Picture overload! Castle Combe, Avebury, Lacock and STONEHENGE!

Prepare for the pictures that are now before you. I will do my best to make this organized, perhaps with titles of the places, and then captions with what I learned. Here we go!

NOTE: You can click on the pictures to make them bigger!

Castle Combe

When villages seem to be in a time warp, it is almost certainly because of extreme economic turmoil. There are a few villages like this in England, as cotton was the #1 industry and was shoved out quickly during the industrial period. 

Castle Combe is one of these villages that was hit hard by the  job losses when cotton started slowing down.  However, it has left us such a lovely little village!

There's a little blue circle under the sill: it is how they would know if the house is insured. So, if there were to be a fire, these are the houses that would be saved first

Market cross: although the area around it may look small, it was used as the central market place back in the day!

Gorgeous building #1

Gorgeous building #2

Avebury

• The henge here is older than that of Stonehenge
• People didn't reside in Avebury, but rather came to celebrate and visit.
• Was re-discovered in the 1600's 

SHEEP FIGHT! Ewe fight, to be precise

Originally there were 98 stones within the circles, but the church didn't like them  so they did their best to break them down, bury them and get rid of them by all means!

This was one of the stones that the church attempted to get rid of. They had buried it deep in 1325, but it was later dug up. Underneath it, there was a skeleton that was identified as a barber surgeon. With him was a surgical knife, three coins, and other various surgeon supplies. It is now named as "Barber Surgeon Stone". 

These are a part of the smaller circle of stones. All the stones are sandstone, just like Stonehenge.

Playing around with dousing rods. They acted quite funny for all of us when  we approached the stone. For a few they crossed over, while for others they wanted to keep pointing at the stone even when the carrier turned around.

Today was such a lovely day for looking at the stones and taking pictures!

Devil's Chair. Here, one could make a wish--but careful, as the devil controls it!  The name of this stone  is the reason that the church took interest in the henges, and why they tried to get rid of all of the stones!

A great view of the henge

 Silbury Hill

The largest pre-historic man made structure, although no one knows what its purpose was (I feel like this might be a reoccurring theme!)

 White Horse

Crafted in 1780, this white horse was one of thirteen carved into the countryside across Wiltshire; only eight remain. They were seen as a symbol of power.

Random wedding, where the beautiful bride and groom were about to depart in a horse drawn carriage!

They were married in a thatched-roof church :) When it comes to thatched houses, only the rich own them now, as they are quite expensive to maintain!

 Lacock

Lacock Abbey. Here, there was filming for Harry Potter (Hogwarts scenes), but even more importantly, the first photographic negative was take of its very window.  

The George Inn is one of the oldest pubs in the UK to be able to sell alcohol, being established in 1361.  We ended up having lunch there today.

Cute little telephone booth :)

Before WW2, Lacock was owned by the Tolbert family. Post-WW2, however, they were sold to the National Treasury. The cool thing about them, though, though is that they are not able to be purchased; instead, one most rent. The families that get priority in renting are the ones that have been around in the town the longest. So, there are still families residing in this small town that trace back to the 15th century!

It is because of the renting of houses that this beautiful little town has not been taken over by the rich, retirees, like many others of its nature. Instead, the town is bursting with life, from very young to very old :)

 Stonehenge

Wow.

There are many questions as to why Stonehenge was erected. One of the possible answer is as a status symbol, much like many other buildings are. I mean, can you imagine just stumbling upon this? Even knowing today what I was about to say left me in awe.

The largest stone in the henge weighs 45 tons. 

Myself in front of the most well known henge.

One of the biggest mysteries is how the stones were transported. There  were just so many that weighed such great amounts!

Stonehenge can also be used as a calendar. 

It seemed that a lot of the myths revolving around the creators of Stonehenge had to do with Merlin, the wizard we all know and love. 

I personally thought that this was cute, but I also find it important to note the location of the henge. AKA the middle of nowhere. 

Part of the reason that it is so incomplete is because people used to be able to walk up to it and chip off pieces of the stone to keep as souvenirs. 

Okay, okay, I admit that I took a lot of photos of Stonehenge. It was one of the most fantastic sights I have yet to see!

A very complete side of it, only missing the top parts. Oh! And they had little nobs on top of the standing stones that would perfectly fit into grooved holes in the laying across stones. 

A picture, clouds closing in

The heel stone

What is would have originally looked like

That was basically my day! After we got back from the tour, I grabbed some dinner (crispy duck salad) and headed back to the hostel!

Tomorrow I'll be looking to visit the Roman Baths, then will hop on my train.

Much love,
Lynette

PS: Anyone interested in looking at the uncut version of my photos? I'm talking 100 instead of the 40 I attached here. Warning: A LOT are more angles of Stonehenge. :)

Bath, the beginning

I have arrived safely in Bath with very little problem. I will be going on a full day tour of Stonehenge tomorrow, and hopefully a walking tour on Sunday before my train departs.

