Wales: Day 27 Like A Stone(henge)

Friday (July 30) I woke up early to go over my notes one more time, catch up on some stuff and get ready. We walked over to Harriet at 10 for Judgement Day. Everyone was kind of giggly and nervous, because we didn't really know how Tom was going to test us, and figured it wasn't going to be easy at all. The sheer number of terms we needed to know was daunting. A bunch of stuff was really Welsh, which was a problem for the non-Welsh students, and all of us felt like we didn't know as much as Tom expected us to when he'd ask us questions at sites we visited. Still, we had studied so much and were kind of just resigned to the fact that we might not pass.

Thankfully, Tom pulled right from the flashcards - which was the main tool I'd been using to study. I passed the quiz, missing 2.5/60, so that was a definite relief. The quiz was much easier than we all worried and anticipated. Most people passed or nearly passed. Those who didn't just had to work with Tom on giving a verbal history, so it wasn't too bad. I fist pumped outta there.

We were all pretty excited afterwards. We went home and got ready for an excellent afternoon. Due to some real estate issues, we hit the road for our sites almost an hour late, but it worked out ok. Our first stop was Stourhead. This is a huge 17th C. estate with the most fantastic garden/grounds I've ever seen in my entire life. The Palladian villa was gorgeous. I'd absolutely love to live here.

The grounds are designed to always keep something from the viewer's eye. No matter where you stand, you can't see everything, and there's always something to keep drawing you further into the grounds. It's pretty amazing.

For anyone who has seen the latest (Keira Knightley) Pride and Prejudice, this place is pretty unbeatable. The scene when she runs across the bridge and is proposed to in the rain by Mr. Darcy was filmed here. Yeah, we re-enacted it several times.




After getting our fill of Stourhead, we rushed to head for the main event of the day - Stonehenge. Yeah, THE Stonehenge. We have all been pretty excited about this for a while. It's not super fun or anything, just one of those awesome buckt list things that you HAVE to do. We were all starving and it was starting to get cold, but we had a timed reservation so we had to drive like mad straight there. WORTH IT.


It was awesome. We had a blast! We had the entire place to ourselves. So what did we do? Donned our brand new matching hoodies (courtesy of the judicious financial wizardry of our director, Tom) and took a bajillion photos.

Of course we did a pyramid. Thanks for asking.

This was another one of those days that I just can't describe adequately. We were all just on. We just have so much fun together. Everything is funny, we're all friends, and nothing can get us down. The friendships I have formed here are quality AND quantity, and they aren't just a result of being stuck together for 6 weeks. We've done and been a lot for one another. I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to make these great friends. Not to mention enough inside jokes to last a lifetime.


Starving and chilled, we drove a short ways to the Sainsbury in Salisbury. I know, right? Sainsbury is a grocery store. Salisbury is the city. We grabbed some "Meal Deals," and headed out to the park outside to finally eat. Grocery stores here generally have some great "Meal Deals," which include a bunch of deli sandwiches, wraps and salads, chips or fruit, and a beverage. For like 2 pounds! We love those. Afterwards we walked down to the Salisbury Cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful at night, but due to the darkness I couldn't get a good picture.

As mentioned above, most people passed the quiz, we were all just on, and we purchased an FM transmitter for iPods, so dancing and singing were pretty prevalent all day. While people were going to the bathroom before we left Salisbury, we pumped up our favorite tune here - The Club is Alive by JLS - and GOT DOWN. It was really awesome. Parking lot dance parties sound so gay when you talk about them later. I know that. But in the moment it was literally the best decision we could have made. This photo is from Stonehenge, but you get the idea of what we did most of the day. Loved it. We didn't get home till about 1 am, but it was so worth it.

Wales: Day 20 The Dawn Patrollers

First of all, I wanted to thank anyone who has emailed, facebooked or commented here about my blog! I am glad people are enjoying it. Continued questions and comments are appreciated. Also, I usually respond to every comment here on my blog, but for whatever reason it won't let me leave comments while I'm here. So thanks to everyone who has commented! I read and appreciate those. They do not go unnoticed. :)

So, Cornwall Day 2. We stayed at the Penzance Youth Hostel, which was super nice and clean. Thank goodness. I decided to go on the optional "Dawn Patrol" trip, which was meeting at the vans at 7 am. I know. I'm always tired and burnt out, but I am here! I want to live out every second I can and see all the cool stuff physically possible. We climbed into the vans, blinking in the gray sky morning, and headed down a winding road to see some Neolithic sites.

