The Road Trip of Destiny

Ok, here is the second installment of our visit from the Farias', as told by Cami. With (mostly) our pictures inserted at the appropriate places.

"This is part 2 of my insanely long account of my vacation. The thumbnails are links to larger photo collages that I made in lieu of uploading a million and a half photos using blogger's stupid photo uploader.

So on the 8th we woke up early. The boys went to go pick up the rental car while Emily and I took care of shopping for food for the road. We took off around 9:30 or 10:00 and began what will forever after be known as The Roadtrip of Destiny. We drove about an hour outside of London for our first stop- Stonehenge. The first thing that impressed me about Stonehenge is how totally massive it is. You see the pictures, but until you are standing in front of the stones it's hard to gauge how gargantuan they are. I cannot believe ancient man hauled these babies hundreds of miles and then propped them on top of each other. The other thing that impressed me about Stonehenge is how many people there are milling about. Now, I know that this is peak tourism season around the world but this was my first true taste at an overcrowded tourist site. Needless to say we didn't really feel like we were going to get any better look shelling out the £7 to get in so we just took pictures through the fence. This would be a good time to explain that between Emily, Brent, Luis, and myself you probably have the 4 cheapest people on the planet, so why would we pay perfectly good money for an entrance fee that would allow us to stand literally 4 feet closer to the rocks than we could standing outside the fence. We joked about this for the rest of the trip. I don't have many pictures of Stonehenge b/c my camera battery died so I defer to Emily's blog/facebook page for the full visual.

After Stonehenge we drove out to Glastonbury, which is a silly little town that is based around an ancient Abbey which is the purported burial site of the real King Arthur. About 700 years ago they were digging around in the then 500 year old cemetery there to excavate the foundation of an expansion and came across two stone tombs engraved with the names Arthur and Guinevere. By this point the Arthurian legend was well established in Britain and roundabouts so needless to say they were pretty psyched. All of this is recorded in local parish records. They moved the bodies to a black marble vault inside their main chapel where they remained until Henry VIII and his bullies knocked the whole Abbey down in his campaign against the Catholics. No one knows for sure where the black marble vault is now, but the site where it was is marked. It's pretty cool.

There's also a tor there ("tor" being Ye Olde English for hill) with the remnants of an even ancienter chapel which is the purported site where St. Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail from Jerusalem. At the Abbey there's even an old thorn tree which is supposedly the leftovers of St. Josephs staff which he is said to have plunged into the ground to mark the spot. It's wicked awesome. The tower at the top of the Tor is also where the Rose Line crosses the St. Michael Line. It is also the legendary gate to the Underworld in Celtic mythology. Some people believe that if you drink from the well on the Tor you will be cured (b/c of Grail or Pagan nutrients or something like that). I wasn't magically cured of all that ails me, but I *was* privy to some truly inspiring wind, a spiritual experience with a meat pie that I was eating while climbing the hill, and some really poopy cows at the bottom. The whole experience was totally boss.

After Glastonbury we went to Bath, which was NOT what I was expecting. Apparently Jane Austen and her cronies trashed the place years back and now it's just like a crappy British version of Atlantic City, only with older buildings and tons of disgusting grime leftover from the Industrial Revolution. I pretty much just wanted to take soapy water to everything I saw. The Roman baths we were hoping to see there were closed, but we got a pretty good feel of the place from the grounds outside. Kitschy, dirty, and pretty much the same sort of thing we'd already seen several times that day. Needless to say, we weren't heartbroken. It WAS, however, the site of a truly hilarious statue of a bosomed rabbit and the home of the famous Sally Lunn buns- Bread buns as big as my head. We had fun making fun of the place and stuffing ourselves full of rich, bunly goodness.

From there we had to book it to Kendall, but found time to stop by the Preston temple. It was cool, and we got there just as the sun was setting which was neat. It was a great view.

June 9th: We woke up kind of late, most likely b/c the boys were up really late watching Cinderella Man on Cable, which provided the basis for several hilarious incidents throughout the day. We ate breakfast in Carlisle, a little town with a huge random castle which we discovered is basically what most small towns in the UK are- tiny villages that surround some sort of random ancient monument. I freakin' love it! Anyway, we were driving around looking for a place to eat breakfast when I eyed a sign that said "Full English Breakfast- £4.99!". I announced this and Luis actually started to bail out of the moving vehicle to get to the food, which was hilarious and awesome. "Full English Breakfast" consists of 2 eggs, 2 rashers (the British version of bacon, which is actually closer to fried ham), 2 pork/leek sausages, 2 toast, beans, and grilled tomato and mushroom. I had to dig deep to find the strength and courage to finish my plate, but thankfully I'd been really spiritually recharged by the amazing sights the day before and when things got their darkest, I was able to pull through and eat through the pain. It was DELICIOUS! From Carlisle we took the scenic route through the Lake District to get to Edinburgh, which I slept most of the way through, but am told is beautiful.

