StOnEhEnGe aNd oThEr CoOL RoCk StUff

Tuesday, December 9th

Woo Hoo! Stonehenge today! We left ISH at 8:00am, on time for once. It took us this long into the trip to do it, but better late than never? Ha.

We went to Stonehenge and it was awesome! Took lots of pictures and saw all of the amazing pieces. A few things I learned:

-The blue stones were imported from Wales, but no one knows how. Somehow they were brought down the River Avon, and then dragged a considerable distance across land.
-The lintels were secured using woodworking techniques. They are fitted into hollow carved joints, similar to that if a ball and socket joint in your arms and shoulders.
-The holes were dug with one sloping side and levered down, then pulled upright. Each stone weighs about 45 TONS, so this would have been an incredible task.
-The stones are aligned to have light in certain directions during the solstices and other occasions. It makes sense that it would keep track of the seasons and the movement of the sun because the people of this time were controlled by the seasons.

Theories:
-Three of the major theories about how the stones came to be include that of Merlin and King Arthur, a trick by the devil, and the Druids. For all I know, it was aliens…

After Stonehenge, we traveled a bit farther to a town called Avebury, where we saw another rock formation. We took lots of ridiculous pictures here, basically all kinds of silly random things you can do with rocks… it was a good time.

After we left here, we drove on for a bit to Salisbury. The drive was gorgeous and there were fields and sheep everywhere. The English countryside is really pretty, even prettier when it is not the middle of December.

Upon arriving in Salisbury, we had a walking tour (Rob, the same guy who did our tour for Stratford upon Avon and Wales was our guide for today as well), and then we ate lunch. Cody, Rachael and I all went to Subway, one of my only American fixes here, I am proud to admit. They had a special sub that was stuffing, turkey and gravy- basically Thanksgiving on a bun. I couldn’t resist…

We looked through the Christmas markets, and the girls got some ridiculous candy. I passed. The licorice they got was really funny though because it was so hard to bite into, and by the end of the trip, almost everyone had tried to get a bite off of it. Definitely a challenge.

We then met back up with the group again and walked a little further to Salisbury Cathedral. I was really excited to see this since I had studied it in one of my art history classes back at school. The outside of the Cathedral was really pretty, and we got to walk inside as well. We went into another small room that held a page of the Magna Carta. The British Library also had two pages- I visited there about a week or so ago.

This was our final stop, and we left to go back to London around 4:00. I arrived back at around 6:45 or so and went to my room to finish this journal to post it for grading, so- I will probably load videos of the Blues Bar on another post later since I am going there now…