King Henry VIII and The England Royalty

Wednesday we went to the Tower of London. We learned a lot because we went on a Yeomen tour. It was really fun anyone who goes there needs to take it. Our tour guide was actually funny not like some tours were there just say a pitiful joke were no one laughs. Everyone laughed.

Also we went to see the crowned jewel's. They were amazing. Everything was so beautiful, all the crown's the robes the scepters. But my favorite was the 'Grand Punchbowl'. The grand punchbowl was a giant solid gold punchbowl with a perimeter of about 4 ft. Everything really was so beautiful, it all sparkled so much and was just truly amazing to see.

But back to the point. We learned about many Kings and Queen, but the most interesting was King Henry VIII and the two princes in the tower. The two princes deaths are a true murder mystery. The princes went up to the tower with there uncle and guardian and didn't come back only many year's later did they find the remains of their bodies hidden in a chest near the stairs. The mystery is that we don't know who did it, though most people think it was there uncle, there is no way to tell.

King Henry VIII has another very interesting story. King Henry VIII is known for many things, he was truly a evil man. King H had an overall of six wives because he was after all an evil man, every time he wanted a divorce he just killed his wife. King H did do something worthwhile because after a while he got tired of having to kill his wives because he couldn't get a divorce so he broke away from the catholic church. I think i should answer a question that if your younger you might ask, "why can he just kill a queen like that" well he was the one born into power so he has more power than the queen, but when a girl is born into power she could kill the king.

Another thing King H was know for is his weight. King H was a very heavy man because his deit was very, very different from a commoner's . In one year he and his courteir's consumed 1240 oxen, 8200 sheep,2330 deer, 760 calves, 1870 pigs, 53 wild boar, a variety of fish species, and bird's and 600,000 gallons of ale. He started out a normal weight but bye the time he was in his 40's he was what we today would consider morbidly obese.

The Tower of London was really awesome and anyone in London needs to see it.

I guess today I'm just supposed to blog about whatever? I'm not really sure... but here goes nothing!

Two days ago we went to a museum here. It was really different from what I'd expected, and I think I learned a lot. I spent most of my time at the gems and rare stones. I had no idea rocks could come in SO many colors! There were thousands of different ones and they were all beautiful! 

At the end of that room, there was a small door I went through. It was called "The Vault". Inside was a sign saying many of the world's most precious and valuable items were in that very room. 

I saw many, MANY amazing things there! The room was full of beauty like I'd never seen before! I saw the pyramid with diamonds of "every single shade they can come in" (according to the label on the glass) I saw the legendary Cursed Amethyst, the world's largest cut jewel, and a lot more! 

Yesterday we went to another tourist attraction. It was the London Tower. We learned about torture, fat kings, dead wives, murdered princes, etc. 

There was a king named Henry the 8th. He lived from June 8th, 1491-January 28th, 1547, ruled by the time he was 21, and was FAT. He was so dang fat he was banned from doing sports. He was BUTT UGLY too, and I do mean U-G-L-Y ugly! 

And yet, due to extreme british sexism he could marry whoever he wanted. Not only that, but the women didn't even have a choice in whether they married this fat jerk or not. Nope, they just had to because they were women and he was a man. Messed up, right?

Anyway, he started out with wife #1. Eventually, (actually, he wasn't even with her for 10 years) he got sick of being with her because he wanted someone else. And divorce being against the catholic law, he couldn't get one. So the rational thing would be to stick it out, right? Well he was the king. So he ordered his men to kill her. And he went onto marrying another unwilling women. 

He wanted someone else again after a few years with her (OH MY GOD HE'S SO GREEDY!) and so he had her killed too. 

Next wife, same situation. 

And the next. 

And so on.

He had 6 wives in all. 

...What...a... #&@$! (can't say on here)

Anyway, moving on!

Our tour guide was funny, and kept making jokes and passes at women. I don't think he was serious but it was still a little comical that this old man in a dress (I guess it's common 1600's guard attire?) was saying "ladies, if you fall I will catch you. Gentlemen, if you fall... I shall laugh." and other remarks. 

After we went on the tour we ate some delicious (and EXPENSIVE) food at the cafe! It was really good. Then we went home.

Canada's obsessed with condoms

Hey! It's me, Willa again! I'm here today to talk about the difference between the openness about sex in America vs Canada

Here in America, even on channels that aren’t for kids, the ads are fairly acceptable. The commercials are for Bendaroos* or movies coming out soon, but rarely inappropriate ads.

Okay, occasionally there’s that pesky make-your-penis-bigger add for “natural male enhancement” but that’s pretty much it.

Where as in Canada, almost EVERY ad is sexual. There are TONS of condom commercials, and “experience enhancers” which are just NOT ads that should be allowed on the family channel! I mean, come on! Trojan Naked Sensations*?! Any one here seen that ad? It’s so not something that should’ve been put on the family channel!

I guess Canadians are just a little more open to sex? They’re just a little less ashamed. But maybe that’s not a good thing? I mean-I REALLY don’t need to see that Trojan Naked Sensations add EVER again! And what if some little kid is watching Hannah Montana* on the Family Channel, and all of a sudden that ad comes up?! Then the poor mom’s gonna have to teach her kid some scary stuff too early in life!

Seriously though, there’s a really big difference between Canada and America when it comes to openness about sex.

