Everything's Significant.

Yesterday we took a day trip outside of the city with our whole class to visit Jane Austen's house, Salisbury Cathedral, and Stonehenge.


The first stop was the last house which Jane Austen lived in with her sister and mother. I hate to admit that we weren't the most excited in the group to see this site since we are not avid Jane Austen readers. Confession: I have not read a single Jane Austen novel nor seen any of the movies. We thought her house was a little silly because pretty much anything that belonged to anyone who was even remotely associated with Jane Austen was placed on display claiming some sort of significance. Anyway, I am proud to say that I am now an owner of a Jane Austen novel. I decided that it was about time I became acquainted with the much loved stories, so I asked around for everyone's favorite and am gearing up to read Pride & Prejudice.

We moved on to the Salisbury Cathedral, which is the oldest/largest/most unique cathedral in London/England/the UK/all of Europe? Clearly this site didn't hold much interest for us either as I walked away knowing nothing more about it. It was just another Cathedral to us, much like the many others we've visited.

Next we headed to Stonehenge, which is the mysterious prehistoric stone structure in a remote part of England. We learned that in fact, no one knows anything about the strange monument. We found it funny that throughout the audio tour we kept being told information about the structure, followed by the required line that really they don't know if the information is true and that there are no facts to support it. By the end I just wanted to know what they did know, not what they speculated. The best line from the audio tour was: "The idea that aliens placed these stones here from another planet is not that far fetched." After that I was done hearing what they "knew" about the place and just enjoyed my time walking around outside in the sun that sometimes peeked through the clouds.


After our long day we made it back just in time to go see Phantom of the Opera with my mom, who was in town for a few days to visit. (Alright it wasn't just a random visit, she was in fact bringing us the rest of our clothes which we had left in Germany and were getting desperate for. But it was a good excuse for her to come enjoy the city with us.) I've always had a memory of seeing Phantom of the Opera when I was younger, but the play itself I could never remember, so I was wanting to get back to see it so that I could actually appreciate it and remember it. And it was definitely one to see again! The acting and singing was great and the stage was incredible, there were so many moving parts and special effects to keep us guessing. We loved this musical and Hillary decided that she liked Phantom of the Opera better than Wicked. We're excited to add more musicals to our list.

We came home exhausted, enjoyed some ice cream, then crashed into bed. Now it's turning into yet another late night, even though every day I make the resolution to go to bed early. Oh well, there's just too many exciting things in London to waste time on sleep!!

Oh, Oliver, we're not positive, but we're pretty sure that we saw people in the top of those towers on the bridge, so we think that you can go to the top of them.