Better late than never

Well so much for posting within a week or so.  That obviously didn't happen.  Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived back in California I got a terrible cold and was incapacitated for a whole two days which somewhat set the tone for the next two weeks or so.  I suppose more like three weeks now...

Anyway, I'm home, safe and sound, and will do as I previously intended and post several blogs relating to my European adventure and follow it with the final post about returning back to california and settling in.

Well, as promised, here is London:

I arrived in London early in the day on the thirtieth as planned.  I had with me one huge backpack weighing in at about 10k, a stuffed animal, a barely functioning computer, and a camera, ready to see everything in London that I hadn't gotten to see before.  I'd love to direct you at this point to my flickr page filled with photos of my whole trip, but unfortunately, Flickr has decided to suck, and I therefore can no longer access it.

Anyway, I stayed at Astor's Victoria Hostel just a few blocks down from the Victoria Coach Station.  It was a lovely hostel, or as lovely as one can expect from a hostel.  The beds were made of a very squeaky red metal and the luggage storage consisted of wire mesh cages under the bed upon which we could place a lock to secure our belongings.  I was only able to access the internet in the lobby, but that wasn't too bad.  I did try to skype once or twice in the kitchen area, but it was no good, mostly because of noise from the rest of the guests watching tele and talking or, on one night, getting quite drunk together.


My first day I went first to Kings Cross to take a photo with the iconic trolly, only to then learn that they charge somewhere in the realm of ten pounds for the photo, so I decided that I was happy getting a photo outside of the platform and spending a considerable amount less on a silly souvenir.

Here I am, looking like an exhausted dork:

Backpackers never wear makeup, didn't you know that?

So I left the station and found a Pret A Manger where I could have lunch with a view of St. Pancras.  From there I went to the British Museum, where I saw the Rosetta Stone:

Not my view from the cafe, this is much pretier.

British Museum!

Rosetta Stone

Although there was a lot to see and a lot to take in, I find that I have very little to actually enumerate.  I wandered and I observed and took an obscene amount of photos, all of which will be up on Photobucket as soon as I get my act together.  It was, like the Stonehenge experience, quite remarkable and not very easily put into words.

After that I went back and tracked down some dinner before heading to a ghost walk.  

Old school gaslight.  Probably the best part of the tour.  There are around two hundred of them scattered around the regions near Trafalgar square.

Now, I would like very much to tell you that, like the Jack the Ripper walk I took at Christmas time, the Ghost Walk was a little spooky and a lot of fun, but unfortunately, this guide really didn't hold a candle to the last guide.  He didn't seem interested in giving the spooky tour advertised on their website, but made it quite silly.  Maybe because there was a seven year old in the group (okay, who brings a child on a tour that is advertised to cause nightmares for weeks? I mean seriously, check your parenting handbook, I'm pretty sure that's in the "don't" section), but here I was expecting a slightly spooky, sort of eerie tour, and what I got was a few uncomfortable giggles, mostly silence, and a slightly judgmental guide.  Lame.  I was looking forward to being spooked for weeks!  I'm a masochist like that.

The tour wasn't that bad, just a bit disappointing.  I did get to snap this lovely photo while we were wandering through St. James Park, however:

Well, after that I went back to my hostel but decided to stop on the way for a glass of wine at the pub round the corner.  It was an incredible wine, and the bartender flirted with me for a bit and I wrote a beautiful letter to Molly which is still in it's envelope on my desk, and damn, I really need to send that.

Am I rambling yet?

Well, I think I was then, because I hadn't considered that, since I'd been up at five to catch my bus and barely slept during the ride, I was exhausted and probably a bit dehydrated because that wine went straight to my head.  So I stumbled back to my hostel on my first night a little bit drunk and feeling very nostalgic and pretentious.  As J.K. Rowling would say, "not very rock'n'roll."

Day two I awoke bright and early for a hosteler's meager aproximation of breakfast and went out into the world for my second walking tour.  The day's main attraction?  Westminster Abbey.

