Second Star to the Right: Awh, I Wish I Could Speak Welsh

Bright and early this morning our big group of students woke up and got read to begin our journey to Wales! Alavaro provided a basic breakfast as well as stuff to make sandwiches to eat on the road. We all loaded up into a big bus and began our four hour drive to the West. Fortunately I have this awesome super power where I can always manage to fall asleep in moving vehicles, so I actually managed to sleep for a lot of it. It also helps that we were out late last night and had to wake up early this morning. I think most of us conked out pretty quickly. The parts where I was awake I got to see some of the gorgeous country side. A was reminded of a quote that comes from Remains of the Day, one of the books we have been reading for class. "The English landscape at its finest—such as I saw this morning—possesses a quality that the landscapes of other nations, however more superficially dramatic, inevitably fail to possess. It is, I believe, a quality that will mark out the English landscape to any objective observer as the most deeply satisfying in the world, and this quality is probably best summed up by the term 'greatness.' … And yet what precisely is this greatness? … I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it." I must say that I agree with this.

Our first stop was at Tintern Abbey. It was an amazing sight to be seen, made even better by the great rain. The Abbey was amazing and the scenery all around it was so so green! I was surprised at the free reign that the people at the Abbey gave us to climb and explore. If there wasn't a fence around it, it was free game (and that was most everything). We had a great time running around and posing for photos. We also met the ghost of Tintern Abbey (also known as Paul). He's famous for photo bombing any photos he can. We seemed to have awoken his resting spirit and then he was out to get us. I also had a wizarding duel or two, no big deal. :)

After the Abbey we hopped back on the bus and drove further into Wales to an old coal mine. We explored those grounds for a while as well, and then we got to go on really cool tour. They gave us hard hats, head lamps and belts with oxygen and then sent us down a mining elevator to have a tour of the mine. It was all very cool and they taught us about how the mines would be run in olden times. Our tour guide also told us a lot about Wales (he is Welsh himself). He told us that most people in Southern Wales actually don't speak Welsh because they were always told not to in their youth. Kids were actually caned and people were fired from jobs if they were caught speaking it. So most people from his generation (40 and above) don't speak any Welsh at all. He says that fortunately it has become more common these days, but it just baffled me that so many people wouldn't even be able to speak their own native tongue.

We finished up our tour of the mines and then briefly walked through a museum about mining. I asked people every now and then if they knew where Wick or St. Brides was in an attempt to find out more about my family, but they didn't really know where they were. And thus concluded our trip through Wales. I was surprised because I thought that we would be spending more of our week trip in Wales, but apparently the rest of our days this week shall be spent back in England. We had another stretch of road to cover before we arrived in Salisbury.

The group was separated into three different hotels. Salisbury is a small and very beautiful town and I guess the hotels couldn't handle a group as large as ours. I was sent to The Red Lion with Paul as my roommate. The hotel is little and though not too fancy, is actually very nice. (The internet is much faster than the centers.....which is sad). We dropped our stuff off very quickly and then were given the rest of the evening to do whatever we wanted. My group of people went to a local pub, the Horse and Coach to have a dinner. I got myself a hamburger to celebrate the 4th of July (as did most of my group). We then went to see Salisbury Cathedral. We had arrived too late to actually go inside, but we were able to explore the grounds. I was worried that seeing so many cathedrals and old castle like structures that I would grow bored with them, but I am finding that I am continually fascinated by everything that I see. After the cathedral we went to the local grocery store to get a few treats for traveling tomorrow and stopped by McDonalds to get ice cream. I promised myself I would avoid American establishments while here, but I just couldn't resist for two reason. The first is that is seemed like a very American thing to do on the 4th of July and the second is that they had a shake that was made from Starbursts. It was delicious.

And now we find the young adventurer back at the hotel. We were going to play some games and what not, but find ourselves to be a little tired. So sleep may be on the queue. We shall do a lot of traveling tomorrow as well. Stonehenge, Bath and many more adventures to be had!