London Day 3 - Monday 6/11

This morning was our big bus your out of the city to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford.  It was raining this morning so we were moving a bit slowly, especially with having to get up around 7, but we still managed to make it to the Bus Station on time.  We made a last minute choice to move to the back of the bus which would turn out to be a terrible decision later.  We should have been tipped off when the Spanish guy was using his iPhone to make farting noises and everyone was cracking up before we even left the station.  Our tour guide was very funny and very British (you can follow him @rustywoo if you're interested)

Our first stop was Windsor Castle which is the family home of the Queen Elizabeth.  It had a very castle-y feel to it which I liked.  This castle's chapel also held the tombs of many British royals like Henry VIII and George VI (The King's Speech).  This is also the place where Queen Elizabeth hosts foreign  leaders and other important people when they're visiting her in England.  All in all it was pretty cool, a lot of gold, weapons and overly extravagent things including a huge dollhouse with working electricity and plumbing.  When we left Windsor Castle our group left an old couple behind because they weren't back in time, our tour guide was not messing around...awkward.

After Windsor Castle we drove a little over an hour to Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is pretty much was you expect, a lot of huge rocks arranged in the middle of fields.  It's pretty amazing to think that it was built 5,000 years ago without the use of tools and before metal even existed, it was carved using only rocks and transferred hundreds of kilometers to the spot it stands now.  It is a little disenchanting however, to see it sitting about 200 yards from an intersection of two highways and about 100 feet from a giftshop.  It was pretty cool nonetheless especially since people know pretty much everything about it except for the reason why it was built (besides being just a primative calendar) and no one will probably ever know.

Up until this time the Spanish family that surrounded Suzanne and I on three sides and the old American couple in front of us were only mildly annoying.  On our drive from Stonehenge to Oxford University they became unbearable.  The little kid sitting behind me was literally kicking and punching the back of my chair, knocking the window whenever I would lean my head on it and leaning over the seat so his head was right next to mine.  The rest of the family didn't even seem to care becasue they said nothing to him.  He was also whispering curses in Spanish (thank you Vernacchios since I could translate them).  He also didn't seem to care when I gave him dirty looks and tried to scare him because it only invigorated him (you all know how scary I can look).

Snoring Couple

Demon Child (aka Alejandro) leaning over my seat

It was still raining when we got to Oxford which was a shame because the campus was so nice.  It has been around for more than 900 years and has a ton of history and smart and famous people that went there like Isaac Newton and Bill Clinton.  It reminded me of a lot of college towns in that the street all had little restaurants and coffee shops and stuff like that but most University towns don't have memorials to where people were burned at the stake and a library with every book published in the UK.

Martyr's Column (with demon child on steps)

After we got back from our tour we grabbed a quick dinner and went back to relax after a long day of waling in the cold and rain.  Suzanne and I went out to The Moon Under Water in Liecester Square for a little bit late night before heading back to go to sleep.