May 2nd - I know I'm late...there's a reason. (This one's about Salisbury)

So I did write a huge note...I'm talking huge! But I also timed out of my Internet cafe purchase right while I was spell checking, and lost the whole thing. I'm not very good at purchasing the Internet I'm afraid. Perhaps this entry, with no time restrictions, will go a little better.

I'll start all the way back in April on the 27th - the day we flew away...

So, getting to the airport, we ran into our first surprise. It seems that somehow Bethany and I had gotten onto the flight that we'd chosen, but Bradley had been moved to a later flight...how odd. After figuring out how to get us all on the same flight, we ran into yet another complication - it seems that instead of a a direct flight, we were running into a two stopover flight. But, at least we were all together. So, that day of flying was so so so so long! I can't even begin to describe how tired we were trying to beat jet lag and sitting in quiet airports with little money and only a deck of cards for company. After our first stopover in Denver, we were wasted, but still had two flights left to go...we hadn't even gotten closer to London yet!! AHHH!

Well, long story short, we arrived in London, tired, but unscathed. And also - missing Bradley's backpack. His bag had ended up on the flight that he was supposed to take, and not on the flight he'd been moved to. Unfortunately the airport could drop it off at the hostel we'd stay at in London, however, our first night was in Salisbury - so no luggage for Bradley on that first day. Poor boy.

When we'd finally taken the long train ride out to Salisbury, and walked through the town a bit, we found our hostel. I think we chose it based on cost effectiveness, but also on the name. The King's Head Inn. How awesome. Although, being there for more than ten minutes, you'd see that the name is rather common, king's hand, king's inn, queen's head - nothing unusual. So, the story here though is that Bethany had only booked a two bedroom, and of course, there are three of us. So, through sheer whit and devious planning, we had to sneek Bradley in after we'd already checked in. We also had to sneek him out again. It was actually fairly easy, but we sure did a great job of creating a decoy for the lady at the desk...asking her all sorts of useless questions.

Anyway, being that at this point it was only 4 in the afternoon, we decided to walk around the city...which btw is gorgeous!! We saw the majestic Salisbury Cathedral and walked down quaint cobblestone walkways and roads, and enjoyed the many shops which sold unusual and random items. There was even a store just for Dr. Who memorabilia...dad...but of course, in the UK, we spend NO money. Or as little as is humanly possible. but Salisbury was so wonderful, I think I'd live there for sure. Even in the winter (because their winter seems really short!).

We ended up in a British Pub located directly under our hostel and drank us some good old fashioned ale! Well, I just drank water, but the other's had some ale - and we soaked in the atmosphere, chatting about our plans and being astounded by the fact that we'd made it, and this trip was a reality. Shortly after finishing our drinks, we headed up to the room, where Bradley had a twin sized bed, and Bethany and I shared the other Twin bed (being a two person room and all),which was tight. That first night we slept hard and long. All the way until 11 in the morning!!

When we woke up we ralized that check-out was at 11, and we had about ten minutes to organize ourselves and check our bags so that we could catch our tour bus up to Stonehenge. After scurrying about for a little while, we figured things out, found our bus, and grabbed a banana from a shop before heading out on our bus-tour/stonehenge/Old Saraum adventure. The tour part (which we didn't even know was a feature) was awesome. It gave us a new perpective on the town, how it came to be, who was in charge, ect...me, being a history buff gobbled all of this stuff in, and then decided yet again that I should live here. Towns with stories are way better than those without. And this story, was about 800 years old. In fact, the Cathedral was built in 1220!!! Insane!

Stonehenge was wonderful. It really put history into perpective - more or less how insignificant we all are in the timeline of life and the world. The stones are awesome, but the best part of Stonehenge was the mystery behind it. Why was it built, and for whom, and where did they find all of this despendable income to hire labour and such? Odd. My curiosity was never quelched and I am still wondering. I am unsatisfied with my knowledge and would like to pursue the topic further when I'm home. The other cool part was seeing the place that you've only seen in pictures. Experiencing it first hand. I felt very blessed to have the opportunity to see what some only dream of.

After the Stonehenge part, we went through the city of Old Sarum where Salisbury originally sat. It's mostly ruins now, but there are ideas of the histories all the way back to 1300BC. I think the funniest part is that to get up to the town, you have to follow a small and not well marked path. At the top of the path, you find a fork. To the right - you see the gate to the city, but to the left - the small path continues...and actually follows a moat all around. Unfortunately, we did not look very hard and the fork, and also unfortunately, we were the front runners of our tour group. We ended up leading an entire tour bus full of people all the way around the 2 mile moat before reaching the gate to the actual city. There were some cranky kids and seniors who were sad they'd decided to leave us in charge... :)

Later that day, we grabbed our bags and went back to the Bus, where we headed to London.