Day 53: In lieu of London Study, we went on another day trip. This time our adventuring took us to Portsmouth and Brighton for a day of Naval study! After Wednesdays cold trip, we all made sure to bundle up proper, however the sun gods smiled upon us yet again and we had brilliant weather as usual!
On the way to Portsmouth, Tony, our BFF and Coach driver, brought the movie Master and Commander for us to watch. This movie is filmed on the HMS Victory, the ship that we got to tour in Portsmouth.
Here's a little background on the Victory:
-This ship was built from 1759-65 (?) and cost a pretty penny to build (Can't remember the figure, but to give you an idea, to outfit this ship with sails it cost 860, 000 pounds in today's money). It was home to 850 crew members.
-Back in the day this was the Royal Navy's top ship, it was fast and easy to maneuver so often it was employed as Flagship.
-Victory, captained by Admiral Nelson was involved in the Battle of Trafalgar. The day we visited was the day following the 205th anniversary of Nelson's death in the battle. Did you know Nelson was "marinated" after his death?? To preserve his body, they put him in a barrel of Brandy. It is said that his crew drank this brandy upon arrival in Liverpool to honor the Admiral. eww. Today he's buried at St. Paul's.
Some other fun facts:
*The Royal navy could fire, reload, and fire the cannons again in 90 seconds. Impressive considering each weighed two tons. The French and Spanish armies took 5-7 minutes.
*A square meal refers to the square plates the soldiers ate off. They had a rim called a "fiddle" and if you took more than the honest share and your food went over the rim, you were "on the fiddle"
*"Son of a gun"= A child born aboard the ship, usually this occurred on the floor between two guns-hence "son of a gun"
* Quote of the day (imagine an indian tour guide saying this) : "I was as popular as a porkchop in a synagog". He was super funny.
We then stopped at the Cadbury Factory outlet, I got some chocolate to bring home!
Then we headed to Brighton!
On our way back into London, we stopped so we could see the Temple. I liked its copper spire The grounds were really pretty too.
Obviously I'm a little behind on posts, but the workload for school is a little overwhelming right now.
Look at all I have to do in the next 7 days:
2 Essays,7 jounal entries associated with field assignments, a "bloomsbury walk" to complete, over 100 pages of reading-i'm getting behind, humanities log, fieldtrip log entries, great war log entires, oh and another test to study for...(we just had one this morning-I studied over 8 hours, memorized a 22 page study guide, and i'm thinking I got a 60%), oh and then we have to fit in a trip to wales, and spend two hours at the family history center doing research, not to mention i have to write a script for the christmas primary program by sunday, plus it's cleaning checks this week...It's a bit ridiculous what they expect us to do. I haven't done a single thing I've wanted to do this past week, and won't get to next week either...so here's to hoping your week's better than mine!
Cheers!
Xoxo!
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