Windsor Castle

Yay! I survived my first week at school! The first day was tough but the week got better as I started to learn more about the routines and got used to the way school works in England. There's still a whole lot more to learn and figure out but I have a lovely bunch of kids who are all very keen and I think, at the end of the day, that's the main thing you want as a teacher, keen kids. Oh they are gorgeous! A few times throughout the week they'd repeat words I said that they thought were paritcularly funny, the main ones being 'head' and 'ten'. For the next three weeks before the mid term break I'm allowed to do a comparative study of New Zealand and England. I told them about it on Friday and they were all very excited. I'm excited too because they know nothing (they thought a kiwi bird was some sort of dinosaur and had never heard of rugby), hopefully I can plant a seed for some of them to want to visit New Zealand one day :) My teacher aids were amazing too, without them the week would have been a real struggle. They are like gold! I'm looking forward to getting paid this week to see how much it is and also I'm getting a bit depressed at how my $NZ is getting cut in half! Hopefully I'll get enough to be able to book a trip somewhere exotic for the mid term break. So school is good and I'm happy there :)

Something way cooler than school though was my outing yesterday where I caught a train out to Windsor Castle and spent the afternoon looking through the castle and doing a behind the scenes kitchen tour.

Inside the grounds of Windsor

It's the first castle I've been to (I hope to see many more) and it was quite an experience walking around the grounds and looking in the rooms that such important historical figures have lived in. I kept having flashbacks of my Year13 Tudor/Stuard history classes. It was very impressive and I loved looking at all the gifts that had been sent to the various Kings and Queens from other countries. The china was particularly exquisite. It's almost hard to comprehend that some people actually live like this because for me worlds of castles and princes and princesses are things of fairytales so seeing one for real is quite amazing. Everything was just so lavish and decorative, it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

The kitchen tour was worth it because I was in small group of about 15 and we got to go further into the castle and kind of have a 'behind the scenes' look. We went through the chamber that is popular for the young royals to celebrate their 21st birthdays in and then got to go into the kitchen that has been in operation for over 750 years!!! Obviously it has had some alterations so it complies with modern health and safety guidelines but it was great in there because you really got a feel of what it would be like when preparing a meal for the Queen. Here's an interesting fact for you; all clocks in the kitchen are five minutes fast and that's so that the food will always be ready on time. Apparently Queen Elizabeth is very hands on when it comes to state dinners and will sit with the chef and choose the main courses. Now there are about four courses in stately dinners but back in the day sometimes there would have been up to 20 courses and they'd be eating for hours and hours. The kitchen would have been a horrible place back then because at either end would have been open fires and there was likely to have been an open fire in the middle too!

After the kitchen tour I had a look around the state rooms and then headed down to Saint George's Chapel. I picked a good day because there were choir boys singing and the acoustics of that building are fantastic. It was an open day for boys and they could sing to see what it was like to be an actual choir boy there. It was nice to watch their parents/grandparents faces light up as they sung. Listening to them actually gave me goosebumps. I also got to stand on the slab of marble that is above the remains of Henry VIII and Charles I, crazy aye?!? By the time I'd finished there the castle was closing and it was getting dark so I didn't get to have a proper look around the grounds but when it gets warmer I think I'll go back to do that. I managed to get a stamp on my ticket that makes it valid for a year so I can go back as many times I like within the next year.

I was lucky enough to see an exhibition in the castle of different images of Queen Elizabeth, I think it's called 'Faces of the Monarch' and it had various portraits of her throughout her reign. She was a very beautiful young woman. She's the most photographed woman in history so it was intersting to see the different depictions and the last few made me quite sad because she is so old now. 

One thing I thought was a bit odd was how the town of Windsor is quite built up around the castle. You actually cross the road and there are shops. In my mind I expected a castle to be quite far away from shops and restaurants and in the countryside but I guess I was wrong.

The Queen stays in this side of the castle when she visits

Beautiful lawns

Castle flag pole

Saint George's Chapel

King Charles II's bedchamber

King Charles II's drawing room

Grand reception room

Green drawing room

Remains of King Henry VIII and King Charles I

Albert Memorial Chapel

Shops across the road!

I better be off, have just joined a gym that's about a five minute walk away and have my induction today. It'll give me something to do to fill in my time at night.

Good luck to all my friends/family who are starting back teaching this week!

Love you lots xoxox