I am faced again with the challenge of explaining why I did not hate my tour, but why it pretty much sucked.  These are the memories that stay, of course, no matter how badly I try to replace them with the good memories, picking out souvenirs and snapping secret photos of various people's tombs (That's not weird, is it?)  Well, the walking tour got us in with group rates and between that and the cost of the tour itself I was saving about five quid, and that seemed a reasonable goal, so I went for it.  The tour was fine in itself, although they led us through quite quickly and there wasn't a lot of stopping and wandering to be done.  We followed the woman with the umbrella who told us the moment we were receiving our id badges (which were actually just little white stickers we put on our shoulders), that photography inside was strictly forbidden once we were inside the actual church.  So naturally I got in trouble while still outside for taking a photo.  Color me confused.

Westminster is lovley, though I won't go into too much detail, mostly because my memory is fading, but also because you can read that in any travel magazine.  I want to tell you what I remember: it was crowded.

Not with people, though there were TONS of people.  It was beginning to feel much more like a tourist attraction that an actual working church.  No, I mean it was crowded because there were tombs and relics and just things everywhere.  Everything was so busy.  And it was small.  I know you're probably confused when I say that.  You're probably thinking "Westminster Abbey is HUGE!" but alas, it is not.  If you've ever been to a cathedral at all you've probably been in something roughly the same size as Westminster, at least when it comes to the central cross.  That might have to do with it being so busy, but it really didn't have that cavernous awesome feeling that I expected.  It also lacked the hallowed feeling of Tintern Abbey.  That, again, goes back to the tourist attraction.  It was just... empty.

There's the main cross of the church, then a small back room area that I can't entirely remember the purpose of except that there were chairs with names on them, and there was an area off to the side where all of the tombs and memorials were.  I almost forget now who all was there, because I wasn't allowed the to take photos, but also because this was the section that were ushered through the fastest, and where we wanted to linger the longest.  After that we were taken back into the hallway outside and the guide explained that the tour was over, the bookshop that way, and have a lovely day.  A few of us wanted to go back and finish looking, but we were informed that was all there was to it.  Great, we pay for the tour and then learn that that is literally all we get, the tour, and that's it.  Oh well.  Such is life.

At this point it was about two in the afternoon.  I was exhausted and my feet were killing me.  A quick lunch and I was back at my dorm for a nap before going out again.  This was one of my lazier days, as my feet adjusted to near constant walking.  So I stayed at the dorm until around five when I dragged myself up to find dinner and then went in search of my final walking tour, this time with low expectations.  The only thing is, walking tours could be set aside during the day when I could wander around and explore myself.  In fact, I set aside a Sherlock Holmes tour knowing that it would probably disappoint, my feet were killing me, and I was starving.  But the thing about traveling alone as a woman is that I don't feel comfortable wandering alone at night.  So, either I was to resign myself to a glass of the same wine at the same pub every night of my stay, or I was to do walking tours.  So I did walking tours.

This was a pub walk, and as it happened, it was held by a woman who was the daughter of the man who runs London Walks.  So naturally it was about eighty million times better than the previous two tours.  Plus, alcohol.

We started in London proper, then crossed into Southwalk (say "Suth-uck"), where we learned about the Blackfriars and many other things forgotten in beer fog later on.  I had a fun moment where I explained why a man had exited the Globe theatre in full regalia, blew on a trumpet six times, and then ran back in.  I got a round of applause, it's cool, I'm kind of a big deal.  Then we stopped at a pub on the Thames where I had a reverse hobbit moment and got extremely excited that "it comes in half-pints", and then promptly realized that I needed to pee.  After we'd left the pub.  Oh to be me.

We stopped at two more pubs.  I spoke to several other walkers, made friends with four of them and enemies of one woman who, upon hearing that I was studying in Swansea furrowed her brow and said, in the way of one trying to ask a difficult question without appearing to be a racist old hag, "There are a lot of foreigners around there, aren't there?" When I looked seriously back at her and gave a thinly veiled, "Obviously" (What I actually said was, "well, it would be hard for me to tell, since I basically only hang out with the international crowd"), she clarified that I wasn't to worry, she was referring specifically to Syrians.  "There are quite a few Syrians in Swansea, aren't there?"  I, who hadn't met a single Syrian in Swansea, and even if I had wouldn't have informed her, announced that I'd seen a friend heading downstairs and hurried off only to learn that downstairs was the men's restroom.

