Bath

The next day, we drove down to Bath. This was something that I was really looking forward to because of Jane Austen. In a lot of her novels, she mentions Bath in them and two of them were actually set in Bath--Persuasion and Northanger Abbey--which I have never read. Jane Austen actually lived in Bath for five years--although it wasn't a very happy time for her then. So, there's actually a Jane Austen centre there that we went to go see first--Garrett was thrilled about it! :) But, he went with me like the good husband that he is.


It was neat to see, but it mostly focused on her unhappy life there and I wished they would have talked more about her other novels and such. They did talk about a few places in Bath that were mentioned in Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. We didn't get to see those places, though. We never have enough time. They had the costumes set up from the new BBC movie, Miss Austen Regrets. Those were neat costumes.

If I didn't have my kids with me I would've gone upstairs and had tea in their tea rooms. The room was pretty small though and taking all of my kids in would've been a nightmare. It would've been so fun though. All of the menu items were named after characters or places in her novels. Such as: 'Tea with Mr. Darcy', 'Mrs. Bennet's lemon drizzle cake' or 'cousin Collin's crumpets'.

After that, we grabbed some lunch @ Subway and found a bench outside to eat on. They really don't have places to sit and eat here or else it's just a tiny little area--a place where we don't fit. Here's us eating on the busy high street.

As we were eating, there was a young guy set up on the street and he was drawing cariactures. After we ate, I went over to watch him and saw that he was really good. So, we had him draw the girls. Unfortuneately, Bella was sleeping so he couldn't draw her. But, it turned out really cute. Maggie doesn't look exactly like her, but he did a good job for the most part.

We then went to the Roman Baths which is what Bath is really known for. The city used to be called Aquae Sulis. Romans traveled so often there to "take a bath" that finally it became known simply as Bath. It was an interesting place that was really big. I just thought we'd walk in, see that bath and be done, but it was a huge museum with an audioguide tour. Some of it was interesting but the audioguide things were a bit long and boring. We overheard one of the "live" tour guides telling her group that sometime in the late 1600's, a woman discovered water leaking in her house, and when they dug around to find the source of the water, they discovered the Roman ruins of the bath and began excavating. They found this "bath" 18 feet below the dirt floors. Crazy. Today they have a nice spa there that's really expensive and a restaurant/cafe called "the Pump Room" where you can actually taste the water that flows from the spring. I've heard it doesn't taste very well.

There was this abbey right next to where the baths were found. (Behind Garrett)

Stonehenge and Avebury

On Friday, Garrett got off work a little early and we drove out to Stonehenge. We figured since it wasn't too far away we could visit it in the evening and have more time on Saturday and Sunday for other things. Stonehenge was pretty cool. There's nothing around it at all, just fields. We've all seen pictures of it, but it's pretty awesome to see it in person. They don't allow you to get close to them or go in the circle at all. I guess when they did allow that, people vandalized them and tried to chisel off pieces of the stones as souveneirs. Of course whoever owns it didn't want them ruined or to fall over, so they are roped off. You can walk all around them and they offer an audio guide to listen to as you walk. It's pretty amazing to think about how long they've been around. Experts think since around 3000 BC. It's just amazing to me that they could find the stones and move them from--experts say at least 20 miles and up to 240 miles away (from Wales) depending on the stone. In this book we bought about Stonehenge, it says,

"Studies in recent times have established that to move these stones up the steepest hill on the route would have needed about 500 people, plus another 100 to lay the rollers and keep the stone on course. It has also been estimated that if all 600 people had been continuously employed over the whole route, it would have taken more than a year to complete the journey."

And then to somehow erect them and make them stay. The audioguide said that 1/3 of each stone is underground. Each stone (that is standing) weighs approximately 25 tons. Then they had to get the topstones (called lintels--which are approximately 7 tons each) to lay across the tops of the standing ones. They actually carved out a little notch in the tops of the standing stones and a hole in the lintels to secure them even more.

