Day 6 - 3/23

Transfer to London

Local Time: 5pm

No ghost encounters last night. I had a very strange dream though. I might have been sleep walking. I dreamed that I was in a strange place and I was lost and looking for a way out.

I slept on the bus to Warwick Castle. It was a lot more 'touristy' than the castle we saw yesterday. It was a newer castle so there were furnished rooms inside. They had actors and manikins of people who would have lived there in the 15^th century. They manikins were a bit creepy. I also climbed the walls of the castle. My friend Christina started going with me but she turned back because she is afraid of heights. There were over 500 steps but the view was beautiful. I also got to see them launch the trebugey (sp), a medieval war weapon similar to a catapult.

Next we saw Anne Hathaway's house. We didn't go in for a tour. We just stopped for a few minutes to take pictures and see the thatched roof.

We are just leaving Stratford, Shakespeare's birthplace. There was an exhibition with a tour of the house he grew up in. The house was actually an on site recreation of the original house. Only the floor was original. I didn't stay for the whole tour because it wasn't that interesting and I was starving. Christina and I went to a patisserie for lunch. I had chicken salad on a crescent. It was delicious!

The weather here has been unexpectedly cold and rainy. I did NOT pack for this. I was expecting 60s-70s for the majority of the trip but its been in the 30s-40s and raining. I had to buy a sweatshirt to keep warm and dry.

We are now driving to London where we will be staying until Thursday. Unfortunately, the hotel does not have free wifi. I'll have to buy access for at least one night.

When we get to London, weather permitting, we are going on a Jack the Ripper tour. Its a 'back ally tour' that will show us a side of London that we wouldn't normally see.

London

Local Time: 1:55am

We are staying in a different hotel than planned. The rooms are VERY small and basic and there is not free wifi. :-( Its also very far away from the center of the city. It took us an hour to ride the tube (subway) into the main part of the city. The hotel we were supposed to stay at was much closer to the main part of the city and seemed nicer. I have suspicions that we were never supposed to stay there. On a positive note, we have an affordable laundry service scheduled for tomorrow.

The Jack the Ripper tour was fun. A BBC actor guided us on an hour and a half tour of East London. Along the way he told us the story of Jack the Ripper. In 1888, Jack the Ripper was the world's first serial killer. He killed 5 prostitutes in the area and was never caught.

Tomorrow we are going on a double decker bus tour during the day and going to see Wicked at night. I'm very excited.