  We visited Dover Castle, which was built in the 1100s by Henry II.  It was sort of surreal to go inside an actual real life castle.  Another site on the grounds of Dover castle is the Secret Wartime Tunnels. Many of the tunnels were dug during the Napoleonic Wars and go hundreds of meters down into the cliffs of Dover.  They were used most recently during World War II for planning and defense, as Dover is considered the “Key to England.”  We were able to go down into the tunnels for an interactive show about “Operation Dynamo” or the Dunkirk Evacuation/miracle in which they rescued over 300,000 Allied soldiers in 10 days.  The soldiers were trapped in France after the French surrendered to Germany at the beginning of WWII.  We also visited the Underground Hospital, which was awesome!  (Dad, if you’re reading this, you should be very jealous, and think that maybe deer hunting isn’t as cool as visiting your daughter in London.)  The castle is built on top of the “famous White Cliffs of Dover”, so we got some pretty good pictures with them as well. 

Check out that castle!

Top left: Some musicians (I can't remember what they're called), Bottom left:  Looking out from the top of the castle, Bottom right: Just a good old jousting competition (those people take it VERY seriously) 

The dining hall, the throne room, and the King's bedroom.

The grounds around the castle.

This lighthouse was build in 50 AD!!!

The Cliffs

Pictures weren't allowed inside the tunnels.  So we had to settle for pictures with the signs (plus the one I snuck on the top right.)

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their first weeks of school! I’m legitimitately sad to not be at USU this year, especially with the game tonight! Go Aggies!