My original plan was to see the Victoria and Albert, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum. Well, I got to the Victoria and Albert just fine, and spent about an hour and a half wandering around there. It's definitely an art museum, in the true meaning of the word. Only art finds its home there, not purely historical objects. My favourite part of the whole museum were the two items I found, displayed for the blind. The item description was in braille as well as visible, and next to each object were the words "please touch". This made me ridiculously happy inside. I put my sweaty little fingers all over that piece of 13th century wood. No, literally. It was part of a roof.
Afterwards, I decided I really wasn't interested in the science museum after all, and BOTH lines for the natural history museum were forty minutes long. Inexplicably. The staff standing in the rain, directing the visitors this way and that, were somewhat bewildered. I promised to come back another day when they weren't swamped by everyone and their family.
So, I went to Camden Town, so I could walk easily to the Lion and Unicorn. I love the stuff in the shops there... lovelove... goth dresses and full-length leather coats and the most amazing boots... but all way outside of my budget. Can we have a Camden Town in the US? East coast? Please? With reasonable prices? Or is that too much to ask...
The next day, today, Monday April 30th, since I didn't have a show till the evening, I went to Rochester. Of course, there was some ticket confusion, and I went back from Rochester in a hurry trying to get it all figured out, which I did, successfully, but not until I stressed about it. On the way, I got to talk to two amusing ladies, who were having fun waving at people at stations and confusing them. So I'll talk about Rochester, its castle, cathedral, and town.
1) Rochester Castle. The same as featured in the movie IronClad. It was GREAT. I got to climb all the way to the top and peer around. The amount of history there is fantastic! I took the audio tour, and that combined with my gawking kept me there for a good two hours. The keep is small, smaller than it looks on the outside. I've been in houses that had more square feet. So I scrambled around on the walls and all over and took plenty of pictures... = happy camper
2) Believe it or not, Rochester Cathedral was maybe even better than the castle. The wall in the crypt was from the 11th century. The abbey walls once held a monk who helped promote the English language through his book. The cathedral was truly beautiful. The weight of the place... as the audio tour said, people have been worshipping God there for 14 centuries. Blows. My. mind.
3) The town itself is oh-so-cute, perfectly picturesque. I had a Ploughman's lunch at a tea house, and they gave me SO MUCH cheese. People really like cheese here.
Time for Ben to be online... and my computer is already overheating. :-(
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