(no subject)
Oh man today was absolutely incredible. I wish I could do it all over again, because honestly, I could have spent so much more time than we did on everything.
We woke up at two in the morning to get on the bus that would take us to Stonehenge. We got special passes so that we could go at sunrise, before it was technically open, and instead of just looking at the rocks from the road, we could walk around among them. And seriously, it was AMAZING. It was just so incredible to walk up a hill, across a normal road with modern cars and suddenly there are FIVE THOUSAND year old rocks looming up out of the fog. A person didn't even need a vivid imagination to picture the flickering of bonfires through the patchy fog and the wild dances of Druids worshipping the sunrise. I wanted to dance myself... just pretend I was Celtic for a day and let myself go crazy in the circle of rocks; the age and mystery of them just holds such a weird power over everyone who sees them. Even though it was four o'clock in the morning when we got there, everyone was just so awestruck by the sight of the rocks, and even the most shallow and whiney of the people on the trip just shut up and LOOKED. And when the sun rose, it was even more incredible. I mean, there was just the most PERFECT sunrise... and the mist was still thick, with mountains and trees poking up out of the distance, and coupled with the bleating of the sheep that surrounded stonehenge, they combined to make one of the most stunning moments of my life. It was honestly nothing short of breathtaking.
Afterwards, we went to this tiny little town called Salisbury, which at the hour of seven in the morning was still pretty much fast asleep. Salisbury was one of the quaintest towns I've ever seen... little cobblestone streets and tiny houses framed with flowers and inscripted with names like "The Hobbler House" and "Old Baker Cottage". After grabbing a coffee the second the town's coffee shop opened and then heading toward a McDonalds for the only available hot breakfast, I headed with a few of my friends toward the Salisbury cathedral. The cathedral was absolutely beautiful, with the most elaborate carvings I've ever seen (and this includes St. Peter's Cathedral, which is the largest in the world) and the most intricate designs on the outside and inside of the cathedral. I took about four gazillion pictures of the outside and then moved inside.
I absolutely love the inside of cathedrals. It has nothing to do with the whole God aspect... we all know I'm not a fan of organized religion. But when organized religion creates such BEAUTIFUL things as the Salisbury cathedral, who can really hate it that much? There was that quiet, echoing quality that all cathedrals seem to have, heightening the inclination to whisper or, more often, to just fall silent and gaze around with a reverant air at what human hands managed to create hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Dotting the inside of the cathedral were the tombs of perhaps a dozen bishops and secretaries of state and knights, cold stone tombs with the carved image of the deceased lying on top. The windows were a thousand shades of sky blue and gold and scarlet and moss green, and it would have taken two of me to wrap my arms around the pillars that held up the roof. There were about six different chapels on the inside, each with their own design and each with that eerie stillness that always falls in a place of prayer. The stillness was only heightened by the object at the back of the cathedral: the world's first working clock, still slowly ticking off every three seconds, its huge mechanisms turning gears and swinging pendulums and echoing through the cathedral with a low resounding TICK.
At the back of the cathedral, at exactly nine thirty, they opened the doors to the room which held one of the four surviving copies of the original Magna Carta. It was only one page of vellum hammered flat, covered from top to bottom in the tiniest, neatest calligraphy anyone could possibly imagine. I took a picture of course (illegally) and then it was back to the bus on our way to Avebury.
Avebury was like a much, much bigger version of Stonehenge: three huge circles of towering stones with a town built in and around them. The pattern was too big and there were too many peices missing for me to take in any organization from our position among the stones, but we all had fun snapping photos of the huge stones and the rolling hills in the distance and the dozens of sheep that were just roaming casually throughout the stones, grazing casually on grass that would have been hallowed ground seven thousand years ago.
After Avebury we drove once more through the rain (which so kindly waited until we got into the bus to show its face) and the blue hills and the horsey meadows until we arrived once more in our dorm room.
And then I promptly threw up. Must have been the tomato soup I ate for lunch. Ah well, at least the rest of the day was absolutely perfect.
Honestly, despite the rain, despite the cold, and despite the fact that I face death every day by crossing streets where pedestrians don't have the right of way, I could see myself living here pretty much forever.
