Avebury, Stone Henge and Salisbury Cathedral

on saturday (march 29th) we had our first outing for the trip. our first stop was avebury which is simular to stone henge but many of the stones have been taken down, but the great outter dirt circles still remain. the weather was less than hospitable and we had to fight the elements the entire day, but lucky the walk about avebury it stayed away until the end walk back to the coach. Avebury was massive. is was about a 1/4 mile wide and a mile around (if you could walk all the way around but for conservation of the sigh they had parts closed down) . avebury village was tiny compared to oxford and the whole village was contained mostly in the prehisotric circle. the mystery of avebury, along with the people who made stone henge, was who made it and why they made it. people can make guesses all they want, but there is no factual evidence to back up one hypothesis or another. they made it by dragging huge stones (like the ones at stone henge but not all that big) across the land probably in winter cause it would be easiest to slide them at that time. and dub the trench with elk or bison shoulder blades. it was made like stone henge sometime between 2600bc and 3000bc and was in use for over a 1000 years! it was nice to see but what i liked that best was the drive there, mostly cause we where inside out of the elements-rain and wind!! the wind was terrible and cut right through you like the wind in edinburgh!-the drive was through quniessential english countryside. like again you see in photos and movies and tv. but this time it didnt have the blue sky in the back ground but gray and foreboting clouds, reminding us of the terrible english whether. after avebury we had lunch on the bus of brown bag lunches that the Wycliffe chefs made us. we were excited because we didnt think that they could mess that up.....yep they could. my lunch was nasty! it had a nasty mayo and onion mix along with A piece of choped beef. yuck! well stone henge. chapman (our main professor and leader of the outtings) told us in lecture on friday that stone henge is rather a disappointment. i however thought that is was really cool. we couldnt go right up to the stones like you can in avebury but you can cirle them at a distance, which is why he probably said it was a disappintment. but its there. its one of those places that you see on tv and movies and so forth and always wonder about. and there i was standing in its presence. well we didnt stick around and soak it all as much as we could of becuase it was COLD AND RAINING AND WINDY. a bad combination for an outside attraction. we did the photo walking tour around it though got photos and marveled at its engineering feat. Chapman told us that one of the speculoations of who made the structure was the Druids, but he dispelled these thoughts during lecture pointing out historical inacuracies. we dont know who made it and why anyone made it at all and your guess is about as good as the next persons. he did tell us a unique tale about when he was filiming in 2001 a film about the stones on June 21st, which is hte summer equinox and a special time for the druids and when the stones line up perfectly with the sun if you look at it just right. we said that while he was there the plains of the valley where it was located was covered for miles around by basically hippie styling themselves druids. he also said that he got to meet the chap who claims to be king of the druids. although he is from east-end london, although is nothing like a true druid. chapman said that it is just a good time for all the nut cases of england to get together and do drugs. (he probably is right!) anyway after our demeaning tour of stone henge we headed for a in door local Salisbury Cathedral. this is one of the oldest and most grandest cathedrals of all europe (according to chapman but he is of course english). it has a 400 foot spire that you can see for MILES around. funny story i guess in the 1600s after the monarch was restored a man was so excited he climbed to the top of the spire and did a head stand on the corss at hte very very top! all i have to say is some nerve that man had i could never do that i get ten feet off the ground at the rock wall and am ready to give up. the structure it astoundingly large. but again it was a cathedral. the interesting part was that the church was built within 38 years which is strange for a cathedral at this time, where most took hundreds of years to build because of the lack of funds. well we looked around and it was a church....a choir was singing, we saw the first working clock, a copy of the magna carta, silver cups and other treasure....so and so forth...we still had an hour so we at in the caffiteria, where Tim found a friend in a 9 month old. ok so carissa tells me i have to hurry and there isnt really much else to say i guess about this day so i will finish with that thought. bye ( i will write about london adventure soon!)