Day 6: Uffington and White Horse, Oxford, and Stow-on-Wold

Wednesday morning we went to the site of Uffington Hill Fort, the remains of an Iron Age fort. There isn't much other than a slight hill to see, but it was cool anyway. (To be honest, the misty morning kind of made me feel like I was in Lord of the Rings. Again, I'm a nerd!)

After that, we went to White Horse, a super old chalk horse in the hillside. You can't really see it from the ground, but here's a link of a picture from the air:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:White_horse_from_air.jpg
Here's my far less interesting picture.

Next to the White Horse hill, there is a smaller hill, which is where the legendary St. George is said to have slayed the dragon. It was kind of a difficult hike down White Horse (I felt like the girl in Leap Year for some of it, minus the Irish guy), but going up to the top of that hill was way cool.

(This is where the dragon died)

After Uffington, we headed to Oxford. It's such a cool city! There are about 40 separate colleges that are part of Oxford University, sprinkled through the city. We wandered around and saw some of the coolest spots. The colleges there are amazing! The architecture is incredible and everything is just so old! I love it. I don't know how I'll go back to BYU after seeing it. We went to the evensong service at Christ Church Cathedral, which was beautiful.

(This sign just cracked me up)

(This is the pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis would hang out)

On the way back from Oxford, we stopped in a little town called Stow-on-Wold. It's a very classic idyllic English town, with cute houses, bed and breakfasts, and a great little church. We even found a fish and chips shop that was showing the Germany-Spain game in the World Cup semifinals (yay Spain!). It was great.

Day 5: Gloucester Cathedral, Kennilworth Castle, and Stratford

It's my lucky day! I got some of my pictures from the first week on my USB drive, so I can bore you all with more pictures! Exciting! These are from last Tuesday. We started at Gloucester Cathedral, which is where they tape a lot of the scenes at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies.

After that, we went to Kennilworth Castle, another awesome castle. We got a tour inside the gate house, which was refurbished for Queen Elizabeth by Robert Dudley, who was in love with her and wanted to marry her, but couldn't (sad! The poor guy went to a crapload of effort, like building a freaking castle, only to be rejected).

Next stop was Stratford, home of William Shakespeare. Before seeing King Lear, we wandered around the town, including going to the church where he is buried. His tomb is pretty awesome; his epitaph says: "Good friend for Jesus sake, forbear to dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be ye man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones." Nice! Stratford is a very cool town.

(Someone had a boat named Lothlorien. My Lord of the Rings nerdiness was appeased)

Okay, so does anyone more familiar with blogging know how I can put pictures up next to each other rather than one at a time in a column? Also, anyone know how I get the posts to show only part of each post on the home page with a read more option? My blog is getting obnoxious.

So . . .

Sad story, followers. My laptop broke yesterday. I've tried to fix it and I'm going to keep trying, but nothing seems to be working. I am borrowing a friend's laptop, but I can't upload my pictures on her computer, so unfortunately, I won't be able to update with pictures until I get home in August. I might keep doing text updates, just so you know what's up here, but right now, pictures are a no go. Doesn't that suck? Oh well. C'est la vie.

Day 4, Part 4: Usk

Usk Castle was a very different type of castle. It was privately owned, so they had all sorts of fun things inside. There were a bunch of animals, like chickens, a ginormous rooster, geese, and a very lethargic sheep. I think they have weddings there sometimes, which would be adorable. Basically, I loved it.