We woke up at two in the morning to get on the bus that would take us to Stonehenge. We got special passes so that we could go at sunrise, before it was technically open, and instead of just looking at the rocks from the road, we could walk around among them. And seriously, it was AMAZING. It was just so incredible to walk up a hill, across a normal road with modern cars and suddenly there are FIVE THOUSAND year old rocks looming up out of the fog. A person didn't even need a vivid imagination to picture the flickering of bonfires through the patchy fog and the wild dances of Druids worshipping the sunrise. I wanted to dance myself... just pretend I was Celtic for a day and let myself go crazy in the circle of rocks; the age and mystery of them just holds such a weird power over everyone who sees them. Even though it was four o'clock in the morning when we got there, everyone was just so awestruck by the sight of the rocks, and even the most shallow and whiney of the people on the trip just shut up and LOOKED. And when the sun rose, it was even more incredible. I mean, there was just the most PERFECT sunrise... and the mist was still thick, with mountains and trees poking up out of the distance, and coupled with the bleating of the sheep that surrounded stonehenge, they combined to make one of the most stunning moments of my life. It was honestly nothing short of breathtaking.
Afterwards, we went to this tiny little town called Salisbury, which at the hour of seven in the morning was still pretty much fast asleep. Salisbury was one of the quaintest towns I've ever seen... little cobblestone streets and tiny houses framed with flowers and inscripted with names like "The Hobbler House" and "Old Baker Cottage". After grabbing a coffee the second the town's coffee shop opened and then heading toward a McDonalds for the only available hot breakfast, I headed with a few of my friends toward the Salisbury cathedral. The cathedral was absolutely beautiful, with the most elaborate carvings I've ever seen (and this includes St. Peter's Cathedral, which is the largest in the world) and the most intricate designs on the outside and inside of the cathedral. I took about four gazillion pictures of the outside and then moved inside.
I absolutely love the inside of cathedrals. It has nothing to do with the whole God aspect... we all know I'm not a fan of organized religion. But when organized religion creates such BEAUTIFUL things as the Salisbury cathedral, who can really hate it that much? There was that quiet, echoing quality that all cathedrals seem to have, heightening the inclination to whisper or, more often, to just fall silent and gaze around with a reverant air at what human hands managed to create hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Dotting the inside of the cathedral were the tombs of perhaps a dozen bishops and secretaries of state and knights, cold stone tombs with the carved image of the deceased lying on top. The windows were a thousand shades of sky blue and gold and scarlet and moss green, and it would have taken two of me to wrap my arms around the pillars that held up the roof. There were about six different chapels on the inside, each with their own design and each with that eerie stillness that always falls in a place of prayer. The stillness was only heightened by the object at the back of the cathedral: the world's first working clock, still slowly ticking off every three seconds, its huge mechanisms turning gears and swinging pendulums and echoing through the cathedral with a low resounding TICK.
At the back of the cathedral, at exactly nine thirty, they opened the doors to the room which held one of the four surviving copies of the original Magna Carta. It was only one page of vellum hammered flat, covered from top to bottom in the tiniest, neatest calligraphy anyone could possibly imagine. I took a picture of course (illegally) and then it was back to the bus on our way to Avebury.
Avebury was like a much, much bigger version of Stonehenge: three huge circles of towering stones with a town built in and around them. The pattern was too big and there were too many peices missing for me to take in any organization from our position among the stones, but we all had fun snapping photos of the huge stones and the rolling hills in the distance and the dozens of sheep that were just roaming casually throughout the stones, grazing casually on grass that would have been hallowed ground seven thousand years ago.
After Avebury we drove once more through the rain (which so kindly waited until we got into the bus to show its face) and the blue hills and the horsey meadows until we arrived once more in our dorm room.
And then I promptly threw up. Must have been the tomato soup I ate for lunch. Ah well, at least the rest of the day was absolutely perfect.
Honestly, despite the rain, despite the cold, and despite the fact that I face death every day by crossing streets where pedestrians don't have the right of way, I could see myself living here pretty much forever.