Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Day Thirteen

This was a day full of huzzahs and hurrahs, dramatic battles and victories, pidgeon armies, avengeful peacocks, balls of fire rocketing through the sky, tours of age old castles, tempermental captains, and lessons on queen's beauty products. So yeah, a very fun day. I can't wait to tell you about lucky day thirteen.

I slept great, and this is fortunate because I would have a very active day ahead of me, full of resplendent birds and faux violence and such. Our breakfast was a massive buffet, and it had these delicious cinnamon pastries (not cinnamon rolls, I think) that I devoured vigorously. Best cinnamony things ever. I ate three.

It's my breakfast! Eatin' up my BREAKFAST. Gotta eat my cinnamon thingies, yeah..

We hopped on our bus, for which I am grateful. I loved walking London, but bus rides provide the much-needed breaks to preserve your mental integrity. We had a small bus tour of London. We hit a lot of the Harry Potter filming sites, such as Diagon Alley and the bridge in the Deathly Hallows that got attacked by Death Eaters (or was it dementors)  and that was a lot of fun. We learned some cool fun facts, too. One I remember in particular is about Queen Elizabeth, who used a lead hair paste to style her hair. It caused her to go completely bald, and so she had to use fake eyebrows made of rat skin. Dandy.


We went to see the changing of the guard next. It was very crowded by the time we got to our viewing site, but it was exciting. Soon the music started to play and we could hear the uniform footsteeps of the guard marching before we could see it, and then we saw the guard stomp right past us.


The whole process is incredibly detailed, so we didn't get to watch it all. We watched as the guard marched past the Buckingham Palace gate, and out of view. Past our line of site would be the old guard preparing to switch places with the new one, and then the old one would depart.
We took our bag lunches to the park, which was a two minute walk from where we were standing. It was ketchup sandwiches and chips. I like to try new foods, but the sandwich was really gross, so I could only eat half of it. We sat under the trees, eating quietly, until I sensed a disturbance in the force and looked to my left. A giant group of pidgeons had amassed near our group, eyeing us like we were lunch. I took my ketchup sandwich and tore off the bread, and lay the bread around my feet, and soon a massive pidgeon army had become mine! Needless to say, I became drunk with power. I was laughing maniacally and spreading crumbs all over the place. Oreo, my general of my pidgeon army, stayed loyally at my side until we had to go.

Myuahahaahhah! My loyal army!
Oreo, my pidgeon general, and Tim, the envious pidgeon who longs for Oreo's position -- and his ketchup bread.
Next stop, Warwick Castle! I don't remember the journey there at all, but I still remember what it looks like. Warwick is breathtaking. We got an hour of exploration to ourselves, and I had a blast.




I'd show more pictures if it didn't take so long to upload them, but seriously, if you ever go to England, go here. It's gorgeous. So, after we had been walking around for an hour, we were suddenly acosted by an angry captain and his very pointy spear. He commanded us to line up and follow him, and his fellow soldiers started up from behind us and waved their weapons around.

It was awesome! I doubt anyone would have taken this situation literally, but for your information, this wasn't a real scenario. It was all a part of a training exercise. For the next three hours I would be a part of the Lancaster army, HA HA HA.

The first super militaristic thing we did was . . .

Eat food!

Huzzah!

We had chicken and potatoes, which are much better than ketchup sandwiches. We ate outside on picnic tables, which was very peaceful. Peacocks hovered around us, indirectly asking for food, since actually asking would have been too much for their poor, pampered brains. I don't have pictures from that moment, but I snuck up behind one and took a picture later. (Peacocks are finicky)




I remember one guy giving a girl a peacock feather that he said he found on the ground. We were later warned not to try to take feathers from peacocks, because the lovely creatures are capable of making a sound capable peeling the bark off of iron trees, which would immediately alert the security guards, who would bring you down, which would put you in jail and paying a large fine.

After lunch, we went to archery lessons. Our guy taught us the structure and the firing capabilities of the longbow, along with basic examples of armor from that century. We have a delegation member who has the magical ability to be chosen for every volunteer situation, and so he was chosen from the crowd of 50 students (many delegations were there too) to put on armor and be stabbed. Lucky guy. . . Our teacher was delightfully lewd, and talked jokingly about every terrible thing that could possible happen to the male anatomy. He was interesting and fun, although he scared the heck out of Gabe (the lucky one) with his various demonstrations.

We had sword fight training next, where we learned basic sword fighting forms. Gosh if I remember them all. It was a lot of fun cause we got to fight with real swords! Well, they were dullened in case one of us got the idea to murder someone, but they were quite real. We had the pleasure of a young and somewhat hunky sword master helping out that day.


Me demonstrating not-so graceful form. I got better.

I steadily improved, although it took me a while. It is possible that someday I will become a swordsman. . .Or maybe I'll stick with sharpened butterknives.

After that, we formed ranks and learned how battles were fought. For the front of the army, it kind of works like this:

1. Everyone in the front line dies.
2. The line behind them, which was previously unarmed, pick up their fallen allies' weapons and continues the attack. They are called the reserves.

We played both one and two. When I was front line, I died spectacularly. I watched someone near me be trampled as someone took his weapon. I placed mine gingerly by my fallen corpse, because I didn't want to be trampled. Just because I was dead didn't mean I didn't have feelings.

When I actually got to kill people, that was a lot of fun. Our instructor said our group was the most uniform when it came to marching. I waved my ten foot pole around and murdered thousands.

After that, we all relaxed and sat by the river as we prepared to watch the trebuchet launch a fireball into the sky.


After we said our goodbyes, we boarded our bus and began our trip to Ireland. Out of all the countries, I looked forward to Ireland the most, and I was right to. I'll see you in the next exciting installment of Take Esther to Europe!

Da!Da!Da!

Da da.

2 comments:

  1. Ketchup sandwiches.... that is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard of! You actually ate half of it? Also, I thought you didn't like birds! Sounds like you had a good 13th day, I'm glad. :)

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  2. Me and David have some funny stories about putting on authentic 16th century armor, we should tell them to you sometime (it was totally not our fault that the museum was evacuated). And that trebuchet gives me some ideas.

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