Day three I spent mostly at the Tower of London.  I went first thing in the morning, collected my ticket and my audio tour, and then made a bee line for the crown jewels, which I'd heard was the way to do it.  I got in fairly quickly, and they were fascinating, but I think it's one of those things that I'll never be interested in.  I don't really care what Kate Middleton wore or when, and I don't care what jewels belong to whom.  I'm not a diamond person, I never will be.

Anyway, after I was back outside and allowed to take photos again, I found a good spot for my audio tour to begin and gave it a go.  I had thought of doing a tour with a yeoman of the guard, which is what most people do, but I'd read online that it was more trouble than it was worth, and this was pretty much true.

There were at least one hundred people clamouring to get in on this tour... thanks but no thanks.

He looked pretty cool though...

Then I parked it outside, listened to my audio tour, and began the day.  There's quite a bit to see, and I won't pretend that I saw it all.  The bloody tower was by far the most interesting and heart wrenching, where two young boys went in but never came out.  I had an ice cream on the same square where Anne Boleyn met her grisly fate, and watched as the line for the crown jewels stretched to Disneyland proportions.

This was before the crowd, after, the line was forming beyond the metal bars...

Tower bridge!

This is the main castly bit in the middle.

Guardsman station.

After the Tower I spent quite a bit of money on souvenirs and lunch and ate outside watching a man play the bagpipes.  He was quite good, actually.  The rest of the day was really just wandering around and getting my things together and searching for a Paddington Bear that I would't have to sell my firstborn child to buy (turns out this doesn't exist).  I did go to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, but by then I had had it to there with museums and spent the majority of my time downstairs in the cafe journaling, and I haven't much to say about them.  National Gallery: "They had amazing artwork that I saw and then I left."  And the Portrait Gallery, "they had portraits that I stared at confusedly and then left."  That's all there's to say there.  

Well, hopefully I can get Paris written before I die, but that's all there is for now!  Hopefully it wasn't too spastic.

T-3hrs: On Being Behind

Whooooooa, I haven't written a blog in forever...  And I have so much to write about!

Unfortunately, since arriving back from my trip, I've been focusing on getting ready for the Great Trip Home, which begins in just about 3hrs.  I'm on a bus from Swansea to London, flights from London to Keflavik, KEF to Seatac, Seatac to Sacramento, and then I'm home!  Only a brief 31hrs of travel including the bus, but not transport to bus or from airport.  It's going to be gobs of fun, I can tell.

I do have many many things to report, as I'm sure you know, so I'm going to try to get writing on this ridiculous adventure and queue up a few posts that'll go up once I'm near working internet again.  They will obviously go up long after they're written, so just check back about once a week (but first, check back this Friday!), and you'll be teased with little bits of my journey at a time.  London first, then Paris, then Germany.  And lastly, there will be a post about my trip home.  But don't worry!  That won't be the end of my blog!  I'll come back to tell you what its like being back in the US, what reverse culture shock feels like, and how much weight I've gained from eating nothing but white cheddar cheez-its and peanut butter (not together...).

Until then, my fearless followers, I salute you.

Wish me luck on my flight!

On Being Alive

I don't have anything to report, not really, so if you're looking at this and expecting a long in depth description of the nothings that I did while I wandered around in Cardiff on Wednesday, you can stop reading.  The problem is, I have again found the problem of having little to say about the trips I make.

Okay, so Cardiff wasn't meant to be a big excursion.  I didn't leave the St. David's shopping area except to go to the national museum.  And while that was interesting, there's not much to say.  It was a museum.  Better than I'd expected, not as good as the Natural History Museum.