It must have taken thousands of years to complete Stonehenge. They think it was used for large gatherings such as weddings and funeral rites and other ceremonies. They also think it was used as a calendar of sorts. In our guidebook it says,

"Stonehenge still functions as a remarkably accurate celestial calendar. As the sun rises on the summer solstice (June 21), the "heel stone"--the one set apart from the rest, near the road-- lines up with the sun and the altar at the center of the stone circle. A recent study of more than 300 similar circles in Britain foudn that each was designed to calculate the movement of the sun, moon, and stars and to predict eclipses in order to help early societies know when to plant, harvest and party."

It was really neat to see and think about the awesome magnitude of a project such as this. One more quote from our book that I found interesting:

"Though their means were limited compared with ours today, their resolve in achieving what was clearly of utmost importance to them stands in stark contrast to our impatient generation. We should not make the mistake of calling them primitive. These were a people whose view of life was so different from ours. For them, earthly life only represented one stage in the totality of their existence. The idea that the end of this life led inevitably to the next seems to have been as natural as breathing."

Little Facts:

* 5,000 years: Lifetime of Stonehenge

* 1,500 years: Length of time it was in use

* 164: approx. total number of stones used in final phase

* 1,874 tons: approx. total weight of stones

* 240 miles: the distance to Bluestones were transported to reach Stonehenge

* 200: the number of people needed to pull one stone upright

Man hours required to build Stonehenge: Incalculable!

This is what they think Stonehenge looked like in all its glory!

Avebury

I always thought that Stonehenge was the only thing of its kind, but after coming here, I've learned there are a lot more things like it around this countryside. (When I write about Ireland, you'll hear more!)

Just a little ways away from Stonehenge is another place with stone circles called Avebury. We went there when we were done with Stonehenge. This one isn't as well known. The stone circle is bigger (16 times the size) and less touristy, plus free! In fact, it's in a couple of pastures with a bunch of sheep. It's a bunch of large stones that are erect, almost in a circular path. There wasn't anything there to educate you about them--you just walked through the pasture--avoiding the sheep poop--and marveling at the stones--wondering why they are there and what they're supposed to mean. It's crazy to think that people did this for a particular reason.

I have a funny video of us walking through the field with Lydia and Maggie just giggling about trying not to step in sheep poop. I thought it was quite cute. On a side note--Lydia loves to chase birds. Everywhere we go--in parking lots, at the park, walking around London--whenever she sees them, she loves to chase them and make them fly away. When we were in this field, what did she do? She started chasing the sheep. I started to get video of her doing it, but I think Garrett made her stop. I think he was afraid the sheep would start to chase her!

Anyways, after Avebury we were going to try to eat at a local pub right across the street, but when we walked over there, it was closed for some reason. So far, we have yet to eat at a local pub. I guess that's something we'll have to do before we leave.

Scotland Day 4

Nessie

We got up early and ate our Scottish breakfast and drove back to the Loch Ness visitor center. We went to the exhibit which was pretty cheesy I must say. It just had pictures of the sightings of Nessie and of the people doing research. They had a short movie about all of the sightings and evidence for Nessie being real. The girls were really excited about Nessie being real. The girls were really excited about Nessie being real and thought she was cute. Most of the sightings were fabricated I guess. The one picture that's probably the most famous with the head and the two humps was really 3 bales of hay covered with black garbage sacks. I can't believe people would actually do that. It's a fun mystery though!


This day was supposed to be spent driving all day to get back home before bedtime because Garrett had meetings the next day for work. We spent way too long at the visitor's center and didn't leave till about noon. We drove for a couple of hours, then stopped at Pitlochery (a town) for lunch at a cute Italian/American place. After a long lunch and feeding Bella, we drove again. It seemed like it took forever to get out of Scotland. It seems like we got to the English border @ about 7 @ night. Then we still had to drive all the way to Cirencester--which was about a five hour drive. Considering we still had to stop for dinner, for feeding Bella and bathroom breaks--we were looking at getting home @ about 2 am. Garrett insisted that he'd be fine, but I still kept trying to talk him into getting a hotel room. At about 11:30 or so I started dozing off, but Garrett kept saying he was fine. I talked him into getting a room though because we didn't want to push it and get into an accident. So we stopped in Preston and got a hotel room. It just had a double bed and a twin bed. We didn't have sleeping bags or anything, so without extra blankets and pillows we couldn't have the girls sleep on the floor. So Maggie, Lydia and I slept in the double bed and Garrett and Paige slept in the twin. Needless to say, Garrett nor I slept very well. Maggie and Lydia are crazy sleepers and I was on the edge of the bed the whole night. Garrett was on one end of the bed and Paige on the other end with Garrett's legs to the side and her curled up in a ball. It was quite a night. Plus Bella woke up at 5 AM wanting to eat! So we got up at 6:45 and drove the rest of the way home. Garrett had to be in Bath by 10 am.

