A whale of a tale from Wales

Wales... home of the Welsh, who eat krill and are full of blubber.  Oh, wait.  I’m getting confused.  We did go to a Welsh home, but there was no krill and only moderate blubber involved.  :)

Anyway, before we actually got to a Welsh home, we had to drive from Manchester, England, down to Aberystwyth, Wales.  Along the way, we made a bit of a detour in order to visit a place from a beloved movie - Pride and Prejudice.  I am a loyal fan of the 1995 Firth/Ehle version (none of this 2005 McFadyen/Knightley stuff) so we went to the true home of Mr. Darcy, the real Pemberley.  The filming location of Pemberley was at an estate called Lyme Park (although all the interior shots were filmed at another nearby mansion in Sudbury).  Unfortunately, the house and the gardens are closed on Thursdays for cleaning and landscaping, so we couldn’t go inside, but we wandered around the outer grounds a bit and finally found a lovely view of the front of the enormous house.  So pretty!  I can't wait to watch the movie again, too!  :)

After Pemberley, we made our way to Aberystwyth, Wales, and stayed two nights with our good friends Kellie and J-D, along with their four little boys: Caleb, Benjamin, Joseph, and Nathanael.  There is soon to be another addition to the family, too, but he or she is still safely tucked away and did not want to come out and visit with us.  However, we had a great time with the rest of the family... for the most part...  :)

(Jim with our godson Joseph, who is NOT happy with Jim's storytelling!)

Their relationship improved substantially a bit later on, and we had a lovely time in Wales, playing with the boys, drinking tea with our friends, and wandering around Aberystwyth during a huge rainstorm.  We went to the National Library of Wales, which was part library and part museum, for lunch and an exhibit on the Olympics.  Later on, Jim, Caleb, and I tried to go by tram up to the top of a hill for a neat attraction called the Camera Obscura, but halfway up, they brought the train back down and told us that the extreme wind at the top of the hill (70 mph!) was starting to rip the roof off the building and we couldn't go up right then.  It was a really big storm!  (We later heard on the radio that dozens and dozens of people within or very near to the city had to be evacuated due to the rain, which was the same amount (3 inches) in 24 hours that the area normally gets in a month!)  It's probably just as well that we didn't go to the Camera Obscura, because by that time, we were soaked through.  We returned back home to for an evening of chess, tea, and conversation.  It was so nice to get to see their life and home in Wales, and we had a great visit with the entire family!

After we left Wales on Saturday morning, we took the long route to London.  Our first stop was at Lyme Regis, on the southern coast of England.  This is part of the area known as the Jurassic Coast due to the huge number of fossils that have been found in the area.  The elements are ganging up on the coastal cliffs to erode them and slowly force them to divulge their stone-encrusted secrets.  We walked along the beach under the cliffs and found multiple fossils of our own.  It's really incredible there!  You're just scrambling over rocks and you spot the whorl of some ancient shell creature or the tiny sparkle of half of a geode opened up to reveal the bits of crystal inside... amazing!  Here's Jim making an earth-shattering discovery (literally!) after he cleaved apart a hunk of hard clay:

Lyme Regis was really pretty darn nifty, but we need to continue on our route so that we could see our next stop, Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is an interesting thing.  As an attraction, it's really just some huge rocks in circle.  :)  However, I think it's mostly the backstory (or rather, the conjecture/theorizing thereof) that really gets people interested.  If Stonehenge were made today, nobody would go to it.  But the mystery surrounding the rocks, including their placement, how they were stacked, where they come from, and who put them there and why, is intriguing to people.  I think what might be most striking upon first look is their setting.  The stone slabs are in the middle of acres and acres of very flat land... no rocks or quarries to be seen!  It's not a mystery I'm ever likely to solve, but it was neat to see such an iconic sight.  

After Stonehenge, we set course for London.  I had hoped to see some chalk cliffs, but time did not allow, so we went on to the city.  We reached the bustling city in the evening, ate falafel for dinner, and stayed at an overpriced and not-underrated hostel (i.e., not that great... read "not much bang for your buck" or "not much punch for your pence"), although I suppose staying in central London is bound to be expensive!  Today was our day to tour London.  What a fascinating and historic city!  I suppose everywhere has history, but London has highly concentrated history.  Around every couple corners is a famous name or landmark.  In a matter of hours walking around London, we passed by Buckingham Palace (which is having a "construction hangover" as they take down all the structures and decoration from the queen's diamond jubilee - happy 60 years, your majesty!), Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret's Church, Downing Street, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Harrod's, the Thames River, and the Tower of London.  We didn't go inside most of these places since we had limited time, but it was so neat to walk all around and see the actual sites of places I've read, heard, and studied about!  We avoided London Bridge, though, because I've heard the construction of that particular crossing is not too sturdy.

Me, Jim, and Ben

We also made time for a quick stop at Greenwich, so when we listen to the BBC and they tell the time according to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), we'll know... what Greenwich looks like, I guess?  I wish I could say that, having been there, I would automatically know GMT time equivalents.  However, knowing what Greenwich looks like is not actually at all relevant to figuring out what time it is in GMT and unfortunately does not aid one in doing so, which is sad because I often have trouble with GMT.  But hey, at least I can say I've been to the world's prime meridian with my prime meridian!

Off to Istanbul tomorrow!