Easter!

So Easter was a lovely afternoon out wandering the city. I took lots of nifty photos of the neat things I found! And... somehow... managed to delete them all. ;.; There were so many pretty flowers, too. So... Happy Easter! Hopefully your photos stayed put!

Newcastle Adventures

So last weekend I met Jenn and Laura in Newcastle for hanging out and poking around the city. It was great fun all around! I did get lost trying to find them from the train station (I got to ride a train, it's still a super exciting experience!)

And wandered past some neat things!

And after a stop by the water, eventually made my way to the right spot!

Past this lovely statue.

We stopped in a gallery the first afternoon that was showing some of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, which were really neat to see.

The sketches were awesome, but it was also interesting seeing his backwards note-taking style.

Horses! Not very happy ones!

There was some other rather dramatic art to be seen, too, though!

The Gate was one of our evening stops, because it's full of delicious food. The first night we somehow ended up with a whole tableful of it, which was a delicious task to tackle!

Old fancy buildings! 

The next night we returned to try the ZaZa Bazaar, which is a giant buffet of foods from around the world. It was quite delicious and had everything you could want and then some!

It also had come fantastic, sparkly, eclectic decorations. 

They quite suited the place, though!

We wandered about the next day, and saw the big fancy church I got lost by before.

And went to see the castle! Newcastle actually does have a castle, happily enough.

Though it's been sadly cut in half by the rail line that was laid through it, the main keep and the gate house are still intact on either side.

 The Black Gate was finished in 1250, with some upper story additions in the 1600's. And has nifty picture frames built into it...

The castle is actually called Castle Garth, and has a nice little museum with a bunch of things showing what daily life would have been like while it was a functioning castle. 

Ruins lurk about outside, of the bits that didn't quite survive.

Look at this thing! Isn't it neat! No one has any idea what it is and quite a few have been found. And ideas?

Then we moved on to the castle keep proper, and it was so big inside! This is what a private room would have looked like.

We also checked out the dungeon. We tried to leave Jenn there, but she managed to escape the lock-less shackles. We're still not sure how... 

The chapel was one of the rooms with the prettiest brickwork.

All over a lovely vaulted ceiling...

And along the arches at the back.

Then we found the great hall, which is a massive, three-story space.

This chest was randomly sitting in a dead end. How nifty!

The doors were all lovely, aged, thick wood, much of which had been there for who knows how long.

The fireplace of the Great Hall! Which somehow didn't seem big enough for such a big space.

From the very top of the castle, you could look out over the city.

Yay made it!

Some lovely iron soldiers are still defending it from attackers. 

I'm pretty sure they're done by whoever made the ones for the Tower of London spaces, too...

The official doors to the castle (which are know locked closed). These are from the 1800s, as the originals were destroyed when a near by flour factory exploded, destroying the doors in the process.

After all that, it was time for a train ride home the next day, but we'll be out adventuring again before too long!

London, Amaluna, and Other Bits!

After Hampton Court, there are still plenty of things to see around the city, of course! Like the Angel shopping center, with its fantastic sculptural piece.

Or the Natural History Museum, all lit up at night.

In pink even!

There was also a most entertaining night opening of the Science Museum.

And this curious sculpture built up between two buildings.

The city is quite pretty, all lit up at night.

Then there was the Amaluna adventure! Which started out with tapas at a lovely little place.

All of which were delicious.

Hooray, show time!

There was a lovely fantastic set.

And some actors wandering out to entertain the audience working on finding their seats.

Who of course got shooed away by the motherly figure of the show.

This was the only act that was still enough to sneak a picture of! They were pretty open to pictures, so long as there was no flash during the show. Which was absolutely amazing, as I expected it would be!

Later in the week saw wanders to other bits of London...

The street art around the city is always so interesting...

Last week one of our classes practiced labeling things, too, which was quite fun!

Writing tiny numbers is, though, not as easy as it looks.

The weekend saw a wander to a coffee shop to get some work done.

Which happened to be right near one of the canals.

There were even swans wandering about!

And this curiously cubic statue.

I am slooowly getting caught up! Hope all is well at home!