Entry 1: July 4, 2009

Happy July 4! It will be weird to not celebrate it this year, but I think I'll survive. We went as a group to Hampton Court today. I was pretty excited about it because I'm very interested in Henry VIII's reign (partly because I'm a fan of The Tudors).

We left around 9:30 a.m. to catch a boat cruise to the palace. I was a little concerned about it raining because it was pretty overcast. It was also really cool outside which was good for hot-blooded me, bur a lot of the other girls were too cold. I got to see Big Ben, Westminster and a lot of other sites from the water. We also had a guide who told us some of the history of a lot of the places. It started to drizzle so I went below and grabbed a snack and sat with some of the other girls who were already down there. After about an hour it stopped raining and I headed back upstairs.

After about three hours we finally reached Hampton Court. All of us were pretty hungry so we went to the cafe they had and grabbed lunch. Fortunately, the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day. Hampton Court was huge and gorgeous. I was surprised to learn that Shakespeare gave his first performance there in 1604. We were lucky because they were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Henry's accession in 1509. We got to see Mary II's apartments as well as Henry's.

My favorite part by far was going to the Council Chamber where they were displaying portraits of Henry's six wives. When we were done looking around inside, we headed to Base Court to see Henry VIII and Catherine Parr presented as man and wife (they were actors of course). When that was over we headed to the gardens which quite large and gorgeous. I got a lot of great photos of flowers. At about 5 p.m. we caught a train back to London and grabbed some dinner in Piccadilly Circus.