Get Off The Road!!!

    During our walking tour of London on Monday, we positioned ourselves along the Mall, the street that leads up to Buckingham Palace.  Most people watch the Changing of the Guards ceremony in front of the palace with the foot guards mechanically marching and switching duties.  However, our guides led our two groups to a front row seat on the roadside instead of trying to squeeze us into the already packed crowd at the palace fence.  Here we were able to see the marching band and guards head up toward the palace.
     The highlight of the day was definitely the lashing a foreign tourist received right in front of our group. The street was cleared of all people, everyone had to stay up on the curb.  One daring woman, who apparently didn't understand English very well, kept venturing off the curb for photos.  Watch this video to see what happened.  In addition to this recording, one student, Gavin, was right behind the woman who got reprimanded.  They kids have laughed and laughed at his clip and they have played it over and over in the back of the bus, even setting it to music as a rap!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRfeV5ZTHQ4

The Roman Baths

     On Sunday we traveled from our first hostel at St. Briavel's Castle to London, with two important stops on the way.  The first was in the beautiful town of Bath, England.  Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore the lovely 18th and 19th century Georgian era town.  However, we did have an in-depth tour of the Roman baths (not too deep, we didn't get to dive in!)

    Today's post features a journal entry by SLOCA High School student, Caleb C. who related the visit to his studies of the Roman baths in Mrs. Weinschenk's Latin classes.

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June 28
Aquae Sulis

(The Roman Baths)

  In the morning we (Meg, Shelby & I) got up early to see if the old church across the street was open.  It wasn't, so we went on a walk around St. Briavels. It was very quiet and calm, and it was drizzling slightly.  We headed back for breakfast, and then loaded up on the bus to leave St. Briavels. We headed on to Bath.
     We pulled into Bath with its tall beige stone buildings. (They all use a special type of limestone from the area with iron in it. It's beautiful.  The baths are next to Bath Abbey - amazing building, but I think the small church in St. Briavels is still my favorite.
     Now to the actual baths- they were SO AMAZING. There were so many connections to what I've learned in Latin class. The tour guide took us through the museum and then the baths themselves. There was a 19th century building on top of the baths. The highlights for me were the temple pediments with the Gorgons head (which I drew a picture of awhile ago in Latin class while studying Aquae Sulis) the head of Sulis Minerva (the goddess worshipped at the sacred spring and baths) and the dedication stone put up by Lucius Marcius Memor (a Roman figure who comes up in Latin stories we translate from the Cambridge Latin books.) Here's kind of what it looked like (see drawing below.)
     Of course Stonehenge was awesome too, but because I had more cultural and historical context for the baths at Aquae Sulis/Bath, I enjoyed visiting them more.

 Tower of London

    Writing narratives or journal entries about the history we have read is a regular excercise for our SLOCA students. After reading a history assignment, the student summarizes what they have retained. This blog post is a narrative that soon to be 5th grader Sandy P. wrote about one of the many gory but true stories the students learned from the educator/guide at The Tower of London.

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    One day a prince was locked up in the Tower of London castle. His wife paid 600 gold coins to get him out.  The king said, "Thanks for the money, but the prince is staying."  The king put him in prison because he might want to become king.  So the prince decided to escape. He ripped off all his sheets and tied them together. He jumped out of the window but the sheets were too short, and then they broke. The next morning, guards were walking around, they saw a body but no head. They went to search for the head, but then realized it was the prince.  He had fallen and his head went inside of his body!

First Day in the UK!

We made it!  I apologize for the delay in blogging, but when you hear our schedule, you may just understand.

Our group met up in LAX on Thursday.  (A few families had already flown to London days ahead of the group.) We had the usual baggage check-in, security screening and long walk to the gate.
I tried to write from LAX but the Wifi connection was too weak.  Our group was seated together in rows 9 10 and 11 of the Boeing 787.  Every seat had its own video monitor with a selection of movies, music, games and flight tracking information.  We had dinner on the flight and then we tried to sleep. Some of us were able to sleep more than others. The flight was pleasant and smooth, with only a few small bumps over the Rockies or Great Plains.

There were no problems arriving at London Gatwick.  Everyone retrieved their luggage from baggage claim and, after a short wait, we passed through customs and got our first passport stamp for the trip!

Cindy and Caedin welcomed up to England as we came out of baggage claim and directed us to our chartered coach.  Once on board the clean and comfortable coach, we headed to Windsor Castle to stop for snacks and meet up with the other families who had arrived earlier.  Unfortunately the traffic was bottle necked on the highway!  We crept down the road for a few hours and finally reached Windsor Castle.

Windsor Castle is an iconic medieval structure where Queen Elizabeth still spends many of her weekends.  At Windsor, we were only allowed 45 minutes to walk around, take a few photos and find a snack in the surrounding town before moving on to our hostel for the night.

After a few more hours on the bus we finally reached St. Briavel's Castle! For my famliy and a few others this culminated more than 24 hours of travel time.  We had left the Central Coast on Thursday at 11:00 a.m..  By the time we arrived at our hostel It was 9:00 p.m. UK time, or 1:00 p.m. in California on Friday.

Dinner was promptly served.  The food was typically British... it lacked the flavor we are accustomed to. Following dinner we all checked into our rooms.  Some families were put into unique rooms, such as The Prison or The Oubliette.  On Saturday, we found out how scary The Oubliette (which some of us are bravely sleeping over) is!  Learn more in my next post!

First Full Day in London!

I have some students working on more stories from our time at St Briavel's Castle, and our visit to the Roman Baths in the town of Bath.  Meanwhile, I will post some photos with highlights from our non-stop busy day in London.

We started off Monday morning with our coach driver, Pepe taking us down to Westminster to meet our tour guidss.  On the way he mentioned it was his birthday so the whole bus burst into " Happy Birthday To You," of course!

We broke up into our two tour groups, mainly younger students in one group and older students in the other.  Two well-informed tour guides walked us through the streets, sharing rich stories of British history all along the way.  We love history!  We love story-tellers! We love our tour guides!

This is the east side and older section of Westminster Abbey, built in the 1500's.  This photo shows a beautiful flying buttress.  Our tour guide demonstrated to the younger students how a buttress works by having two students form an arm with their hands raised up and braced against each other.  The arch was easily pulled down.  But when two more students pushed on the backs of the two arch students, the arch was much stronger.

Our group of young students at The Houses of Parliament with The Elizabeth Tower.  We know it as Big Ben but that was never it's proper name.  It was officially re-named The Elizabeth Tower in the Queen's Jubilee celebration.  Big Ben is the nickname for the enormous bell inside the tower, it's official name is The Great Bell.  The nickname is presumed to have been in honor of the man who oversaw the installation of The Great Bell, a rotund fellow named Sir Benjamin Hall.

Here are some photos from the Tower of London where many historically famous executions took place.  It's also where the Crown Jewels are kept.  Ken and I had a chance to see the Crown Jewels and we were impressed not only with the jewels but the 18" thick steel vault doors that secure the room where they are held inside this old structure. The Tower was built by William the Conqueror to intimidate the London citizens after he had conquered the country

London is a fascinating place to study architecture.  There is a wide variety of buildings dating back 1,000 years, and they are still in use!  Every era leaves it's stamp in architecture. In the current era, any large building in London is not a basic skyscraper that goes straight.  In fact you'd be hard pressed to find a straight skyscraper here.  They build modern pyramids, modified domes, rounded obelisks, and many indescribable shapes.  This pyramid is a new skyscraper called The Shard (of Glass) and it's the tallest building in the European Union.

I love the juxtaposition of this modern sky scraper with it's intimidating lean over the old buildings below.  Someone remarked that it looks like I shot this with a fish eye lens.  Nope.  That building really gets wider and curves out on both sides at the top.  

I snapped this photo out the front window of our coach as we drove down the rainy motorway into Bath yesterday. (We only had to walk a few minutes in light rain, then it stopped.) Driving on the left side of the road is so strange.  Even the road signs appear to face the wrong direction.

Our coach driver Pepe is doing an amazing job of maneuvering this huge bus through tight London streets and parallel parking spots.  He's also full of great information on London and provides tour guide narrative as he drives.  We love Pepe and sang Happy Birthday to him today.

Castle Activities  

Today's post is written by Classical Academy High School Student Katie E

     We were able to participate in some fun activities at the castle on Saturday afternoon replicating Medieval times.  First, we constructed miniature model siege machines called trebuchets.  Then we had a contest to see which group could knock down the foam "walls" we built. Our group did not make much damage!

     Next, we were able to make homemade bread from scratch!  We measure our ingredients in grams and milliliters. We kneaded our dough and made many different shapes, braids and even animals!

     After our sculptures were put in the oven, we played a game they called "The Photo Challenge." We attempted to match the photo given within the location in the castle. It served as a harder game than expected since the castle was such a maze.
     Next, we did archery.  One of the castle staff showed us how to properly prepare the bow and how to aim.  Then we had a competition which was fun.  Our afternoon of great activities was concluded with a Medieval Feast.

Puzzlewood Forest

Today's post is written by Classical Academy High School Student, Meg C.  She shares her impressions of Puzzlewood Forest which we visited on Saturday.

     Puzzlewood Forest is a tangle of vibrant life.  Ash, oak, pine and yew trees lean over with age and the youth of the forest climb their limbs.  It smells more alive than home here.  There it smells dry and hot, here everything is dripping with moisture and it feels so new, yet so, so old.  Just the sheer age of everything there humbles me, makes me feel so small. Although at the same time it opens up my world view to be aware of the world outside of my life.  Nature and travel can do that to you and that's what makes it beautiful.

                   

      Come along and follow the daily adventures of our group of 45 students and parents from San Luis Obispo Classical Academy as we take an education packed journey through England, France, Italy and Greece.

Getting Ready to Fly Away!  

This is what a group trip with Cindy Hilton's "Simply Culture Boutique Travel" starts out like:

Cindy has planned and arranged everything for our group of 45 travelers, down to the tiniest details!  We have been provided with itinerary books (upper right in photo) with all the information we need about our travels and tours including directions, meeting points, what to bring each day, and biographical information on the local tour guides she has hired. 

We have been issued ID tags on lanyards (top of photo) which include address and phone information for each of the hostels we're staying at. I guess that's good in case someone gets separated from the group! 

Sketchbooks/travel diaries have also been included for those who made an early commitment to the trip. At a recent meeting, Sandi, one of the moms on the trip, showed us how she likes to use travel journals to record memories, sketches, photos and ticket stubs. I'm sure these books will be put to good use by our SLOCA students, teachers and parents on the trip. 

Finally, in typical group travel form, we have matching t-shirts.  These shirts will be worn for a group photo at Stone Henge, so look for that coming up in this blog.

Some families in our group are already in the UK.  The rest of us depart LAX tonight!  I hope to post from LAX this evening.  Au Revoir!