"Stonehenge was in danger of being crushed by dwarves!"

Luckily the Stonehenge I saw on Saturday, was in fact 18', not 18". Ross and I left early Saturday morning, checked out of our hostel, and were soon on our way to the magical little town of Bath, England. The city of Bath was named thus because of the Roman baths that were built there. We didn't make it to any of them, but we did enjoy a nice lunch at the Pig and Fiddle, then found our tour bus. The tour guide was very informative, and kept up a good monologue all the way to Stonehenge (if people would have asked more questions, it probably would have been a very interesting dialogue; he told us he liked questions, and that if we were bored it was our own fault). One of the places we drove past was a small village where if you dig a little into the earth of the hills you hit a white rock, and there are several large horses carved into the earth on several of the hills. He pointed one out, and they're much like the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, except it's a medieval horse drawing in the earth itself. Either way, you know where you are. The bus was really stuffy, however, and I think just about everyone took a turn dozing by the end. We arrived at Stonehenge and were allowed about an hour, which is plenty of time to walk around it (the closest you get to the structure now is about 100ft away, unfortunately), but not nearly enough to sit and stare for too long from any specific angle. I took more pictures than I needed...it pretty much looks the same all the way around. It's one thing to look at the actual stones, I could have stood there all day just wondering and imagining things, so I realize that the pictures won't be terribly exciting. The audioguide they gave us was helpful to a degree; at a certain point you're pretty tired of hearing "No one is quite sure why/how this is, but some theories are..." when they could have just given you the theories. They think it was built about 3,000 years ago, and the stones would have been brought from the south of Wales, I think, quite a ways off. There's something interesting about the kind of stone they used, as well, which is that it stays warmer than other stones. The people who built it may have found this to be a religious or medical reason for bringing these specific stones, as opposed to just using any of the perfectly good rock in the area. The surrounding land is mostly grazing and straw growing; rolling English country-side. It was a beautiful area, but the guide said that on most occasions its pretty cold, often much colder than it looks, very windy, and miserable when it rains (which is not infrequent). The day we were there as you can see it was quite clear, fairly windy, but not too cold for the most part.

Me and the stones.
The not-so-rolling-inclined stones. Apparently 1/3 of each standing stone is underground.
The big one to the right is the Heel Stone. I had to look that up because I couldn't remember the name. I wanted to call it the Pointer Stone, but I think that was one of Pete's horses.
The flat bit of rock in front of the henge ("Whatever is a henge, anyway?") is the Slaughter Stone (didn't forget that one...). It was named that because it was really smooth, I think.
Me being artsy again. You learn quick that "art" to me in photography is pretty much black and white, or sepia.

Case in point...I just like this one because it looks like two E.T.s playing hide and seek.

After Stonehenge, our tour went a little further down the way to a small medieval village, Lacock. Most of the village is maintained as it would have looked in (I think) the 1400s. And it looks exactly the same, excepting the people's clothing, the cars, and the streets. The outsides of the buildings are all required by law, however, to be maintained in the traditional fashion. There are a couple of slate rooves, but most are thatched. I didn't take too many pictures here because a.) people live here, and b.) I was spending way too much time trying not to look like I was sword fighting. Much to my chagrin (which is actually the example sentence used for that word in my dictionary), however, many of the people on the tour found the town much more interesting whenever the guide pointed out a spot that was used in the Harry Potter movies. Ross found this amusing, and continued throughout the trip to say things like "OMG! Tim! This, is, Smurglburg," or some Harry Potter placename. "This is Harry Potter's house! Can you believe it?! It's his actual house!" I perpetuated the madness by constantly replying "Yes, but this is also an actual 15th century building, where actual 15th century people lived, that has been actually maintained to actually look like the actual building would have actually looked in its actual time-period!" England's oldest pub is in this town, as well.
A house being rethatched.
These are two ridiculous-looking cats looking ridiculous.

We returned to Bath, had dinner, and after a little time at a nearby pub (this is the national pastime, I've learned) hit the hay. The next morning we checked out of the hostel, and I caught a 10:00 train back to London on my way to Aberdeen for school to start. Ross's mom was going to catch up with him at some point, but I think he was going to Edinburgh before she got here. In any event, I spent my entire Sunday on a train. I went about two hours back to London, then off into Wales somewhere, then I changed trains onto a four hour ride to Manchester, another change to another four and a half hour train to Edinburgh, then from Edinburgh I took a one and a half hour bus ride to Dundee, and finally from Dundee I took a one hour train to Aberdeen. All I'd eaten was a to-go meat pie in the Manchester station. I got some cookies out of a vending machine at the station in Dundee, and those pretty much held me over until Monday. I arrived at the Aberdeen station at 12:30, and waited in a que for a cab until 1:15. I was finally on campus by about 1:45. My cab driver was a really nice, very informative guy. I don't remember his name, but he looked like Randy Olsen(?...from church, bald guy with the beard), and here I got my first taste of the Aberdeen brogue. It's a little different from what I'd heard before, and I think Braveheart tones down a lot of the accents so you can understand them more easily. He explained a lot about the town, and used a lot of funny phrases I wish I could pull off like "...and while you're oot party-partying" and stuff like that. I got to the hall, checked in (24-hour staff is nice), found my room, unpacked a bit and went right to bed.