I suppose the only thing to say about Cardiff really was that I thought it would be a good idea to wear Converse sneakers.  I figured it wouldn't matter, since I was only shopping, and I wanted to look a bit more fashionable.  Much as I love my sketchers, they're not exactly what one might call "fashionable."  So now I'm sitting in my living room, feet elevated, arches wrapped, wondering if tomorrow I'll be able to walk to the store and buy taco shells for cinco de mayo.  Such is life.

But I feel like writing a blog, feel like sharing with you the interesting thing that has been happening in my brain lately.

Earlier in the year I was staring some serious financial difficulties in the face.  Now, I am happy to report that I have saved enough to make, not only a trip to Germany to visit Lea, but also to stop in London and Paris along the way.  The tickets are booked, the hostel search has begun, and in less than a month I will be Europe bound.  It's more exciting than I can possibly put into words.  But it has also led to some interesting contemplation on my part.

For years I was sort of wandering through the education system, listening to teachers who liked to tell me that I wouldn't get anywhere, and maybe with the attitude I had, they were right.  But I wouldn't have had that attitude if I had more confidence, and constantly hearing about my continual failure wasn't exactly bolstering my confidence very much.  I was a dreamer, and dreamers have trouble paying attention to things they are told they have to pay attention to.  Sure, every so often we were given interesting books to read, poems to write, drawings to make.  I didn't hate all of school, but when a math problem was put in front of us and everyone else was determinedly scribbling away on their papers while I sat there completely baffled, I wasn't exactly a fan.  When the questions were about how George has ten apples and Miranda has eight pears and Bernie has six lemons, so how many sandwiches can their mother make?  And the answer is sixteen.  Just sixteen.  How the hell did they get that answer?  You can imagine why I struggled.

I went through school believing that, if I was lucky, I might snag a job.  If I was lucky, maybe I might marry rich.  Because if left to my own devices, I would be living with my parents until I died.

I finally dragged myself into an amount of self confidence at continuation school, where the teachers never once said I was a failure, even though I was literally there because I was a failure.  No, those teachers were the ones who smiled when I got confused and asked me to explain the problem as I understood it, and then help me to understand it properly.  These were the teachers who gave me credit for the work I wanted to do, the work I was good at, but still pushed me to do more, to do better, to do everything and anything, and who encouraged me to reach for something better than a job I could get, or marrying rich.  According to them, I should get a job not only that I could get, but that I wanted to get.  And marrying rich?  Really?  Don't be so prosaic.

Because of them, and because of the confidence they helped me find, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment in Swansea, Wales.  I have a trip to Europe in less than a month, I have a manuscript finished, another started, and six more in my brain just waiting to get out.  I'm wearing a dressing gown I bought at Primark, and I say things like "naught" in everyday conversation.  I had a breakfast of a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam (probably why I needed to go to cardiff in search of a new jacket, since my old, light weight jacket no longer fits.  Again, such is life).

Whenever I say that I owe this to my old teachers, people say I should give myself more credit.  And I do, I am not in any way saying that I'm not here because of me.  I am here because I have worked hard every day for the last eight or so years.  I am here because I put my nose to the grindstone, and though I've spent some time deciding what I want to do, I am here because I pulled my grades up and dedicated my mind to study and work.  I'm here because I believe in myself, and I would never have believed in myself if someone else hadn't believed in me first.  So do I believe that my 12th grade teachers deserve a bit of credit?  Definitely.

The thing is, now I'm sitting here and thinking about this trip I've planned.  I am going backpacking in Europe.  Not an extensive trip, but a trip nonetheless.  I'm in hostels for six days and on planes, trains, and automobiles (read: busses) for 36 hours in total.  I am twenty five years old, studying abroad, attending a real, big kid college, with international friends, running for president of an English Honours Society, have written a novel, going to write more, and going to be published (come hell or high water).  After a quarter of a century of being alive, I finally know where I am, and where I'm going, and that it's where I want to be and with the people I want to be with.  I have one best friend whom I love more than life, with whom distance will never matter, another best friend whom I love more than life, and with whom time will never matter.  I have a family that supports me, faith that strengthens me, a mind that will never fail me, and a hope that sustains me.

