Stonehenge and Winchester

Last Saturday, November 14, I accomplished one of my life goals that I never thought I'd actually get to accomplish until I was really old and actually saved up some money: I went to Stonehenge! I went with an international student group at the university and after Stonehenge we went to Winchester, the capital of England for part of the Middle Ages starting when King Alfred defeated a Viking invasion in the 900's.

Stonehenge sits on a hill and is very open with no trees in the immediate area, so it gets very, very windy. It happened that we went during a big storm that lasted a few days. I couldn't really keep my eyes open facing the wind and rain that felt like needles (even with my glasses) so this was the best picture I got of me:


And here are a few other pictures of Stonehenge from when the rain cleared a little but was still pretty windy:






After Stonehenge we headed to Winchester, which was nearby. It was originally a Roman walled city, and although we didn't see any Roman walls, the medieval walls were built directly where the original Roman walls had been and the medieval walls still remain in some parts:


The city has the ruins of two castles. This one, Wolvesey Castle, built in 1110 AD, was the home of the Bishop of nearby Winchester Cathedral and the medieval wall picture just before this one is right next to it:


Very close to Wolvesey Castle is Winchester Cathedral, the longest Gothic Cathedral in Europe and overall one of the biggest:


This is only part of the Cathedral, there's a lot more on the other side:


It was pretty impressive inside too:


One room was blocked off but they left an opening to take pictures through because it's pretty amazing. It's a small room with a few pews and has a few medieval wall drawings:




And the choir was practicing while I was there, so I got some video:


Not far away one of the medieval gates still stands:


And another gate still stands as well:


I mentioned that there are the ruins of two castles, and this is the other one, Winchester Castle, built in 1067 by William the Conqueror. This is all that remains of the castle that housed the monarchy:


And, you can walk a little ways inside:


The only medieval building not in ruins within this ancient walled city is the Great Hall, built (well, rebuilt) in 1222-1235 (Max is pictured as well):


Hanging on the wall is a replica of King Arthur's legendary Round Table, with the names of each of his knights on it and is built to the specifications of the myths. It was built in about 1275, but Henry VIII had it repainted in the 1500's and that is how it looks now:

King Arthur, if he actually existed, would have lived in the 500's.

London

This last weekend I finally made it to London after a month in England. I went with some friends, Dave Perry, Andrea Roundy, and Lindsay Shepard, and stayed with some others at their house in London. After dropping off our things at their house, it was dark when we got to London so we got some good night shots and just walked around and finally ended up in Chinatown where we ate dinner. The whole weekend was good, but we didn't get to go around to see many sights the three days I was there. Here are a few pictures of what we did and saw:

*Quick note: some of the pictures look blurry, but when you expand them they don't look blurry. For example, check out the before and after of the picture of Big Ben

First, the classic, identical rows of homes. I took this one because one of the homes was out of place; it was partially white:


After we dropped off our stuff, we left with Angus (whose place we stayed at) and it was dark when we got into London itself, but we got some good shots, like this one of Big Ben (you can even see that it was only 5:35, but already very dark):


After turning to the left of the last picture, we walked onto the bridge over the Thames and I got some good pictures of the Eye, the large ferris wheel in London:


We turned around and Angus took this picture of the rest of us in front of Big Ben (Me, Dave, Andrea, Lindsay). Not the clearest picture because we didn't use the tripod for it, but it works:


We kept going on the bridge past the Eye and ended up here:


It was mostly weird graffiti, but some of it was pretty cool and well done (and Lindsay and Angus pictured):


Andrea, Lindsay, Angus, and Dave walking through:


But here is my favorite:


Then we walked to Chinatown and had dinner:


Then we walked to Trafalgar Square, where a gay lesbian etc rally was going on:


And right behind where I took the last picture, the National Gallery, which we unfortunately didn't go in:


From there we walked to Buckingham Palace:


From there we walked to the Tube and went home. Saturday (Halloween) we got a little bit of daytime picture taking on our way to Brick Lane, a road of Indian restaurants where they have people out on the street trying to entice you to eat at their restaurant with better food deals. First, once out of the tube we walked past the Nauvoo Temple:


We met up with a couple other people, Hailey and Amanda, and stopped by a couple of small art galleries on the way to Brick Lane:


This gallery is the work of the artist who does the stuff for the band Gorillaz (Hailey and Amanda are in the back left looking at something and Dave is on the far right):


Almost at Brick Lane, we walked by a group performing for the holiday, which later marched up and down the street performing (I think it was Bedknobs and Broomsticks but I don't really know):



We had some pretty good Indian food at Brick Lane, then it was dark and we took the Tube and went close to Hyde Park and walked around in the area, first past Royal Albert Hall:


Then we walked into Hyde Park and took some more night shots over the river that runs through it, and you can see the Eye (it's the green lights near the middle right of the picture over the trees):


Dave:


Black and White Dave, Andrea, and me by Dave:


And I just like this picture:


And then we went back to Angus' house. The next day after church we walked around the V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum which is very close to the Hyde Park Church building. Here is a shot from a room with plaster casts of monuments and things from around Rome (mostly). The two biggest columns are casts of the monument to Trajan (identical, except one has the base cast as well), but the original statue was torn down by the Christians in the 16th century and replaced with a statue of St. Peter, unfortunately:


And then it was back to Reading and homework for me.

Windsor

Last Saturday I went with an international student group to Windsor Castle, which began a thousand years ago as a fortress for William the Conqueror. The Queen still lives there (along with 4 other residences) and it's the largest castle in the world that people still live in. I took a ton of pictures so here are just a few:




The first picture is of the front gate and the next is of the long lane into Great Park:





More of the castle:


With Max inside the walls next to another part of the castle:


A guard:


St. George's Chapel, which was amazing inside, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. It is also the burial place of many kings and queens:


At about lunch time I went with the group I was with to eat at the King and Castle pub, where we could see the castle directly outside our window:

Left to right: Esther, Max , Sabrina, Wei


After lunch we went to see nearby Eton College (=high school) which is the most prestigious boys' school in England:

An Eton student in traditional uniform:


After Eton we went back to the castle:


And finally I just have to include one of the crazier things about it. Back home you would never imagine a plane being able to fly over the President's residence, but here it was nonstop because the Heathrow airport is so close. See how low the planes are? (you might have to click on the pictures and see them bigger--first is on the right)




Windsor is the first castle I've ever been to. Inside the castle was pretty amazing, but we weren't allowed to take pictures in there.