First was Men an Tol. This "stone doughnut" formation was said to increase fertility and cure rickets if you passed through the center hole. I didn't do it. Sorry, future kids. I just want to see how bad you really want me to be your mom.

We had to climb through fields and hedges to get there, and then went in pursuit of another stone formation nearby but couldn't find it. Delirious and sleepy, we ran back to the vans and drove another quarter of a mile or so to our next site, Lanyon Quoit. This is a fairly typical quoit, or Neolithic burial site.

We rushed back to our hostel, hoping to get back in time for breakfast. We stumbled in, covered in leaves, grass and mud, just in time to smell the aroma of a hot English breakfast beckoning our hungry bodies through the door. If any of you don't know what the "full English breakfast" is, it's basically pure cholesterol deliciousness.

Eggs, bacon (uh no. This was a huge slab of salty ham. Yum), sausage, potatoes and/or hashbrowns, tomatoes, baked beans (was a little weirded out by this, but SERIOUSLY. My favorite. So so good for breakfast. I'm craving it now.), toast, croissants with jam and butter, yogurt, cereal, fruit, milk and juice.

It completely knocked my socks off. I loved it. I kept thinking "Man. My dad and Grandpa Stan would really appreciate this." Most mornings here I will have an English muffin, if that, and lately I've been pounding Diet Cokes as I run out the door. This was absolutely fantastic. Since I didn't post these with the previous post about the hostel, here they are now. Pretty nice room, me and the Irish had a good night.

Despite how much we ate, I think we worked it all off at our first stop - St. Michael's Mount. This was one of the coolest places we've been. Yeah. It's on top of that mini-mountain. Luckily the tide was low so we could walk all the way across. And then all the way up. :)

First noted for it's military strategic location, it's use has always been coveted by political and economic leaders. The legend is that St. Michael appeared there in the 5th Century, so a chapel was built on the hill. Now owned by the St. Aubyn family, the chapel is now surrounded by a majestic castle and manor house. Incredible. Once again, my breath was stolen by the heavenly gardens.


Next, we drove out to the Lanhydrock House. First an abbey in the 13th Century, this manor house was built in the 1700s and was owned by the Robartes family. They were the richest family in the southwest quadrant of the island, and the decor certainly testifies of that. Did I see multiple tiger rugs? Like the ones in the movies with the mouths open and roaring with their coats spread out behind them? Yes. One can be seen here on the left hand side of the ENORMOUS billiard table. (Yeah, this house reminded me increasingly of Clue as we were walking through it.)

The craziest thing about this house is that the kitchen, for all intents and purposes, included 7+ rooms. They have rooms for breads, desserts, meats, fresh produce, cleaning, preparing for service, and tons more.

It was out of control. It made me want to have a ridiculously huge dinner party. With drinks and music in THIS garden afterwards. I want it.
Our final stop for the day was the Cotehele House. A Tudor-style manor house, it reflected the shift from military and basic living necessities to more decorative and extravagant details, especially gardens. Unfortunately, the house was closed so we just walked around the grounds. At this point everyone was pretty tired and ready to be home and shower (we'd been wading in the ocean twice, climbed quite a bit and not showered because we stayed in hostels), so we were quite goofy and bored here. We hung out in the gardens, took home a black currant seedling which we affectionately named "Dongle," and then finally headed home. I wish I had taken more pictures, but since I didn't take my laptop to dump my memory card to at the end of the day, I quickly filled up with 2 days worth of photos. At least I got some good ones. Showering was so nice when we got home. I don't think my feet have ever been dirtier.

Wales: Day 6 The Heartiff of Cardiff

Friday morning was quite strange, because I woke up and got ready in my usual routine, but then when I checked my calendar I realized it had been a week since I'd left home! It was such a bizarre fact for me to grasp. With all the ground we'd covered and how little sleep we'd gotten, it had felt like a month already, but also had been so busy that it had felt much like two long continuous days. As I write this the following Tuesday, the same affect on my concept of time prevails.