Fairly long train ride, but nothing bad. I had seats the entire way, so that was a plus. I ended up reading and somewhat mapping out one of my essays for class, as well as sleeping most of the way to Birmingham.

Anyway, I wandered around the city a bit looking for my hostel, and am very impressed with the beauty that it possesses! The shopping centre is simply stunning. I'll definitely be taking a lot of photos this weekend!

The one picture I look: Bath Abbey. Rain and all. LOVELY!

I was hoping to go to a 90's night tonight, but I figure that I can wait for another one, as I'm rather tired right now and have an early tour to catch.

Much love,
Lynette

Absolutely random photos, and lacrosse night out (9/11/11)

So the former of these photos are from various evenings that I haven't shared yet, as they have been taken by other people (and uploaded to Facebook). I also am uploading some of the town of Lancaster

Secondly, I have a few pictures from our lacrosse social last night after our fixture. 

Enjoy!

Matthew and I at Revolution on the foam night <3 xx

Tom and I on the bus to town for Beach Night during Freshers week

Tom, Gabi and me at Spoons. Gabi is the other American lacrosse player, and Tom is our social chair, as well as one of the top men's players

At Yates' with Tom one random shopping Thursday :)

Henry, the hall vacuum

The location of our first lacrosse game: Liverpool

Group of lacrosse team :)

Lancaster Castle: the prison

Castle view #1

Castle view #2

Castle view #3 

Just a normal look at town, given that there are blue skies

Lancaster city centre

Gabi was really sick yesterday, so not able to play. She did come out for the social so that we could talk about the different aspects of the game, as well as to simply catch up with everyone: she's been sick for a while.

TK and me last night 

Sarah, Becca, Alex, TK and Chris (another American)

Guy Fawkes (PHOTOS UP!) and home lacrosse match

I figure that there isn't much point to my posting a new blog every day, because there's no point when things aren't happening. At least, it is harder for my motivation to kick in when that is the case.

Guy Fawkes night was on Saturday, so Matthew and I met up with some people in town and watched the fireworks show (Stanwood's is better, just saying). It was cool and all, and I did see some different firework displays than ever before. However, it just wasn't as good as Fourth of July back home.
Apparently in some English schools to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, children make little dolls of Guy Fawkes and then burn them. Talk about learning history hands on! "And this, children, is why we don't try to go against Parliament!". Either way, it was interesting to learn about what happened, as all I knew about was what I watched in "V is for Vendetta" (which, in fact, is an excellent movie).

I'll hopefully get some pictures from Matthew's camera of the fireworks. We left directly from his room, and I didn't think ahead to bring a camera. Oh well. Eventually I'll steal the photos off of his!

I had my second lacrosse game today. The final score was 6-23, which isn't absolutely awful. However, no one was able to catch the ball today (myself aside--I think I was the only one with a true on-day). Our team was just kind of all over the place; rather unfortunate. However, I did score a beautiful goal by rolling past a defender, beating a few others and placing the ball into the lower corner of the net. I'm a little surprised that I didn't get called for excessive celebration! I did a little victory dance, and was taking in all the joyful screams from the boys team that was watching us. I almost did a cartwheel, but refrained since I had a stick in my hand. ...and because I didn't want to be a proper showoff. Matt came to watch the game as well, so I dedicated the goal to him--when I was running back up the field I pointed my stick right at him, which in my world means "that one's for you, baby", hahaha! Fairly certain that he was really proud of my game. I really did have an excellent game, catching everything that was thrown to me, beating a lot of girls, and also checking a lot of sticks and running off with the ball. I did accidentally check a girls wrist though, which I felt a bit bad about, but she played on and it wasn't called, so all-in-all it worked in my favor. I'm partially a crowd favorite, too, as I take out a lot of girls and the guys love it (because who doesn't like it when games are played powerfully?). Generally it's not on purpose that I knock them to the ground, but because I'm simply more aggressive than the others: if I want the ball, I'm going to get the ball, regardless of who is in my way.

Anyway, we're all meeting up and going out tonight, which I look forward to. I'm a bit tired, but I took a little nap after my game which was helpful.

Overall everything has been going well! I'm going to Bath and Stonehenge this weekend, so I'll be sure to post on the blog on Sunday once I get back. It should be a lovely time. I'm traveling alone, which I am very excited to do! It's about time that I have my own schedule and the opportunity to explore endlessly. The weekend after Matt and I will be going to Edinburgh, Scotland and meeting up with a group of people there to explore and hang out. It's looking like, overall, it's going to be a good next few weeks!

Much love,
Lynette xxxx