Devastation and Preservation

Well here is that post I promised you about my day today. I was up late last night (what else is new?) so getting up this morning was interesting. I set two different alarms to wake up. Neither did the trick. Mo came back (he didn't sleep in the room, I have no idea where he did sleep) and when he opened the door I bolted awake. I still had time to shower and eat breakfast and make a sack lunch so it was fine. It was just an unpleasant way to wake up. I prefer waking up a little more slowly and still feeling the warmth in the sheets and stretching out my arms and legs a little. This was more of a "Holy Crap!" type of awakening. Anyway, I got on the bus and started reading "Beginner's Greek" and all of a sudden we were at the cathedral (2.5 hours had gone by somehow). As a side note, for whatever reason there were three different sets of parents with us along with three people from SJU visiting as well. Lots of different faces on the coach.

We got to the Cathedral and it was really cloudy. Not interesting cloudy, this was a gray, feels like the clouds are on top of you, boring kind of cloudy. Just to remind everyone, their has been a cathedral in Coventry since the 1200s. Rumor has it that Churchill and other high ranking Brits knew about the German attack that was coming during WWII but if they warned the citizens, the Germans would know that they had discovered their code. The citizens were never warned and lots of people died. Anyway, the cathedral was mostly destroyed so they started to build a new one and it was opened in 1962 with the War Requiem featuring prominently. The cathedral's main focus is the idea of reconciliation. A lot of the stuff in the cathedral and programs they host, deal with that topic. Even with the idea of reconciliation, the new cathedral is decidedly sixties style. I'm not enough of an architect to describe why I feel that way but look at one of the pictures of the interior and I think you will agree. Anyway, upon arriving at the cathedral, the ruins of the old one were very striking. Almost everybody went over to them and I preferred to do that part more quietly and alone so I went into the new cathedral first.

The first thing I saw when I entered the church was the west "screen". I put screen in parentheses because it is really a bunch of clear glass with frosted angels in each panel (picture 1). Very cool and a good separator between the new and old cathedrals. The next thing in the church was the big stained glass window just to the right of the entrance. It is very large and represents the light of Jesus I believe. In front of that is a baptismal font made out of a boulder from the hillside of Jerusalem. Along each side of the nave were, in total, eight slabs with primitive looking carvings of some of Jesus's most famous or important sayings. I had a favorite one (picture 2, the Golden Rule). The carvings were inspired by the carvings and lettering style of the catacombs in Rome. The most impressive object in the whole church would have to be the tapestry in the very back. The best view of it is about halfway down the nave. It has Jesus with his hands up in sort of a prayer stance with the symbols of the four evangelists around him (eagle, lion, man, and ox). It is just massive, spanning the ceiling to the floor of the far end of the nave (picture 3). I don't know if I can say I liked it that much though. The green (which is my favorite color) just didn't jive with me. I walked around so that I was underneath the tapestry and behind the main altar. There is a crucifix there that is shaped similar to how two ceiling beams fell into the shape of the cross. The crucifix has three nails from the cathedral ruins in it. From here, I had a good view of the nave stained glass windows which represented the progress of life (picture 5 has the crucifix and 4 of the 5 stained glass nave windows). Birth, maturity, old age, death, and the afterlife are represented I guess. I did not see that, I just saw 5 different colored windows but I wasn't really looking either. The Chapter House had a mosaic floor from Sweden that had pictures of the six continents (Antarctica doesn't count apparently, kind of like Pluto I suppose). The chapter house was pretty funny shaped too. It was like a circle with triangles coming out of it. I liked it though.

I went out into the ruins next (picture 6). They were quite moving but (this sounds shallow or selfish) I couldn't take any good pictures. All the ruins were just too big or not interesting enough to work for a good picture. The clouds didn't help either. Seriously though, I did enjoy walking around the ruins and trying to picture the old cathedral. The ruins reminded me of how buildings looked in Edinburgh, not broken down but black stained and the same color of stone. There were a few art pieces scattered throughout and some plaques on the walls about things like arts, faith, and education. It was time to go so we lugged our way back on the coach to travel to Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle was built in the Middle Ages (couldn't tell you when) and, according to a book, is the "best preserved medieval castle in Europe" (picture 7). I don't know if that's true but it was a really nice place. It is just as famous for all the Victorian-era things that went on here as it is for the Middle Ages stuff. Lots of dinner parties and such. In one of my books, it said that "Warwick Castle is the most popular destination in the UK". Well I don't know what would have beat it (Stonehenge?) but I suppose I can see why it is so popular. In the summer, it is just crazy (so I've heard). They have jousting and archery competitions. Anyway, we got there and walked in. On the way in, there were some stocks so I had my picture taken in them (picture 8). I went through an exhibit called "Weekend Party 1898" which had a bunch of rooms set up with wax figures (like Madame Tussard's) to look like, well, a weekend party in 1898. It was fun looking in all the rooms (picture 9). The figures were amazing life like and sometimes they would put a real person in the middle of a few just to make you think a little bit about how real they were. I proceeded to the Victorian Rose Garden. No roses though. It was still really pretty and I ate lunch there (view from the bench I ate at picture 10). It was so peacefully hearing the birds chirping and the water feature dripping. Too bad it wasn't sunny. Then I walked over to the Peacock Garden which, as you guessed, had peacocks which were really cool (picture 11). I meandered down to the river and saw the mill and stuff. The river was actually very pretty with the clouds. It gave it a very different kind of feel (picture 12). Next up was back up inside the castle and it was an exhibit called "The Kingsmen" which had more wax figures but this time they were getting ready to fight in the War of the Roses (1450s). Not much to say about. Then I went to the State Rooms. Huge rooms with lots of molding in the ceiling and paintings. No wax figures this time.

I went back outside and walked along the ramparts and towers (picture 13). It was cool and views of the countryside were quite fairy tale like at times, except for the darkening clouds which turned into sprinkles which turned into full fledged rain. This dampened the experience. There weren't a lot of places to hid from the rain (other than in the exhibits I had already been in) so I stood under a big tree in the courtyard. It was actually quite pleasant standing there watching all the people running around and hearing the rain hit the asphalt below and branches above. But standing around outside anywhere inevitably leads to people walking over and smoking which I just can't stand so I had to leave my space. This was quite annoying. The upside is that I found a bunch that was outside but still covered by a roof. Chelsea and Lindsey sat next to me and we chit chatted until it was time to go.

I read my book on the way home and finished it (the last 100 pages went by like a flash). More on that tomorrow I think. Then I got back, made dinner and read some more from a different book. Then I went online and facebooked some. I tried to buy coach tickets to get to Paris one of the weekends in April but my card didn't work (grr). I called the bank yesterday asking them to open it up for me to use here and it still didn't work. Very annoying. That's about it. I hope you all had a wonderful Saturday and happy palm sunday tomorrow if you are into that sort of thing. I'm pretty excited to go to Our Lady again. I missed out last week because of the home stay. Have fun!

See ya!