Thursday

Thursday I visited a country I'd never been to before - Wales. We just went a little ways in to get to a place called Tintern Abbey. It's a Medieval ruins dating from the 11th century or so. It's in a valley and surrounded by beautiful green hills. It was very peaceful there and quiet. The ruins were magnificent. A few people from my group climbed up them as high as they could...before someone came and politely told us to "Please get down now." The peace and solitude made me feel like singing hymns and hearing them bounce off the partial walls and the surrounding hills. But, as there were other people about, I refrained. It was a fun place to explore. And it was very beautiful.

Somewhere along the way that day, we ended up in a small town called Chipping Campden. It had thatched roof cottages and was just a cute little town in general. Much different from London or even Bristol for that matter. We also went on a hike. Across private property. Because you can do that here. There are public footpaths across everyone's property, which would be absolutely unheard of in the US. It was a beautiful hike. We got to see quite a few sheep (one family even ran right through our group) and some other animals as well. We walked about 4.5 miles. I kind of wish we could've done more. Again, it was peaceful and beautiful. Very nice indeed.

When we returned to Bristol, a few of my friends bought pizza and a small carrot cake. We had a small feast as we listened to music we'd gotten in Bath from a guy that was playing something called a hang in front of the cathedral there. Once the pizza was devoured, we brought out the cake. They sang "Happy Birthday" and I blew out a fake and nonexistent candle. It was fun. And that was pretty much it for that day.