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Published: November 13th 2007
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An hour bus ride later we arrived at the Salisbury YHA, dropped off our stuff and then hopped a ride with Bob down to St. Anne's Gate. Our dinner reservation wasn't until 7, so we went to look at the cathedral first. It looked really pretty all lit up. We then meandered to The New Inn for dinner. The portions were massive. I had some really good fish and chips and just managed to eat all of it which was quite a feat. Then we made our way back to the YHA where we discovered the game room and played cards and some large scale games of Connect Four. Katie and I had a pretty good game going; it looked like it was going to be a Cat's Game but then Katie saw a hole in my strategy and won. We had to be up early the next morning to attend the 8:00 service at the cathedral so we then headed off to bed.
At 7:30 breakfast opened and by 7:45 we were in the coach and on our way to church at Salisbury Cathedral. As it was Sunday, and Remembrance Sunday on top of that, we were not able to
get a tour of the cathedral, so we attended the communion service, which I really liked. The liturgy was really similar to what I am used to, just in a different order. The service opened with the pastor? priest? I am not sure what title they go by, but anyway she opened the service with the Lord's prayer except it stopped after "deliver us from evil" - just like we learned it in Linguistics when we were looking at Old English. The language that was used was also very archaic, with the thees and thous like the liturgy hasn't changed since Shakespeare's time. There was one part when she said something along the lines of 'Peace be with you' and I replied "And also with you". This, of course, was not what was printed, and I was looking right at what I was supposed to say too. Sometimes, you just know when you are Lutheran. After the service, we got to look around the cathedral and take some pictures. We really wanted to go into the Chapter House where one of the copies of the Magna Carta is kept, but it didn't open until 12:30. We spent quite a few
A Massive Meal
This plate was full of fish and chips - and I finished it! minutes looking at the front of the cathedral which was covered with statues from the bible and saints and bishops. St. George, the patron saint of England was found just to the left of center on the first level of statues. After taking many pictures, we climbed back on the bus and drove to Stonehenge.
Because we were a school group, we got to go inside the fence for free and so we were much closer to the stones. They were huge. The man power that it must have took to move them is beyond me. Some of the stones came from Southern Wales! What a distance to haul them! There are many myths about how the stones were put there, one involving the devil, and my favorite, involving Merlin moving the stones from Ireland. Legend has it that Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon were buried under the stones. Whatever the myths, it was an awesome sight to see. It made me wonder what all it was used for. One thing they do know is that it could tell the day of the year through the position of the sun, but it must have had other uses; we just don't
YHA
Katie and I playing Connect Four know what they were. When we were done looking at and photographing Stonehenge, we got in the coach and made our way to Avebury where there is another stone circle which is much larger than Stonehenge. The Avebury circle has been reconstructed since in the Middle Ages it was pulled down which was encouraged by the church since things like this are usually associated with pagan worship. Many of the stones were also broken apart and used in local buildings. Now, what stones were found buried are re-erected and modern markers are set where the missing stones were. Avebury is really cool because you can go right up to the stones and touch them and see how enormous both the stones at Avebury and Stonehenge are. To end the day, we drove up to the west Long Barrow which is an ancient burial sight right across the road and up the hill from Silbury Hill, the largest man made hill in Europe also made during ancient times. We could actually walk inside Long Barrow which was pretty cool. We then spent some time taking pictures on top of the barrow, and Abby and I took pictures of each other "stepping"
on Silbury Hill. Andrea and I then skipped back down hill to the coach while the others walked behind. Back into the coach we went and started the drive back to Nottingham.
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Curtis Makela
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Stonhenge
Erin- That is an interresting tale of how Stonhenge came to be (The one about Merlin lifting the stones). I've never heard that one before. I do like it.