We had dinner last night as a group, and I had lamb and roast potatoes. Both were very good, but it was way too much to eat in one sitting. Then to bed early because...
I was up at 1:45 the next morning to get ready for the bus. We got a knock on our door at 2, loaded the bus (which the Brits call a coach) at 2:15 and were on our way at 2:30. It was cold. All so we could get there an hour before our tour started. But it was okay because we took a mini field trip to the round barrows that you can walk to from the parking lot at Stonehenge. We started walking as the sun came up at 5:15 or so and I got some really cool pictures of the sheep in the field. They were so... sheepy. And sheepish for that matter. Then we had to walk through a cow field to get to the barrows. McGees says that we have cows back home, to which his daughter replies, 'yeah, but these are dairy cows. We only have meat cows.' We were all rather punch drunk at the time and as such, this was a hilarious statement.
The barrows were really cool. Their are a lot of them around Stonehenge. They've found a lot of stuff buried with the people in the barrows and as our guide said, this was kind of the 'Valley of the Kings' for prehistoric Britain. While we were on the barrows, the fog started to lift and we could sort of see Stonehenge in the distance. I got some neat pictures of Stonehenge just peeking out of the fog.
We went to meet our tour guide, and thankfully it had started to warm up as the sun came out. Our tour guide was a nice old lady who had done the tour for the Texas State group for seven years. She took us to various stones and explained what they were and why they were called what they were called. She explained the current theories on what Stonehenge was used for as well as where the stones came from and the various building stages. Then we got to wander around and take pictures. She also gave us some dowsing rods to play with. They were nifty, but I think my hands were too cold for them to work properly. I got a bunch of pictures. The color of the stones is wonderful with the green green grass and the blue sky.
We then got back on the bus to be dropped off at a youth hostel in Salisbury, where we ate breakfast. We then walked to Salisbury Cathedral, which was so beautiful. The church is huge. I don't usually like people in my photos, but I had to have some just for scale. I was on the edge of the green space around the cathedral and I could barely get the front in the picture. The inside is split into a bunch of smaller areas. There are little rooms off the sides of the cathedral and the main center area is split up by the altar in the middle and the columns running down either side. They also have a copy of the Magna Carta, but I honestly don't remember seeing it. They also had a 400 year old King James Bible, turned to the beatitudes. They had a lot of displays about the Magna Carta, but that's not really my area.
Then, to the gift shop! I found a bunch of post cards and a bell for Grandma. :) They also had a couple of Stonehenge post cards, so I got one. Then I hung out with some people for a while while we were figuring out who all was doing what. The group that was going to the museum for anthro was all going to bath, and the people who were going home weren't going to the museum. So I went through the museum (which was alright, but I think I was too tired to properly enjoy, and they didn't have some of the info I was hoping they'd have, though they did have a cool model of sunrise on the summer solstice at Stonehenge) and then went home by myself. I asked the guy at tickets the easiest way to get from Salisbury to Canterbury and he printed me out a timetable with the appropriate trains on it. I was lucky because the next train for London (where I had to change) left three minutes after I got there. Then I got on another train at Waterloo station in London and came home. I actually made it here ahead of the people who left before I went to the museum. They tried to take the high speed train, which necessitated going all the way across London and then waiting an hour for a train.
At that point I uploaded photos, talked to Mom, and went to bed. 12 hours later, I'm feeling more like a human being and I'm going to have to start in on my essay. Fun!
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