Near our French class, there’s a whole condom store! An entire store selling nothing but different kinds of condoms!

And don’t even get me started on their logo…

Anyway, my point is, Canada is much more open about sex then America, but I personally don’t think that’s a good thing. Public channels on TV are meant to be viewable to the whole public, and honestly, having a whole store sell nothing but different condoms is just wrong.

So I guess it’s good I get a month here in good ol’ America! Even though it’s the home of crazy republicans, Christian nut jobs, and a lot of right-wing loonies, it’s also the home of cencored TV :) 

*google is your friend

Tentation

Last week i saw tentation( the twilight saga: New Moon in french). The movie was great and i understood most of it, mostly because it was my 3rd time seeing the movie and I've read the book 8 times, heehee. There were a few differences besides the language that i thought it'd be fun to point out. One of the differences is they had way more commercials/previews than we do in Vermont, the 7:30 showing literally started at 8:00! Another difference was that in Vermont it was a bunch of teenage girls, and family's with teenage girls, and boyfriends with teenage girls, but in Montreal it was adults! Not just adults but like 30 and 40 year old's! and there were only like 4 kids! The last difference is that in Montreal when Bella was drowning and other sweet scenes, they laughed! But one of the end scene's was pretty sappy so I don't care about that one so much i care that they laughed at the one's that weren't sappy! But after all these differences one thing stayed the same, they all sighed when Jacob took his shirt off. :) So that's the difference's and whats the same in tentation and new moon.

Super Dogs!

Yesterday, Georgia, Laurie and I went to see a dog show called Super Dogs. It was held at the Canadian hockey arena. It...was...HUGE. I asked Laurie if all sports stadiums were THAT big, and she said yes! It was way too big, though. 

When the show started, an announcer came out, and introduced the dogs and their trainers. Through out the entire show, amazing tricks were preformed. Dancing, jumping, running, obstacle courses, frisbee throwing, and more! Eventually, a dog named Pot Roast came out onto the stage. We all looked at this cute, but fat english bulldog, and his flat face, wondering how HE could catch frisbees. But apparently, he couldn't. The announcer introduced him with "This is Pot Roast. Pot Roast has never caught a frisbee in his whole life. Probably because he has no nose." The whole crowd laughed, and sure enough, poor little Pot Roast didn't catch a single frisbee. One even hit him on his head....

Also, there was a dog named leap, who we saw jump over some pretty intense jumps. Leap holds the world record for highest jump preformed by a dog! The last jump she jumped over, was the same height as her record. It was taller then her trainer and the same height as the announcer. It looked like it was 5.5-6 feet tall!  She was amazing!

Through out the entire show, a Boston Terrier preformed a few tricks. Every time he came out, the crowd yelled "boo"! And the announcer called him a "Boston Terrorist"! And said "he's a BOSTON Terrier. He's born to do nothing."! Why did everyone hate this poor dog? Because he's a BOSTON Terrier. Boston is Canada's rival in hockey. I'm just like "...are...you...serious..." it's completely ridiculous to hate the poor dog just because everyone here is so obsessed with hockey, that's all they think about! (relating back to my previous blog about hockey) I mean seriously! Get over it already people! You're at a circus of dogs, and all you can think about is your sport?! Sigh, Canadians might even be worse then Americans... they're certainly more competitive....

Anyway, I had lots of fun! Seeing all the dogs gave Laurie hope that she could train one of our dogs, Rosie to dance too! I think it's hopeless, though. Rosie wouldn't do what we told her to do if the world depended on it! She's super cute, but cooperative and helpful are two things she's just not. Well, at least this should be funny to watch, right? Good luck Laurie! (You'll need it)

Until next time, 

XOXO 

Willa Cowan-Essig

SUPER-DOGS!!!!!!

This weekend we went to super-dogs and I'm supposed to write about my opinion. I actually really enjoyed it, and thought it was really good. It was really good and the dogs were well trained in my opinion but, a lot of times the dogs ran off course. It made me very confused because sometimes it was clear that it was on purpose and sometimes not so much. They had this one dog, pot roast, who was obviously the clown of the act, they had him in a few of the competitions/shows and he was just really bad, but on purpose. And then another dog would run off course and it just didn't make sense. Other than that i really thought it was great! Another weird thing they did was they did this game with hockey teams representing the dogs and some of the dogs got booed bye the audience because of the teams representing them! But it was still really a great show, I loved it and though i made it sound kinda bad it was actually really great! I loved it and would go see it again in a second!

Remembrance Day

As most of you know today is remembrance day (or veterans day in America) and i thought I'd explain what that is in Canada and why in Montreal most people are wearing poppies.


Remembrance
Remembrance day ,as you can tell from by the name, is for remembering the dead soldiers. In Canada on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month you are asked to pause and remember all the men and women who lost their lives in the military service. People are asked to remember all those who died in the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Afghanistan conflict and peacekeeping missions. Remembrance day is not actually a national holiday across Canada but certain employees still get the day off.

Poppies

Poppies have been associated with the war since the Napoleonic wars. A writer saw a bunch of poppies growing over the dead soldiers. In the war of Ypres in 1915, John Mcrae decided to write a poem inspired by the poppies growing around a friend who had died in battle. The poem worked as an inspiration so that people would associate the poppy with remembrance day. The first poppies were given in 1921. Now the volunteer donations helps ex-servicemen and women to find shelter and get food.