wherein our narrator communes with ancient history

[st_emma]

There was a mishap with an alarm clock and a time zone shift and we wound up getting up an hour early. This might not have been entirely objectionable, but the "hour early" translated to 5:00 AM. The problem has since been repaired and will not recur.

We hopped in a cab and headed to the meeting point of today's day tour. There was a slight miscommunication with the cab driver, who almost dropped us off at a different location, but we caught it in time and got there okay. The hotel we were meeting at had a restaurant, so we nipped in for the quick breakfast option, which consisted of two croissants and a cup of tea. The croissants were adequate, but seriously – who serves decaf tea at 7:30 AM? Would it have killed them to give us some caf?

We caught the tour bus and headed off toward Stonehenge. I have wanted to see Stonehenge ever since I first read about it as a small child, so this was sort of a dream come true for me. We drove off through the London suburbs and into the farmland, past pigs the size of cows and cows that were on the verge of mating, to Stonehenge. The weather was chilly and I found myself at times wishing I had brought my puffy jacket (with the gloves cunningly tucked into the pockets for future use) but I made do with the windbreaker as I wandered around the site with the little audiophone device clamped up to the side of my ear with my left hand, right hand holding the camera and frantically snapping photos.

At the risk of going completely wifty, the energy at Stonehenge is awesome. There's really no other word for it. It's a serene, purposeful humming.

From there, it was back into the bus and off to the next sight: Glastonbury. The first umleitung of the day ate about 20 minutes off our time, but our driver/guide somehow managed to maneuver our tour bus up near Glastonbury Tor. There's an impressive tower atop a giant hill, surrounded by a whole lot of unimpressed sheep. Back down the hill, we stopped off at the Chalice Well & Gardens. The energy there was lovely as well, very soothing. The water was cold and delicious, the flowers were beautiful and the whole effect was both nurturing and calming. The woman sitting across from us on the tour bus (who turned out to be from Winnipeg, and was going to cheer for the Jets next season – go Jets!) was lighting votive candles at some of the stops in the garden.

Then we drove into downtown Glastonbury, to visit the ruins at Glastonbury Abbey. Apparently back when he was getting persnickety about being recognized as the head of the Church in England, Henry VIII ordered the roof ripped off of the Abbey, and the whole thing has gone to ruin ever since. It's a shame, really, since it must have been quite lovely at one point, and it is the spot where monks allegedly found the bodies of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, which makes it kind of a special location in British history. (Really, between this, and the book I'm reading about Anne Boleyn, one of the prevailing themes of my day has been "Henry VIII was kind of a dick.")

We had lunch at Knight Fish & Chips, which had been recommended by our driver/guide, and rightly so, since it was possibly the best plate of fish and chips I've had in ages. After that, we poked around a few of Glastonbury's stores. The shops here seem to cater mostly to druggies and/or neopagans. There's a grow shop called – I kid you not – Bag End, and several shops that seemed to be geared around neopaganism. There are pentagrams in pretty much every store, as well as athames, incense burners, and all manner of occult books. I was very principled here; I only bought scarves. There was a local bakery called Burns the Bread; apparently the family who runs it is called Burns. I did find myself wondering how many of these stores are legitimate concerns all year round, and how many just sort of hang in there until the Glastonbury Festival, when they make all their money.

Then it was back into the van for the drive out to Avebury. I found myself dozing throughout the trip, but it wasn't long before we were pulling into Avebury. There was a small village post office open, so I took advantage of that to finally getting around to mailing the postcard I'd written my parents last week when we were in London. We then explored the site. Avebury used to be a circle of standing stones, but over time (thanks in part to the Puritans and their hatred of pagan religion and thanks in part to stupid people thinking stones are more important than heritage sites), some have fallen and some have disappeared. Roads bisect the circle in both directions, so the circle essentially consists of four quarters, and two of those quarters have a village parked on them. As a result, it's not quite at its former glory and lacks some of the immediate spectacle/"wow" factor that Stonehenge has. Unlike Stonehenge, however, you can actually walk amongst these stones. And touch them.

Again, at the risk of sounding completely wifty, they buzz pleasantly. The yoni stone in particular has a vivid charge. My hand is still vibrating.

There was another umleitung on the trip back, and a whole lot of stau the closer we got to London, but we eventually made it back to the hotel. I gave Gaz a quick call about getting together tomorrow afternoon/evening, and then st_darwin and I headed out to dinner. We found a place convenient to our hotel, Singapore Chinese, where I had a Malaysian curried chicken and the most delicious noodles I've had in ages.

Tomorrow the plan is to do a hop on/hop off tour in the morning, and get together with Gaz later in the day. Hopefully that will pan out, since I haven't seen him in ages and miss him terribly.