"I'm Henry VIII, I am, I am"

Last Wednesday we took a day trip to Hampton Court. It was a pretty awesome place. It's a pretty good sized palace (I wouldn't mind living there...) that Cardinal Wolsey built and the Tudor family ended up living in. It's apparently haunted by the ghosts of Henry VIII two wives who were executed. I didn't see any ghosts though, and I was searching for them. Basically there was a lot of drama that went on under this one roof (or several roofs I guess) with Henry VIII crazy family. It was cool to see. We spent hours walking all over the castle and then hours walking through the gardens, which were beautiful. After Hampton Court we wandered along the south bank of the Thames and ate dinner down there instead of going back to the Centre. So that was last week's excursion...and we leave in twenty minutes for Cambridge, our excursion this week. I like that they call them excursions, it makes it sound really intense.


The architecture was really cool in all of the buildings. I think that the kitchens were my favorite part. They could cook for like 800-1200 people almost daily. Lots and lots of meat I guess. I'm glad I wasn't a cook there.

The entire inside of the palace was beautifully painted and really elaborate. We weren't supposed to take pictures...so we snuck a few :)

Me and Henry. I didn't like him much before I went, but, after singing his song all day and walking around his house, we became better friends.


The chimneys were my very very favorite part of the whole castle. They all had different cool patterns in the brickwork.


This is the Privy Gardens behind the castle. This isn't a very good picture of it but it looked like the place where they hold the ball in the Count of Monte Cristo. I wanted to wear a mask and walk around and stuff. It really did look like it...a lot.


More of the gardens.


The hedge maze behind the castle. Yep, it was just like Harry Potter...except not quite as long, not quite as hard and not quite as dark with some really funny theme music playing. As you can see, I got lost.


The whole group of us behind the palace.