Punks, Goths, and King Henry the VIII

It's the Sunday before midterms, and I've had my nose in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare all morning so I'm taking a quick study break to write the post about Hampton Court and Camden that I promised.

I think I explained this before, but the Syracuse program does weekly excursions to different parts of England every Friday. You pay a deposit to go on the trip, but then you get it back when you get on the bus. So it's kind of free except you already paid for it out of your tuition. Anyway, I went on one of these trips to Hampton Court this past Friday. About an hour and a half outside of London, Hampton Court Palace was home to Henry VIII, Mary I, James I, Charles I, Charles II, William and Mary among others. It is a huge complex with rooms enough for everyone in the Royal Court, incredible gardens and a hedge labyrinth. We started our day with a tour of the royal apartments and some of the other historic rooms. Then they set us loose to do whatever else we wanted at the palace. I had gone on the trip with my friend Megan so we grabbed a quick bite at the tea room and then headed toward the maze. On the way we ducked into the royal tennis courts. To our surprise there were people playing on them (seriously, what kind of special club do you have to be a part of to get to play tennis at Hampton Court)! It seemed much more like squash than tennis, but we couldn't really get a good look because the players kept walking past and telling us to be quiet. We headed back out to the garden and found our way to the maze. We made it to the center in about 10ish minutes, but I couldn't tell if that was because the maze was easy or we just got really lucky. Either way it was fun. We spent a large part of our day just exploring the grounds of the palace which included fountains, topiaries and tons of geese. It was nice to see so much grass! Living in a big city, sometimes it's nice just to see green in all directions with no park fence in sight. After a long stint in the great outdoors we made our way back into the palace to explore the kitchens, clock-tower courtyard and the great hall. The palace is strange in that it resembles a historical Disney World- actors are dressed up in period clothing imitating the aristocracy who would've lived there during the 16th century. They put on shows and pose for pictures- all very strange. I wish we'd had a little more time so we could've gone to some of the exhibits the Palace had about the Tudors, but overall it was a really fun day.

Saturday, we headed to Camden Town, an area of London notorious for its markets and counterculture. It is somewhat of a headquarters for all the punks, goths and tattoo parlors in the city. I feel like it was almost too overwhelming to go on a Saturday- it was so crowded in some places it was hard to move so I didn't end up buying anything other than some sub-par Chinese food for lunch. The vintage stores were all cute though so maybe I'll have to take a trip back on a Thursday. I need to get back to Troilus, but I'll leave you with some more pictures from my weekend: