Warwick Castle

Today we visited Warwick Castle, Britain's Greatest Mediaeval Experience. We awoke at 8:30, had our usual vegetarian breakfast baps at Meltz to Go, and were on the road by 10:30. We brought reading material, but the painfully dull conversations of college sophomores were too much of a distraction. Christine found solace in slumber; I couldn't sleep and endured the banality, slowly losing all faith in the future generation.

Once, we arrived, thing really picked up. The castle is beautiful, as you can see from the pictures. As part of the exhibit, wax works of a mediaeval war party and a 19th century dinner party are on display in several parts of the castle. We went to the haunted section as per Denver's suggestion, but there must have been more going on when he was there, because it was rather dull. Atmospheric, yes, and, as the rest of the castle, beautiful, but not frightening.

We visited several towers and the giftshop and then accepted the challenge of the Caesar tower. To get up and down, you must use the spiral staircases, which are in a cylendrical column with no light and no break between the top and the bottom. I'm not usually claustrophobic, but this was hard. Dad, you wouldn't be able to handle it. The trek was worthwhile, though, since the view from the top was breathtaking.

After touring the castle, we wandered into the town of Warwickshire and had our first cream tea, which was recommended to us by Dorothe Bonzo. A cream tea is tea with sugar and cream served with a scone. You cut the scone in half, butter it, spread strawberry jam on it, and then spread on what's called "clotted cream," which, unappetizing as the word sounds, is very good. It's similar to whipped cream, but not whipped. While in all a cream tea is incredibly unhealthy, it is delicious, and since we've been walking everywhere, we can binge a little.

In other news, I had my first tutorial on Friday. It was a very humbling experience. It was a very positive experience, but when I talk to people about horror fiction, I'm used to knowing as much as if not more than those I talk to. One on one with an Oxford don with a doctorate in Victorian Gothic fiction, I felt like I knew nothing. he is very helpful, though, and I look forward to learning from him. My first essay for my Greek Tragedy tutorial, on Sophocles's Ajax and Electra, is due Wednesday.

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