It would've been nice to have a couple of more days in Scotland. We really wanted to get up to the Isle of Skye--we heard it was neat up there. All in all, Garrett and I really liked Scotland. I think we both agree that we like the little towns better than the big cities. Garrett has been trying to find out which clan his family belongs to. At first he thought it was Buchanen. But after asking a lady in a kilt making store, she came up with the Campbell clan. She also found the tartan, or the plaid pattern, that represents the clan. Garrett wanted to have something made from it, but Garrett didn't think he'd ever wear a kilt. He thought about getting a scarf or tie made from that plaid pattern, but he wanted to check Ireland first to see if he could find more of a connection to another clan. Anyways, it was a fun trip. Sorry if I went into too much detail--I know my sisters like to hear a lot of details, so I do it for them.

Scotland Day 3

In our hotel, we got a pretty good deal because we got one dinner (in the hotel restaurant) and both breakfasts for free. Dinner was okay, but the breakfasts were great. Both mornings we had traditional Scottish/English breakfasts which are really good. Traditional English breakfasts are eggs, baked beans, sausage, tomatoes and toast. Scottish breakfasts are pretty much the same except more meat (including haggis--which Garrett did try--and said the first few bites were pretty good--but then not so good after that.) :) They also include potato scones which were really yummy. Anyways--enough about food.

This morning after our breakfast, we packed up and drove North--we were staying in Inverness that night, but made a few stops on the way. We first drove to Ft. William which was a really cute town. It's high street (main street) was small but quaint. We had lunch here and walked in a few stores, but then had to be on our way.

Ft. William High Street

The reason we went to Ft. William was because there was a train ride that would take you out to the town of Mallaig and then back. The train left from Ft. William. The name of the train is the Jacobite Steam Train, but we all know it as the Hogwarts Express. Yes, this was the train that they used in the Harry Potter movies. Cool, huh? The train also goes over a bridge, or the Glenfinnan Viaduct. (It's a raised track over 21 supporting arches.) They also show this in the Harry Potter Movies. (See pictures).

We didn't take the train for two reasons. 1st of all, it would have taken most of the day (our time was already too short in Scotland) and second of all, we were told that it wasn't a Harry Potter theme ride and that they didn't do much of anything related to Harry Potter. After driving a little way to get a picture of the viaduct, I kind of wished that we had taken the train ride. The scenery was so beautiful and it would have been fun going over the viaduct. So, next time we come to Scotland, I think we'll ride the train.

So we left the viaduct and started driving up to Inverness through Glencoe. This part of Scotland (and to the North) is the Highlands and the lower part is the Lowlands. The Highlands are absolutely beautiful. Green and hilly and beautiful purple flowers everywhere with lots of waterfalls.

The beautiful purple flowers that were all over the countryside.

Driving through Glencoe.

Scotland also has an animal here called "hairy coos". We only saw a handful and couldn't get a decent picture driving past them--but they were sure cute. I found this picture on the internet.

They are shaggy Highland cattle--with their hair falling into their eyes. We just had a fun time saying "hairy coos" with a scottish accent. Lydia is pretty good at it.

Driving up north we drove past Loch Ness, which was pretty long and skinny. It's 24 miles long, less than a mile wide and is the 3rd deepest lake in Europe. Right on the banks of Loch Ness is a neat old castle, which unfortuneatly was closed by the time we got there. We took some pictures of it though while standing on the closed gate. It's called Urquhart Castle. It looked pretty neat, kind of like the one in Dundonald.

Garrett by Loch Ness (Has he grown some Scottish red hair on this trip?)

