Since last week we have gotten to see lots of ancient ruins, moved into our homestays, and taken the first steps in what will soon become an excruciating workload. But it still, amazingly enough, remains the calm before the storm.
In our third and almost final touristy trip, we spent the day exploring Old Sarum, Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Avebury. For all of the pictures from this trip, just click anywhere on this sentence.
Old Sarum is the original site of the city of Salisbury. It has some pretty cool remnants of a castle, and managed to be the location for some cool pictures. It was bone-chillingly cold on the day we took this trip, but it remained clear.
A view of the foundations of the original cathedral.
Salisbury was more interesting; most of our time was spent within the Cathedral (seen below).
The inside of the cathedral was quite impressive, and an interesting fact is that the massive bell tower has caused some of the stone supports to lilt approximately three feet. One thing that all of us particularly enjoyed was the copy of the Magna Carta which they have on site. It is one of only four originals remaining, and was very well preserved.
After grabbing lunch, we were off to Stonehenge which was impressive (despite it being smaller than everyone expected). It is simply astonishing that such massive stones could be hauled around and placed in formations some thousands of years ago.
Yes, it was really really cold. I felt like I was back in Apple Valley, with the gale force winds.
Avebury has more of the same prehistoric formations, and as an extra bonus a HUGE man made hill built for an unknown purpose 3000 years ago (not a burial mound). All of that stuff can be seen below.
What makes Avebury so cool is you actually get to walk right up to the stones (which is no longer allowed at Stonehenge).
So that was our trip. Lets see, what else has happened in the past week?
Besides the magnificent jobs done by both the Cubs and Angels to make it to the postseason (I may have to stay up till 3:00AM to watch some games while I am here), we have mainly been doing the usual pub hopping and such. The move into our homestays has gone smoothly, although I think we all would rather have lived in college for the whole term. We get bus passes, and the places we are at are quite nice, but regardless it isn't the same as living on campus. Ian and I are living together (we get separate rooms, but we are with the same host "mother" Pauline, who seems very nice) in a suburb of Oxford called Summertown.
My new digs
Chanda came down from Edinburgh last weekend, and so all of us had a lot of fun partying it up with her. We are developing a few favorite pubs, a favorite bar, and a favorite Kebab stand. Speaking of Kebabs, they are absolutely delicious.
Freshers week is incredibly different here than any freshmen orientation at Pomona (or any college in the US for that matter). Far from a dry week, freshers week encourages going to clubs, pubs, and seems to be a week of drunken debauchery. For example, last night (second night freshers were here) the five colleges on High Street took over the club Filth-- which has evidently over the years earned its name. Drinks were cheap (1.50 for a tequila shot), and it was a very interesting thing to check out. A few of us just went to get a feel for things, and the music served as an incredibly odd reminder of high school/first year of college. Nearly every song that was played was American, which I suppose shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, but it was more the fact that if I closed my eyes I could have envisioned being back at Homecoming. From such classics as "Get Low" to "Buttons", it was all there. We actually had a great time, but mainly just realized that the two year difference between us and the freshers was a pretty large gap.
Anyhow, tomorrow we are off to Stratford (yes, the one of Shakespeare fame) to see a production of Twelfth Night. I'm very excited. Thats way more than enough for today, but I will leave you a quote from the otherwise obnoxious Architecture reading I had to do over the past week--
"If one were to give an account of all the doors one has closed and opened, of all the doors one would like to re-open, one would have to tell the story of one's entire life." -- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
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Now playing: The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
via FoxyTunes
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