And now there's this little girl who pops her head up every so often and looks at this life.  There's the sixth grade me who didn't think she was worth it, who sincerely believed everything that witch of a teacher told her, and she sees these things that I'm doing, and she weeps.  Someone please go back in time and tell her how her life will turn out.

I am going to Europe.  I am going and I'm not looking back, not considering the money that I'm spending, the debt I'm potentially accruing because I know that it's worth it.  I'll return to my school and write my book and finish my degree and go to grad school and get a phd and become a professor and I am never, ever, ever looking back at those teachers and those jerks who used to say that I was nothing.  I wonder if they feel big, if they feel stronger for their criticism, if making themselves feel better and stronger than a small, lost little girl, has given them strength, and if by reclaiming my birthright, I am also reclaiming that strength.  I wonder if they'll see this blog and think that they've done right by me, convince themselves that all I needed was reverse psychology and that a drive to prove them wrong was what gave me strength to begin with, and in that way, they'll convince themselves that they had a hand in this strength that I've found.  On the off chance that they do read this, I want them to know that they're wrong.  That if it were up to them, I would be working at Noah's bagels in my home town, asking if they want lox on their bagel, or just a hefty serving of misanthropy on the side.

But I'm not.  I'm a student at a university in Wales.  I am a student at a university in California.  I am a student studying English, chewing Chaucer for breakfast and Chinua Achebe for lunch.  I write blogs and novels and poems and I speak with the strength I have found in myself and read in Maya Angelou, Sandra Cisneros, and Toni Morrison.  I am a person who is capable of standing up for what she believes in, then buying a ticket to Paris.  I'm a person who isn't afraid of failing anymore, you can't scare me with your threats, because failure is just a lesson and a lesson is just a day in this life.  Life is risks, and risks fail, and without those failures we never learn.  So let me fail, let me learn, and in learning, let me live.  I'm tired of just being alive.  I want to live.

I'm going to London.  And then Paris.  And then Berlin.  And from there?  Who knows.  But for now I'll look forward to that trip and imagine the days after it, when I will look back, smile, and remember that life is made up of moments and moments have to be lived.  So if you don't see me, look to the horizon.  I'll be there.  Don't worry, I'll write.

On Easter Candy *Updated

So, I'll admit it's been a long time since I've had an Easter basket.  I honestly can't even remember what I did for the last two easters.  I assume I was home or in Chico, or somewhere... yeah, I honestly don't know.  Which is weird, since I normally have an elephants memory for things.  

Anyway, being so far away from home and seriously SURROUNDED by easter candy here (sorry, "sweets"), I decided to treat myself to a little easter basket of my own.  

THUS, this thing of beauty I created.

 Okay, so I didn't have an actual basket, but to be honest, baskets aren't as much of a thing here anyway, so we can pretend I was being culturally accurate.  What ARE big here, you ask?  Well, for those of you who know I'm a Harry Potter fan, and who are Harry Potter fans yourselves, you may remember a twice in the books it mentions easter eggs.  First, in the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, they each get their eggs from Mrs. Weasley and tear into them.  Hermione, however, gets an itty bitty one because Mrs. Weasley thinks Hermione is playing with Harry's heart.  This always confused me when I was younger because all our eggs are relatively small.  I understood though, that Harry's and Ron's were quite large, at least the size of an ostrich egg.  I can't remember now if that's because JKR described the size, or if I just intuitively understood (I vaguely recall Hermione's egg being compared to a chicken's egg, that might be it?).

Anyway, I've been seeing these "eggs" everywhere, but I didn't buy them because they were expensive and seemed excessive.  I finally decided, however, on Saturday night to go for it.  All they had left were Smarties eggs, which were £1.50, so I wasn't TOO disappointed.    I also got the other things in the photo, a Kinder Surprise Egg (crazy about them), and one each of a cadbury's creme egg and caramel egg.

Let's start with the big egg.  It came in a box, like this (for size comparison, see my hand):

Opened it up to see this:

Hoooooly moly, this thing is huge.  And, as suspected, is rattling and filled with some other goody (Smarties, of course).  So I needed to get into it somehow...

