stonehenge

on my day off last week i did pretty much nothing.  oops.  but sometimes you need a day like that, right?

on my day off THIS week - my final day off of the program - i did A LOT.  part 2 of the day you already know about - "go ape."  part 1 was stonehenge!  it's about an hour's drive from oxford, but not easily accessible by public transportation.  luckily, mike had his car.

stonehenge is one of those places you can't believe you're seeing in real life.  (other such places: times square, big ben, the san francisco bay bridge, pearl harbor, the grand canyon, the rosetta stone in the british museum - i've been lucky to go to some really cool places so far in my life.  all of these places are so LEGENDARY that when you see them in real life it doesn't seem possible - like they only exist on tv or in movies.  but there you are.  seeing it.  weird.)

here's our little crew again, less sweaty than in the "go ape" videos from later in the day - jakob, mike, me, and rosie.  it was early - probably 10am.  we actually beat the crowds - the place was twice as crowded when we left as when we arrived.  go us.

it was a beautiful day - 28 degrees celsius was the high (82 degrees fahrenheit) - and that was part of what made it so incredible.

how is this still standing 4,000 years after it was built?  i learned why!  1/3 of the stones are underground AND the stones lying across the top have a little carved out area in them that fits over a bump carved into the top of the standing up stones - tongue and groove style.  smart!  the biggest stones weigh as much as 7 adult elephants.  historians believe that the stones were probably brought from a quarry in wales 240 miles away.  THAT IS A LONG WAY AWAY.  (as you may have noticed, the audioguide gave me a lot of useful information.)

it was also incredible to see how precise they were - an archway marks where the sun would rise if you were standing in the exact center of the circle on the summer solstice and another marks where it would rise on the winter solstice - seven archways away.  in june the sun would rise through one archway, in july the next one over, august the next, all the way to december, when the sunrise would start its way back towards june.  (am i explaining this well?)  the people who built stonehenge were smart(er than me).

stonehenge + go ape = the best day in a long time.