Castle Urquhart

We had planned to stop at the Loch Ness Visitor's Center (there were two actually). Our guide book said that they were open until 8 and 9 pm. We got there around7 pm and they were both closed. We were disappointed that we couldn't go in. But, we got our picture taken with Nessie (it's kind of funny talking about that name after just reading Breaking Dawn.)

After that we drove up to Inverness and checked into our bed and breakfast and then walked to town to find some dinner. Inverness was a really beautiful town. It had a beautiful castle upon a hill and a river right next to our B&B with bridges over it and a fun High Street. A lot of the high streets here don't allow cars to drive on them. So, its just a big sidewalk with tons of people. I really liked that.


Inverness Castle

Overlooking the River at dusk. Our bed and breakfast was on the left side of the river somewhere. I'm not sure if it's in the picture or not.

Inverness City Centre

We were so sick of American fast food by this time that Garrett and I decided to try a real restaurant. We found one called Number 27. Technically they shouldn't have let us in because they have a bar in front and restaurant in back. Kids aren't allowed in after a certain time because of the alcohol served. We had quite a few people staring at us I guess because of this fact. I just thought they were staring because its always a circus wherever we go trying to stash two strollers, and trying to get the kids to sit down and not cry about wanting to sit somewhere else. This is why we don't try more restaurants here. It's such a pain. Paige wouldn't eat anything--she just cried--she was really tired--so we put her in her stroller and she fell asleep. Bella fell asleep in my arms. Lydia ordered food but wouldn't eat it because she was too tired. It was probably 9 at night--too late to eat @ a nice restaurant! After we raced to finish our food, we walked back to the B&B and went to bed.
Walking home from dinner. Paige fast asleep. Bella wide awake after having a nap during dinner. You gotta love her little smile!

Scotland Day 2

Edinburg Castle

This morning we drove to Edinburg to go to the Edinburg castle. We'd heard a lot of good things about it, so were excited to go. Unfortuneately, it was kind of a frustrating day with the kids. Bella seemed to want to eat all the time for one thing. Next time I go anywhere with a baby, I'm going to buy a bottle warmer. We'd fill our bottles with water before leaving, but they'd be cold by the time she wanted to eat. And most times she won't drink the bottle if it's cold. So sometimes I can find a microwave in a cafe or something, but if not, I have to find a bathroom and hold the bottle under the hot running water and warm it up that way. Backtracking a little in my story here--we bought tickets for the castle before we left the hotel (on the internet). We did this to avoid the long ticket lines which would no doubt take at least an hour to get through. So we got to the castle and walked past the long lines and got right in. We felt pretty good about planning ahead. By then Bella was hungry so we sat on the bench to feed her but the bottle was cold and she wouldn't drink it. So, I tracked down a bathroom and went to warm it up--which felt like it took 20 minutes--then got back to the bench to find a screaming Bella and very frustrated Garrett who was trying to make another bottle to console her. So, Garrett finally got her fed, with me taking the girls to the bathroom while we were waited. When all that was done we thought we could start looking around--but Paige had to go to the bathroom again, so Garrett took her this time. By the way, Paige has recently been potty trained! Garrett started before we left and she has done really well. She rarely has any accidents. We're surprised that she's done so well, considering she was so against it for so long. It just goes to show that they have to be the ones to decide that they are ready. She even wears underwear at night! That's a first for us. So, anyways, back to the story--when they got back from the bathroom, I kid you not, we walked up the path for two minutes before Paige had to go to the bathroom again! It was like this all day--feeding and bathroom breaks. So we were kind of in a cranky mood--especially since we had wasted an hour just sitting there when we tried to avoid that by pre-buying tickets. Oh well! We did get to look around at a lot of stuff and the castle was pretty neat. But, honestly by this time we had seen a lot of castles and this one didn't really offer anything new or different, so we were kind of done with castles. Plus by this time it was raining quite a bit, so we decided to leave the castle.