Hey, what's that? Smarties, you say?

Well, I don't know what I'd expected, a big huge handful?  Well, I did pay less than two quid for this so, oh well.  I got other things!

Mini eggs!  Aggie, my roommate's girlfriend said they were good, and they cost about 60p, so I figured why not, right?  I thought they'd be like Robbin's Eggs.  You know, the ones that are pretending to be jordan almonds but are actually malted milk balls? (gag)

So tiny!

Ohmygosh so much better than Robbin's Eggs!  Probably my new favourite easter treat.  I fully endorse this product and think we should begin immediate exports to the states.  I have since gone back and bought FOUR more boxes once they were on sale for 30p each.  Yuusss.  Today I went back, and they were almost entirely sold out.  Three boxes left in total.  I guess that goes to show how popular they are.  Meanwhile, there were still pleeeeenty of Malteasters, which ARE malted milk bars.

And now for the Kinder Surprise Egg!  Yay!  I love Kinder Surprise, they're my favourite, semi gross chocolate AND a useless toy? I'm a sucker for these things.  It's probably for the best they cost 85p on a normal day.

Is that supposed to be.... Loki??

Well, that's terrifying.  I may have nightmares tonight.

****UPDATE:  I have just been informed that we do in fact have Cadbury Mini Eggs in the States, and now I feel like my life has been a lie.  My whole life.  A LIE.  That is all.

On Stonehenge and Expectations (with photos)

The problem with writing a blog like this is that I'm half expected to write about something, and half expected to write about nothing.  The words I use to describe the places I've been are supposed to be profound and deeply descriptive.

So you can see my problem, perhaps, in writing about Stonehenge.  It was beautiful, that is for sure, and awe inspiring.  I stood and gazed at these monolithic enormities, towering over us, just far enough that you want to be closer, but close enough that you're satisfied with your view from the sidelines.  I imagined them being erected, more than four thousand years ago.  I contemplated the enormity of the task, the blue stones which were carried two hundred miles from an area near where I live in Wales all the way to the location where they now stand.  A frightful task, an almighty example of dedication and strength by these people we know next to nothing about.

And that's really all there is to say about it.  I went, I took photos, I slept on the bus, I came home, went to a friend's birthday party, ate a poorly prepared burger, went home, slept it all off.  That's about all there is to say, to be honest.

I'll give you the day in description anyway, to fill this space.

The bus was set to leave at fifteen past eight in the morning.  I woke early and dressed in clothes I'd lain out the night before.  Then I made a cup of coffee which I sipped on as I got ready to leave.  I had overnight oats for breakfast and packed a cheese sandwich and a change of clothes in my bag.  We were delayed because of bus issues (they'd sent the wrong size bus, so we ended up having to switch with the rugby team which meant getting off the bus and getting on another bus.  It was a pain), so we didn't leave until fifteen til nine.  The trip was going to take roughly three hours, so I put on headphones and cuddled up with my sweatshirt under my head as a pillow and slept, knowing full well that a long string of windy roads and narrow lanes lay ahead of us.

I awoke two hours later as we pulled into a carpark in Avebury.  Turns out the trip wasn't just to stonehenge, but also to the stone circle in Avebury.  I'd go into detail about what there was there, but again, we have this problem.  Big stones.  Lots of them.  They were in a circle.  I walked along the circle. I took lots of pictures of what are essentially rocks.  The most exciting thing about Avebury were three things almost completely unrelated to the stones.

The first was when I was walking along the chalk circle and found a particularly slippery bit of grass and chalk. Under my foot.  As I went down, I heard a very distinctive, "Oooh," from another tourist as he watched me eat chalk.  I looked up to see a kind, older gentleman and his wife walking towards me.  The conversation progressed as so:

Me: Well, that was embarrassing.

Him: There's no need to be embarrassed, as long as you aren't hurt.

Me: I'm fine.

His wife: I think we'll avoid that path, though.

Me: Probably wise.


