Nicole & Chris in Liverpool!!: April 2009

Hello Friends/Family!

Our little adventure takes us to a small town in the middle of nowhere called Salisbury (except it's pronounced "Salsbury"). The tallest cathedral you see in the picture down below was built in the 11th century. How crazy is that?!

This is a much better picture that I found online.

So why did we take a 3 hour train ride from London to visit a little town in the middle of nowhere?

To visit STONEHENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were pretty excited...

Luckily, right as we walked outside of the train station, there was a red double decker bus waiting outside to take tourists to Stonehenge and another place called Old Sarum. Old Sarum is the oldest settlement of Salisbury and apparently humans have been living in this area since 3000 BC. It was originally a hill fort. Here is a picture of what remains today. We unfortunately didn't get out to look around - just drove by it.

Here are some more pictures of Salisbury, a small medieval town. It is at the conjunction of 5 rivers because the original settlers needed water for survival (Sarum was abandoned because of the lack of water).

This was our first view of Stonehenge! The hill sitting to the right of the site is actually a burial mound and there are over 300 in the area.

Here is some information I found online:

Archaeologists believe the standing stones were erected around 2200BC, and the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch have been dated to around 3100BC. It is thought to have evolved from a simple bank and ditch in the Neolithic period and is characterised by wooden materials. The very sophisticated stone circle was built on the axis of the midsummer sunrise and rearranged several times during the Bronze Age. As with most mysterious and historic sites, Stonehenge is considered sacred.

The site is the subject of many myths and legends and no one really knows how or why it was built, though there are many theories. The engineering feat is still bewildering. It pre-dates the Egyptian, Mycenean, eastern Mediterranean and druid influences, so was probably conceived and built by Britain's own indigenous people. (http://getaway.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=602896)

Here are several more photos:

We were so fortunate to have a sunny day. It was really windy though!

This is what Stonehenge looked like in its hey day. The stones that are laid on top of the other stones had little pieces that were cut out in order to connect to the next stone. Very detailed and intricate.

Oh yeah, the neighboring plains are inhabited by tons of sheep! I really wanted to pet one, but there was an electric fence. I think it was there more for the tourists than the sheep.

If you ever get an opportunity to visit, you definitely should. It is one of the 7 Greatest Wonders of the Medieval World. We only know this because Chris and I were in a debate about whether or not it was one of the 7 wonders so I Wikipedia-ed and found that there are SEVERAL lists. It is not included on the list we were thinking of (New 7 Wonders), but nevertheless, it is amazing, magical, and just plain awesome to see something so ancient up close.

Over and out -

Nicole

In early April, we had our first visitor! Kristina is a friend I met while working at Cutter & Buck. She (and another friend Jennie) is from Sweden and was interning in Seattle for a few months. Sadly, when they tried to come back after the holidays, they were detained and eventually deported (just like us). So, it had been a little over a year since we last saw her.

She flew in from Oslo and met us in London, and we proceeded to ride the tube all around the city. The first day we shopped for hours on Oxford Street (Chris kept up!) and ate at a lovely French restaurant in Notting Hill.

Here are a few pictures of Notting Hill - a very expensive and artsy neighborhood of London comparable to Fremont. We spotted a few homes for sale and they were close to 500,000 pounds and up!