Day Ten: Westminster Abbey and Hampton Court Palace
How I was addressed in England:
- Madam
- Miss
- Mum (as in Ma'am, not as in Mummy)
- Luv
- Lass
I was kind of hoping for "milady," but it didn't happen. Also, the already-mentioned Scottish waiter called my beverage a "wee half-pint" (since everyone else ordered full pints). I believe there may have been collective swooning at that. Except for Mike, of course.
The last day might be the easiest day to recap, because we weren't allowed to take photos in the morning, at Westminster Abbey. If you want to see what it looks like, just go back a few entries. Or, you know, use Google.
Westminster Abbey was kind of amazing, because the whole time I kept thinking, "There are countless numbers of dead people all around me." We saw all the famous dead people there were to see. We stopped in Poet's corner, where I touched the plaques for Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters (none of whom are actually buried there), and stomped a little extra hard on the gravestone for D.H. Lawrence (who is). I hadn't bought any souvenirs from the other places we visited, but I did get the tour guides for Westminster, because I wanted to see exactly how many dead people I had walked over, and who they were.
After that, we boarded the short train for Hampton Court Palace, which Henry VIII appropriated from Cardinal Wolsey (again, a spoiler for The Tudors). The palace started to be renovated in the Georgian era, but they ran out of funds. So today it is half medieval and half Georgian.
And the Georgian side....
It says on their brochure that you can see Hampton Court Palace in three hours, but I am here to tell you that is a lie. We did not see all of the house tours in three hours, and you need even more time if you want to go into the gardens. There are a lot of gardens.
We also went in the real, honest-to-God hedge maze, where we discovered French high school students snogging, but no Goblet of Fire. Unfortunately.
