Windsor

Last Saturday I went with an international student group to Windsor Castle, which began a thousand years ago as a fortress for William the Conqueror. The Queen still lives there (along with 4 other residences) and it's the largest castle in the world that people still live in. I took a ton of pictures so here are just a few:




The first picture is of the front gate and the next is of the long lane into Great Park:





More of the castle:


With Max inside the walls next to another part of the castle:


A guard:


St. George's Chapel, which was amazing inside, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. It is also the burial place of many kings and queens:


At about lunch time I went with the group I was with to eat at the King and Castle pub, where we could see the castle directly outside our window:

Left to right: Esther, Max , Sabrina, Wei


After lunch we went to see nearby Eton College (=high school) which is the most prestigious boys' school in England:

An Eton student in traditional uniform:


After Eton we went back to the castle:


And finally I just have to include one of the crazier things about it. Back home you would never imagine a plane being able to fly over the President's residence, but here it was nonstop because the Heathrow airport is so close. See how low the planes are? (you might have to click on the pictures and see them bigger--first is on the right)




Windsor is the first castle I've ever been to. Inside the castle was pretty amazing, but we weren't allowed to take pictures in there.

Reading

I said I was going to do this a while ago, and here it is. A blog.

I'm now studying at the University of Reading in Reading, England. The trip was pretty uneventful, but I did get to have a stop in Iceland where I only had time for the picture below.



After moving in, I took a few pictures around town, starting with the view from my room:



Then the main building of St. George's Hall (my building is a little behind it):



Later the new facility on campus whose name bothers many locals (must have been built by an American company or something):



I went to "town" (the center of the city) and saw a dude trying to make a buck:



A church that I'm told is over 1000 years old (but I really need to find out for sure...):



And a statue of Queen Victoria:



So far it has always been nice when I've gown to town center, but almost always raining or overcast when I've been on campus so pictures of that are still to come, along with pictures from Windsor Castle after I go on Saturday.