In Edinburgh we went to the castle, which we took pictures of outside but didn't feel like paying the entrance fee to see inside (do you notice some themes developing here!?). We DID however, find that the free Tartan museum and mill down the road was quite interesting if you are in fact as big of nerds as we are. We tasted Haggis at a store that advertised "Free Samples" (about the 4th or 5th such place we'd frequented in our journeys so far). It was so-so, but we bought some souvenirs for parents and then wandered around until we found the Rabbie Burns Tavern on the Royal Mile. I ordered the Haggis, Tatties, & Neeps, Luis got the Bangers & Mash, Brent had a Haggis & Beef Burger and Emily was boring and had a bagel. All was delicious beyond reason and will live on in my memory as one of the best meals of my life. This would be a good time to note that Edinburgh is like the Berkley of the UK- tons of freaks, hippies, and doobies to go around. It was hilarious. If you like sheep, ghosts, plaid, accents, doobies, or hippies, I recommend you take time to visit.

After eating we found our hotel which was flippin' sweet! It had a loft bed, a remote controlled skylight, and a really killer shower head. We cleaned up then headed out for our "Ghosthunters of Edinburgh" tour. It was cool. Apparently Edinburgh is one of the most haunted cities on the planet, probably because after every disaster instead of tearing down the condemned buildings and starting over- they just fill them in and build on top. There are like 2 or three full layers of Edinburgh, which is one of the reasons it's so hilly. In the 80's they started rooting around and discovered these really ancient buildings underneath the current ones, filled with rubbish and such. They cleaned them out so they could turn them into trendy nightclubs and stuff, but they're apparently too full of ghosts for that to work. We got to wander around in one of them, and I think they're probably right. Those vaults just don't feel right. I took a picture with a weird floating sparkly thing hovering over a lady's head, too, which was kind of creepy. We walked back to the hotel afterward and got in around midnight or so.

June 10: We woke up pretty early and headed out to Rosslyn chapel- which was built by the Sinclair family like 800 years ago. The Sinclair family were Templars, which is like my most favoritest thing in the world. If I ever get a Doctorate Degree in English I think I'd want it to be in Templar Legend. The chapel is unbelievably gorgeous, although sadly currently surrounded by a large aluminum roof and scaffolding. They're trying to restore the building before it crumbles into pieces due to water damage, so the roof is up to protect it until they can finish restorations in 2010 or 2011. It was cool, though, because we could climb up on the scaffolding and see the top of the roof. Honestly, I have never seen anything quite as beautiful as that stonework. It was beyond my ability to describe. I have tons of photos of the outside, but we couldn't take pictures inside, and sadly enough that's where the best stuff was.

After Rosslyn we drove to the coast. We ended up at St. Abbs and took a hike out on the heaths. The views were breathtaking, as was the wind. I had to tie up my hair with my scarf, which makes me kind of look like Eurotrash in some of the photos, but it was cool. The water there was SO blue and the grass SO green. It was also inspiringly beautiful and I will never forget it. For lunch we ate at a quaint seaside cafe restaurant in St. Abbs. We had smoked salmon, crab and tuna roll sandwiches and traditional Scottish scones with jam. Delish. I'd like to take this moment to mention that the British people seem to put jam on or in pretty much everything- a practice which I HIGHLY support.

After lunch we drove to Glasgow to return the car and fly home. The plane ride from Glasgow back to London's Gatwick airport was uneventful, and we took a cab back from the airport to Em's place b/c it was too late to ride any trains or tubes. We got home around 10 or 11, exhausted and happy.

It was fun and weird driving on the wrong side of the road. Thank goodness the rental car came with GPS, which we affectionately named "Donk" in honor of our niece Megan. England rocks, and it was cool to see the "real" UK in between all the touristy stuff. It was the bestest and most hilarious road trip of all history."

There will be one more post in the next few days from the Farias' visit that will include their last day here in the city and then random bits and pieces (funny signs, J Reubs, etc). Enjoy!