Disclaimer: If you made it through all these pictures, it should be obvious, but just in case it isn't: No, I do not do my hair in London. This is mostly because of the rain (which will be addressed at the end of this post) and the humidity and the general lack of outlets near mirrors or in bathrooms (that won't be addressed. It just makes me upset). I will probably never do my hair in the entire time I'm in Europe. You have been warned.
We left at 6:30 AM Friday morning for Wales. Our bus driver was a chain smoker (not like our awesome bus driver last time, who was a bodyguard for Becks and Posh) so we all smelled really great the entire trip. Our first stop was Avebury. It's an ancient site just like Stonehenge, but unlike Stonehenge, it doesn't have herds of Asian tourists crowding around it, it's not built along a highway, and it's actually much bigger. Apparently the stones surround the entire village, and in the 16th century after a string of bad luck the villagers buried the stones, thinking they were cursed. They were eventually unearthed. They're not as intricately put together as Stonehenge, but it was nice to actually be able to go up and touch them (at Stonehenge you can't even get close).
The next stop was Bath. It's a city named after the Roman Baths built in the area in ancient times, and in Jane Austen's day it was a fashionable health resort. If you've ever read Persuasion or even Emma, Bath should be familiar. The baths themselves were really interesting. Personally I wouldn't bathe in anything that particular shade of green, but the waters come from a natural spring, so they're warm and full of minerals. They supposedly have healing properties. After the tour, we got to drink some of the water. I'm assuming it was sanitized somehow, but if not it's probably fine--I've had ice cream from a random stand on the side of the road in Mexico during the summer. Twice. Nothing could kill me now. It was pretty gross, but I'm not sure if it's mainly because of all the minerals or because it was hot (not lukewarm, hot) and I only like cold water.
After an eternity of driving, we arrived in Wales. We only had 45 minutes to take in the Welsh Life Museum, which was really cool. I unfortunately left my camera on the bus so no pictures of that. At Cardiff, we stayed in probably my first one-star hotel. They didn't provide shampoo or conditioner or blowdryers (or even put sheets on your bed--you had to do that yourself, and they felt more like a shower curtain than sheets) and there may or may not have been writing on our bedroom and bathroom wall in either blood or lipstick. Who knows? We definitely got invited to some guys' hotel room as they walked out for the night and we walked back in, but instead we ate Krispy Kreme donuts and watched music videos. We didn't see much in Cardiff because it was dark by the time we got there and all we wanted to do was eat, and we left the next morning at 7:30. But at least if going to Wales was on my bucket list (and it actually wasn't, although I was excited to go there) I could check that off.
Then this morning we visited Stourhead, which is a large estate with gardens and a lake. It's also the area where a scene for Pride and Prejudice (the new one with Keira Knightley) was filmed. It was incredible. I could have spent hours there, and not just because the movie was filmed there. I can't even describe how beautiful the walk was.
Then, as previously mentioned, we stopped at Stonehenge. I am the girl who built a HUGE mostly-to-scale replica of Stonehenge as a project in fourth grade (remember that, Dad? I think you did most of the work actually) so I was really excited to see the real thing. Let's just say that although I wasn't exactly disappointed, it wasn't what I was expecting. I'd heard that it was right by a highway, but seriously: it's right by a highway. Like I said before, it's surrounded by people and you can't get anywhere near the stones. So it's something you really should see if you're in England, but you only need five minutes to take pictures with the stones in the background and then you can climb back on board your smoke-filled bus and develop lung cancer inside, where it's not windy or raining. Because trust me, England is always windy and/or rainy.
And speaking of windy/rainy, we got to visit Jane Austen's home in Chawton. The "cottage" (personally I think it's too nice and big to be called a cottage) was really quaint, but they didn't allow photography so I didn't get any pictures of it. One of our professors told us an interesting story about Jane. I always thought she was just kind of sweet and quiet and a people watcher, but apparently in one of her letters she wrote about a neighbor who had given birth to a stillborn baby. She said that she was sure that the child was alive when it was born, but then it saw its father's (apparently ugly) face and that must have been the cause of death. I'm not sure stillborn baby jokes are ever tasteful, but it does show a side of Jane that most people probably never saw. After we saw the house, we took a walk up to her brother's manor (he was adopted by a rich family, the Knights, and inherited their estate, which allowed him to give Jane and her mother and sister a cottage on his land) and the church where Jane would have attended worship services and where her sister and mother are buried. The church in itself was interesting because so far I've really only seen extravagant cathedrals, and this was just a country church. It was a really pretty walk, but we did have to brave the usual mud, rain, and umbrella-contorting winds. Sometimes I think my life would be easier if I was British and therefore wore Wellington boots, but I'm American and wearing wellies just is completely outside of my comfort zone.
And speaking of windy/rainy, we got to visit Jane Austen's home in Chawton. The "cottage" (personally I think it's too nice and big to be called a cottage) was really quaint, but they didn't allow photography so I didn't get any pictures of it. One of our professors told us an interesting story about Jane. I always thought she was just kind of sweet and quiet and a people watcher, but apparently in one of her letters she wrote about a neighbor who had given birth to a stillborn baby. She said that she was sure that the child was alive when it was born, but then it saw its father's (apparently ugly) face and that must have been the cause of death. I'm not sure stillborn baby jokes are ever tasteful, but it does show a side of Jane that most people probably never saw. After we saw the house, we took a walk up to her brother's manor (he was adopted by a rich family, the Knights, and inherited their estate, which allowed him to give Jane and her mother and sister a cottage on his land) and the church where Jane would have attended worship services and where her sister and mother are buried. The church in itself was interesting because so far I've really only seen extravagant cathedrals, and this was just a country church. It was a really pretty walk, but we did have to brave the usual mud, rain, and umbrella-contorting winds. Sometimes I think my life would be easier if I was British and therefore wore Wellington boots, but I'm American and wearing wellies just is completely outside of my comfort zone.
But all in all, I loved the trip. And I'm slowly satisfying the travel bug I've developed. England? Check. Italy? Check. Wales? Check. Ireland next weekend and Paris the week after that!
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