So I thought my blog entry would be relatively short since I was just listing my top ten favorite parts of my trip to England. However, I soon realized that my short blog entry had turned into a short novel. There are so many exciting things to tell about my favorite experiences, so I decided it might be best to split the blog entry in half. Now here are my top five favorite experiences from England.
5. King’s College Chapel, Cambridge
King’s College has the most elaborate and magnificent chapels of any of the colleges at either Cambridge or Oxford. Even thought it was a college chapel, it looked like a cathedral with all its intricate architecture and stained glass windows. The day was quite sunny, and we visited the chapel at the perfect time because the sunlight shone brightly through the stained glass that lined the chapel casting colors on the walls.
4. Wicked
On my last evening in London I went to see the musical Wicked with Matt Watts, Emily, and Matt Low. The show surpassed my expectations and was absolutely phenomenal! The voices and music were unbelievable, and I was so glad that we decided to spring for the tickets even though they were a little expensive. I also couldn’t help myself and bought a t-shirt after the show. It had flying monkeys on the sleeves - how could I resist!
3. Canterbury Cathedral
As I wrote about in an earlier post, the Canterbury Cathedral was absolutely amazing. All of the historical significance in such an impressive cathedral made my visit there a breath-taking experience.
2. Paul Sinclair, our fearless leader
Our trip would not have been nearly as amazing without the guidance and assistance of our guide, Paul. He knew everything about everything and made all of our class excursions much more interesting and informative. There were so many things he showed us that I would not have known to look for, and his history expertise made our experiences much more fascinating. Although I’m sure our crazy class surprised him at times with our random questions, he was always helpful and made our trips much more fun. Thanks, Paul!
1. Jane Austen letters and the St. John’s College library
My absolute favorite part of my trip to England was the opportunity to see a few original letters written by Jane Austen that were kept in the library of St. John’s College. This experience was only possible because of Paul. After discovering that a few of us were interested in Jane Austen, Paul arranged access for us to the library to see the letters. He was able to do so because he had graduated from St. John’s College and had connections with the librarian. It was an absolutely amazing experience, and I am so thankful for Paul’s generosity in going out of his way to allow us to see something so remarkable. The library itself was beautiful, and we got access to a restricted section to look at the letters. When I say restricted, I mean restricted as in there was an invisible beam on a timer that we couldn’t cross! We weren’t allowed to touch any of the books in the restricted section, of course, because they were hundreds of years old, but Paul showed us some of the more interesting ones. Jane Austen is my favorite author so seeing her original hand-written letters was incredible. Paul told us some of the interesting things about the particular letters that we were looking at (letters to her niece), and we spent a while looking at them and deciphering her handwriting. It was such a cool experience for me, one that I know I will probably never get again.
Written by: Hilary Phillips
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