View of Edinburg from the castle

We did walk down the Royal Mile, which is the street connecting the castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. (This is where the Queen lives for one week during the summer.) We didn't get to see that, though. But the Royal Mile was a neat street with beautiful buildings and abbeys.
Picture of beginning part of the Royal Mile from the castle.
It was terribly crowded, though. During the whole month of August there are all sorts of festivals going on in Edinburg. We were there during something called "Fringe" where there were a bunch of different people performing all up and down the mile. Some people were singing, playing instruments, dancing, etc. One guy was on a unicycle and was juggling with knives and flames--which was pretty cool. It was crazy there--almost too much for me. I really don't like crowds of people.

Part of the Festival

We walked around town some more trying to find our car and we ran into two missionaries. We stopped to talk to them for a minute--one was from England and the other was from Sweden. I just thought it was neat to see them in action. After we found our car we went back to our hotel and Garrett took the girls swimming while I got Bella fed and put to sleep. The girls love to go swimming, so that was probably the highlight of their day. This wasn't our most eventful day, but with kids, you can't really pack a bunch into one day. It just doesn't work. :) We would like to come some day without the kids. I bet it would be a whole different experience!!

New Blogger

Okay, since I'm a new blogger I get to have mistakes, right? I can't figure out why the videos I post always come in double. I don't do that on purpose, so just ignore that until I can get it figured out!

Scotland Day 1

This past weekend we drove up to Scotland. We left Saturday morning and drove most of the day. It took us 7 hours with stops. We probably should have left Friday night and driven at least part of the way, so that we could've had a little more time there. On Saturday in a place called Dundonald, they were having Highland Games that we wanted to go see. The games consist of big burly scottish guys in kilts lifting heavy logs and throwing them and stuff. We thought it seemed pretty cool. They actually have these Highland Games all throughout the summer with each town having them at various times. There were a couple more that same weekend we were there, but we had other things planned. So by the time we arrived in Dundonald, we had missed most of the games. This one was held at an old castle called Dundonald Castle. It was high up on this tall hill that we had to climb up. This was a really neat old castle. There was a big open room on the ground floor and then the second floor had a walkway around the edge looking down on the ground floor. Then we climbed up this tiny spiral staircase to the next floor. The roof had collapsed, so it was open up top. There were tiny rooms on the ends; but we weren't sure

what they were for. It didn't look like there were any bedrooms, but who knows. It wasn't a very big castle.

Dundonald Castle

View from top floor
Girls being silly in the castle




Hansen girls--you'll appreciate this: when we were coming back down the stairs to the main level of the castle, there was one girl practicing on the bagpipes and she was playing the beginning part of the "The Kiss" from Last of the Mohicans. It was so cool! It sounded just like it did in the movie.

Anyways, it was neat to see such an old castle. There was even a small prison down underneath that they called the pit. You climb donw this ladder into a small opening and there was a small room with no windows or doors. Spooky!

After looking at the castle, we went back down to the games--which was a grassy field, which thanks to all the rain was a complete muddy mess. The busdriver warned us that we should have brought our wellies (rain boots) but I hadn't even thought of bringing those when I was packing. The would've come in handy, though. Like I said earlier, we missed most of the games which we were upset about, but we did get to see the tug-o-war--and that was it. At the end, they had at least 20 different pipe bands (bagpipe players and drummers) who all got together and played the same song and marched in this field. It was pretty awesome to hear that big of a group play. You'll have to watch the video and hear for yourself. The whole atmosphere of the games was pretty awesome--we've decided that the next time we come back to Scotland, we want to spend a whole day at one of these things.

The Pipe Bands

After that, we had to keep driving to our hotel near Glasgow. When we finally got there we all had to go to the bathroom. Maggie was the first one to get in the bathroom, but when she was done, she couldn't get the lock open. I guess it was stuck (or really hard to turn--come to find out.) Garrett got out his leatherman and tried to pick the lock, but couldn't get it. So he called the front desk and had someone come up to help. They kept trying to get her to turn it each way, but it still wasn't working. Finally, they had to take the handle off the door and use Garrett's leatherman to get it unlocked. She was in there for a good 20 minutes. Luckily she kept calm the whole time and didn't freak out. She told me later that she had said a prayer to help her get out and she felt calm while she waited. I'm glad she knew she could turn to Heavenly Father for help. Garrett was worried that they'd have to take the door off. Luckily, it didn't come to that!