Saturday, September 03, 2011

great-britain trip photo-log part 5: The Costwolds

Day 8, August 6, Saturday

It's hard to believe we are halfway through our vacation. We've been here for a week. But it is as if I'd been here my whole life. It is like a dream and I can't imagine it otherwise. I try to avoid the thought that soon it will all be over and I must go back home. Back to real life.

Today was a day of mixed feelings.

We drove into Shakespeare's hometown and it was much of the stuff that Dean had expected. Thatched roof houses and stuff.



Again, walking into those places that have been standing there for centuries is so magical. We had lunch at some sort of pub-like place place called The Bell, nearby Ann Hathaway's Cottage.

We found out that Shakespeare married very young for the common marrying age of his social class, because he got his girlfriend Ann pregnant. Teenagers!!! People of Shakespeare's social class used to get married in their late 20's.

We forgot to stop by the church where he is supposed to be buried. Apparently Shakespeare's authorship of his works is not widely-accepted. I had no idea.

Then we headed to Oxford, where we would be seeing Christ Cathedral College, where some of Harry Potter's scenes have been filmed. We would also walk into Alice's Shop, a shop where the real Alice in the Wonderland used to go.

Well, we made the same mistake from Edinburgh. Instead of parking outside the city, we missed the entrance for the [parking lot and drove right into the city. We even made it into a parking garage, but the machine would not take out money. Dean very patiently (as it is characteristic of him) decided we'd not spend another minute there.
So that was all there is to say about Oxford.

So we drive into the Costwolds, a region of quaint medieval towns. The first one we hit was Burton-on-the-water. Such a pretty little town, Dean says!
The funny thing is - the houses look like they could be found at the slums of Salvador!!!! LOLOL


Dean proposed that we had tea and scones. So we proceeded to find a nice little tea room. Well, it was 6 o'clock and all the stores and tea rooms were closing!!!!

Very disappointed we headed to our lodging for the night. A tavern called The New Inn, in the town of Avebury. Avebury is also a medieval town. They have no street names. They still don't have any street names!!!! Can you believe that!!!!

The place, filled with very welcoming people, was in a driveway. And yeah, the place is filled with driveways. That's all the have. A main road, and driveways out of which people's houses are built.

There is internet here, but only in the pub, not up in our rooms.

Tomorrow, we were supposed to go see Stonehenge and Bath, but we have decided to do Bath on Monday instead. We will go to stonehenge, then visit a couple other costwold towns, and maybe we will have time to go to Oxford. ... Oh, who am I trying to trick.


Day 9, August 7, Sunday

So, we saw Stonehenge today. We were going to see the Avebury Stones as well, but it was paid parking and the parking lot did not open till 10 am. Oh, we have better things to do with out time! (or as they say it here, our tame)



At Stonehenge Dean and I lost each other. So we did the only thing we could possibly do. Headed for the car. Dean had the smart idea sooner than me, but that's bc he did not have the smart idea of taking his ticket with him when he decided to go look for the restroom. I mean, the toilet.

So, we headed to this town called Lacock where we had lunch in the second oldest pub in England. It is called The George Inn. There we met a very fun local who happens to have been a DJ for most of his life. We also had pudding for the first time since we've been here. I've been seeing pudding in the menu everywhere I go. We've meant to have it over and over again, but we are always way too full. Well, what happened today was I decided I was going to have it, period!


Then we headed to Castle Combe. On the road to Castle Combe, we had our worst driving experience yet. What happened? Well, in one of those awfully narrow roads, those roads that were made for one sub-compat car only, on a sharp turn, this stupid pickup truck came from the other side at full speed.

Yes, have I mentioned that the speed limit in these f---ing little roads is 60mph? There comes the truck! Dean threw the car over the hedge while I waited for the crash. Since we didn't crash I had enough time to panic and start crying. I officially hate these stupid little roads!

Well, Castle Combe was fantstic. It's a little nothign town, that has changed little, or mayne nothing since the middle ages. Milk is still delivered to the door!!!!

I was hoping to make to Oxford, but Dean really wanted to make it Wendover where some of his mother's family is from. SO we headed to Wendover hoping to make it in time for tea. Well, traffic! We got there an hour later than we expected.



We went over to the church graveyard. Most of the graves were covered by grass and moss. They say in a sign that that is to preserve nature. Well, what about the memory of those people? Who preserves them? I mean, it upsets me to think that under that high grass are the remains of someone who lived and walked on this earth. Who was that person? What is his name? We will never know, because the gravestone is covered by moss. How is that fair? How is that fair to the memory of a human being who once lived among us? Who knows how many people he helped, how many children he raised, how well or badly he chose to use his time. We will never know. It's forever lost under grass and moss.




That's what will happen to all of us someday, isn't it? We will be just a gravestone, covered by grass and moss. No one will care about what we did or who we were.



We ate dinner there and then headed back to The New Inn. It's called new, because 400 years ago, they decided to change that place into an Inn. LOL


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