Saturday, October 16, 2004

Gah! Sorry I've been lax with continuation of London Adventures. THursday was just not a good day. If I'd blogged on THursday, it would have been quite unenjoyable a reaad. And Friday I decided to be sociable at lunchtime (for once) and joined a colleague in the restaurant for food and a serious chat about our ambitious entreprenurial plans. I have an idea - humbleness aside, I think it is a great product/service and I think it fills a major gap in the market. Thats all I can say for now, but hopefully it will come to fruition soon enough...

OK ..back to London Adventure - to be honest, it is all blurred together in my head at this point. The only thing I know for sure is that Sahra's feet hurt and we spent a lot of time eating/enjoying the sight of food and catching the Tube to get from one place to another.

Friday, however, was our day of escape from London. We'd booked a day trip on a Luxury Minibus (read - expensive!!). THe tour was called Stones & Bones, and took us through the English countryside SouthWest of London - with stops in Salisbury, Amesbury (for a country pub meal), Stonehenge (the piece de resistance) and Avebury (which,was really much cooler than Stonehenge in my opinion).

Hmmm..what were the highlights of the day? Well, Salisbury is famed for its Cathedral ..apparently size does matter when it comes to religious temples and this one has lots of features that are 'The Biggest'. It also contains one of only 4 remaining original scripts of the Magna Carta. THe Magna what?? I knew I had heard of it..way back in high school..I knew it was important, but heck if I knew exactly what it was. As it turns out it was basically the first Constitution - the first piece of law that gave people certain freedoms such as the right to a fair trial. THe basis for many Consitutions of today and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pretty neat. Salisbury was the quintessential English town, with its cobblestone streets, tiny shops of all kinds and a lovely river running through it (the Avon). Apparently there are lots of rivers called Avon - it means water.

Stonehenge was, unexpectedly, impressive. Sometimes one can build up their expectations of something like this, only to be let down by the real thing. This was not the case with Stonehenge, at least not for me. I suppose it is just a bunk of stones/rocks...but when you consider they were placed there some 5,000 years ago, adn the circle was perfected over a period exceeding 1,000 years, you really have to wonder what made it so significant and what were these people doing here?? Oh...they also had pictures of Crop Circles that appear nearby on an annual basis - kind of 'freaky'

My favorite stop, however, was a little town called Avebury, which had a stone circle of its own (they are actually quite popular). THe stone circle encompassed the entire town centre, it was much much larger than Stonehenge. Our tourguide let each of us use the dowsing rods he had with him. The Stone Circle was aligned with leylines...as are many of the significant stone circles across Southern England. .

Yep..so the tour was worth it. We got back around 6.00 and headed back to Harrod's as Sahra was dying to have mug of the hot chocolate I had enjoyed the day before (I swear they just melted a chocolate bar and added some cream). Alas, the cafe was closd, so we set our sights on Covent Garden - the theatre district, where there are plenty of tourists, restaurants, cute little shops and street performers. There was a lovely atmosphere in the area, and we enjoyed Cornish Pasties while listening to some guy strumming the guitar & singing Bob Dylan & Marley.

That was Friday....will get back to yas on Sat & Sun soon enough. Am sure this recap of London is getting rather winded..I'm sorry, but there's not a whole lot else to report on at the moment. We haven't been up to enough trouble lately :)

Tomorrow we are heading to Glasgow for some touristy stuff, and cheap shopping at massive carboot sale!!!