York

This weekend we stayed with Matt's mom in Yorkshire. Matt is Kara's friend that she knows that lives around here. Saturday we went out into the country and it was beautiful. We hiked about 6 miles on a trail and went to a waterfall / river type thing. We enjoyed it alot there. I also managed to forget the memory card to my camera so have no pictures of the trip (kara took alot though). I think i have officially become homesick now though, but not in a typical way. It's actually quite funny what has me depesressed over here. I miss Borris...there i said it. I must have seen 10 Westies this weekend and about had a breakdown because i miss Borris so much. I pet one old gentleman's Westy (who was much larger then borris) and he was 6 years old and has a face that looked very similar to borris and just as sweet. It was rather depressing though In York today. if i was able to keep a dog here I believe that I would buy one tomorrow.

Superhuman?

Well with not being able to follow the heisman race with my own eyes I depend on news clips. Is this kid for real? AT this point im unsure of how he would NOT be #1, his stats seem high and his skills are unbelievable.
http://www.rivals.com/video.asp?section=football&pkey=&vidtype=highlight&vidid=1448
definitely check this out

Cambridge

Last Saturday we decided to basically make our own day trip by train. We decided to venture to Cambridge college and hope to take in some of the vast knowledge floating around there. It took us right at two hours from London to the Cambridge train station, and we hit the ground running. We walked into the center of town and met up with Kara's friend who lives right outside of London. We then walked into the city area and went into an archeology museum which was faciniating. They had items from the Roman civilization of London all the way to the Norman invasion and conquest of Great Britan.
After the museum we came across an area where there were a few resteraunts, then a rather large grassy flat area next to a small river that went all through the town. We decided to get sanwhiches from a small deli near there, and have lunch on the lawn. We were watchin the punting boats(similar to a Gondola) go by and noticed many people were just renting boats. We had talked about wanting to rent boats for the entire time we have been in London, so we found the place to rent boats and took advantage of the opportunity. We paid 3 pounds each for one hour of pure excitement. I got elected to "punt" the boat down the river while the girls sat in the middle section. I must say it is much much much harder than it looks. I have much more respect for Gondolas and Punters now. We eventually made it back but i think i managed to hit every boat on the water, and a few tree braches that hung over the water on the way back, and even managed to hit a duck....but that was his fault for not moving I think. I think i nearly flipped the boat about ten times as well, so it made for a rather eventful hour.
From there we went to see Pembroke college, which is one of the many many branches of Cambridge. I think we were told there around 19 colleges there that are all part of Cambridge. it was beautiful, but we quickly moved on to King's Chapel. This was arugeably the most beautiful Gothic building we have visited, one reason being that it still has 100% of its stain glass up, and most churches have about 1/3 of their glass remaining. King's Chapel is part of King's College (which for a good while was one of the top 3-4 colleges in the world...oxford and cambridge are in the 50s...). This college was by invite only to study there, so no need to apply. I have a feeling that the tuition would be pretty incredible too, i thought Samford had a beautiful campus, this place made you feel like you went back to the 15th century. In the chapel there choir was having their practice, and they sang so beautifully. I took a video of it and will try to post it, or give a link to where it will be. Cambridge was an excellent day trip though, and definately a worthwhile trip.

PS. sorry for the bad video quality. you get the idea though.

Pictures / previous trips

Ok so connor has made a request of some older pictures from this trip so i figured id throw a few of them up on here. I don't have any pictures of all of us with the professor and his wife but we have a couple group shots that are good. The first picture if of the cathedral we went to last weekend....im pretty sure this one is Salisbury.Its a shame it stormed at Stonehenge....but its just a pile of rocks in a field really. Got some decent pictures there but there was a really bad thunder-storm right as we pulled up. We all actually felt static through umbrellas from one strike...that happened to also be when we decided to leave, go figure.

The Mote

So today we embarked on our journey around 11 this morning. We took a two hour bus ride up to the small town of Kent, and saw the Ightham Mote. It looks like an older castle-like structure surrounded by a mote. It was originally constructed in late 13th century and most of the house is still original. It is surrounded by a beautiful garden with all sorts of different varieties of plants. The American businessman Charles Robinson purchased the house in the late 20th century and in 1985 donated it to the Nation Trust. This is the organization that is now restoring the property and giving tours. As Kara and I were walking through the garden there was one area full of apple trees so we decided to help ourselves to a fresh snack. It was actually one of the best apples I have ever had.