We began the day by meeting up with the BYU English Language study abroad students that are based in London. It was fun to see new but friendly faces and talk about the places we'd all been. Their program sounded pretty cool, but ours is definitely the best. :) I was absolutely thrilled to notice that one of the girls was an HBLL employee! It made me feel right at home. We jumped right in talking about her bosses and department, and you guys know I LOVE my library. I probably freaked the H out of her, what with my exuberant and obnoxious ways, but it was worth the great picture. Good times.

At Tinkinswood, we saw a great dolmen - or a huge rock used as a burial site. There we sang a few rounds of "Blae my Daniel" with the ELang students and then went on our way.

St. Fagan's is a unique museum, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go there. There are life-sized representations of houses and other buildings from several different time periods. One building in particular has 10 small apartments along its ground floor, each one decorated according to a successive time period. So every few steps you could poke your head in and see how things had changed. It was absolutely fascinating. They also had buildings like the corn (wheat) mill, which was taken apart from the coast and rebuilt piece by piece on musuem property. And is still a functioning mill! Incredible.

As we were preparing to meet the rest of the group to go home, we ran into 2 girls from our group that asked us if we'd seen the castle and gardens. We were tired and didn't really care to, but she insisted that we check it out. "You'll feel like you're in Beauty and the Beast." Ok. That got me. I'll bite.

Turning the corner, I saw that beautiful scene beyond the hedge. The force of the image hit me. I would say I swooned, but that's retarded. I was certainly affected in the sinus area by allergies quite quickly, but it was completely worth the emotional experience of this gorgeous little castle. We traipsed along the pond and fountain, singing "Something There That Wasn't There Before" from Beauty and the Beast, and then we ran up the short steps to face this -

The covered archway was the most singularly beautiful and romantic thing I've seen since we've been here. I have always loved the twinkling arches that you ride under in "Storybook Land" at Disneyland. They've been my secret romantic guilty pleasure, even more so than the Disney castle. These blew them away. The delicate flowers took our breath away and seemed to cushion us from the cacophony of the playing children without the walls. We couldn't help but imagine scenes and scenarios that would appropriately take place in such an amazing setting. Following the frenzy and speed of Oxford and Winchester, the peace and beauty was calming and welcome. Truly it was one of the best moments of my summer.

Had our day ended there, it would have been a success. But of course we still had an entire afternoon to take advantage of. We walked into downtown Cardiff to enjoy the pleasures of festival season. In Europe, towns and counties have festivals to promote local goods, music and culture. It can be compared to our fairs and carnivals back home to some extent.

Viva la Cardiff Food Festival! Weirdly cool European music was being played at one end of the square, while tents and booths filled the remaining space.

I enjoyed roaming the festival by myself, perusing the strange crafts and foods that were available in each tent. I was able to buy some cool souvenirs for some of you guys back home, and I tried some famed double chocolate Cow Pots (a prominent Welsh ice cream brand). Thank goodness the Welsh like their ice cream. It's like a little piece of home for me. Other strange finds included lamb burgers, licorice ice cream, free samples of whiskey and cider (!) and these themed beers.


We ran into some street performers that particularly liked teasing Americans and their blonde hair. Yeah, me. One man in a suit and skintight black leggings seemed bent on embarrassing me with his immodesty. Needless to say, it worked. haha. They were absolutely ridiculous. I was pleased to find that the person who took the pictures for me captured two photos. In the first, you can clearly see me and Zoe's reaction to the pelvic thrust of said gentleman. The second photo is the intended cute group one. :)

Above the square is the pier. Cardiff Bay Pier is SO COOL. I loved it. We sat and ate our lunches and strange food samples while overlooking the ocean and listening to the interesting Jew-rock coming from the square below us. I found a 1.5 liter Diet Coke for cheaper than a normal-sized bottle, so I was a happy camper for the remainder of the afternoon.

Midafternoon, we took a tour of the Welsh National Assembly. This building was really cool and symbolic. The Welsh people are trying very hard to preserve some individuality and to assert that the language of Welsh is not inferior to English or any other language. They conduct their proceedings in both languages, simultaneously translated and projected on screens around their conference rooms. It's pretty cool. Almost the entire building is made of glass, which our guide said was symbolic of transparency. I think that's a great concept and I wish them well.