It was very kind of them, even if my dignity was a bit dampened at that point.

What happens when you slip on chalk.

The second came when another tourist passing by asked if I would like a photo by one of the stones.  I hand't been planning to ask, because I hate being that type of person, but since he offered I thought I'd take him up on it.  As soon as I accepted, he laughed and said that his wife would do it, that he had no desire to.  It was quite rude of him, and equally rude of his wife who only begrudgingly took the photo, though I thanked them profusely.  I keep saying it, but no one is listening: if the American needs to teach you manners, you should probably look at your life.  So we have two people, one very polite, the other a raging !@#$.  Such is life, I suppose.

At least I got a decent photo out of it.

The third were these jerks.  Whoever designed these fences.  I hope they end up trapped in a field behind one of these completely unnecessarily complicated gates during the zombie apocalypse:

Using superman strength, pull hook-bar-thing
to the left and hope that it opens.  Or wait for
someone else to come along and rescue you.

For lunch I had a sandwich with caramelized onion chutney.  Sounds fancy, but was really just a glorified cheese sandwich.  I had sea salt and vinegar chips, dairylee dunkers, and part of a galaxy bar.  After lunch we all got back on the bus and drove the remaining hour to Stonehenge.  

Once upon a time, a small visitors centre was erected about fifty feet from the stones.  Since then, that centre has been torn down in favour of a new, state of the art centre over the hill.  This means that the sight-lines from the stones are closer to what you would have seen several thousand years ago, unimpeded by modern invention (except a dual carriageway).  This is probably good, since the new building looks like an enormous modern art sculpture and is quite unsightly  (I didn't photograph it, but google "Stonehenge Visitor Centre", and you'll see what I mean).

From the visitor's centre, we took a small tram to the stones.  We were given little phone type things with audio tours on them, so that we could walk around and dial into the part of the tour we wanted when we arrived.  Luckily for us, a large group of schoolchildren were there, and I had another one of those great moment where I wonder why Americans are given the stereotype of being rude, when these French children literally decided that the best place to have lunch would be smack dab in the middle of the walkway.  So you've got teenagers taking selfies on one side of you and schoolchildren on the other side of you and you're starting to get ticked because you want to see the stones, but it's freezing cold and you've already taken sixteen photos that all look exactly the same, and you're trying to get past the French children who frown at you for having to cut across their lunch circle even though they're literally sitting on the pathway.  Yay.

I decided, at that point, that the best course of action would be to turn around and go back to the visitor's centre and the gift shop.  A few others in my group tried to get me to go to the mounds with them, but I envisioned more of the same.  Oh look.  A different view of the rocks.  Oh look, I'm standing on a burial mound, isn't this disrespectful?  I was cold, needed the loo, and wanted something to eat.  So I went in.

I bought a magnet, a bottle of wine, and an elderflower fizzy drink.  Then I got back on the bus, napped the three hours home, and immediately tried to go to a party.  Not smart.

So in all, yes, amazing!  I saw Stonehenge!  Words cannot describe how awe inspiring it is, looking at those ancient stones.  Should you go?  YES.  But really, not a whole lot to say about them.  Maybe Stonehenge is better if seen with a group of friends than it is alone.  Maybe it's just one of those things that you have to see for yourself.

Photos!

Avebury Stone Circle

Spectacular view of the countryside

The henge that ran along the entirety of the chalk circle

More big stones, with the photo-jerks as size comparison

There they are again, messing up my photo of the avenue.

Ah, that's better.

First view of Stonehenge.

All of the tourists.

The orange jackets belong to the French school group.

This is the most frustrating part of tourism now.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR TABLET.

Seriously, dude? I'm taking a photo here.  Do you mind?

I WAS SO CLOSE AND YOU WENT AN PUT YOUR HAND IN THE WAY.

FIIIIINALLY.

Joining the selfie-olympics.

Sheep! They graze in the pasture beside stonehenge.
Hadn't realized it before but... sheep do not smell like goats.  Sheep stink.

Gave in and asked for a photo from another tourist.

Probably because most of my selfies looked like this one.