Historical Stonehenge and the Buns

This being my second visit to Stonehenge, I found myself reminiscing about the time I spent here with my mom, grandma, and aunts a month and a half ago.  Back then it was still August and still tourist season.  There had been loads of people here, with traffic jams as we tried to park out car.  In fact this fenced area had been opened to allow for even more parking.  The sheep had been penned somewhere else. 

To spare everyone else from our American driving, we parked our Volvo waaaaaay out in the field where no one else was.  It was kind of hysterical.  I had another laugh about it (wishing my family were there still to laugh with me) as we walked through the now empty parking lot.  When we first arrived we were the sole group.  In this circumstance, Stonehenge somehow seemed much more ancient and real.
Some of the other BYU girls were complaining about how "anticlimactic" they found stonehenge to be.  "It's not as big as I thought it looks in the pictures."  

I laughed and thought of the typical rule that I introduced in my blog a long time ago.  Americans think that bigger is better.  The British think that older is better.  I think Stonehenge is kind of big and old.  A skyscraper would dwarf it, of course.  A skyscraper is modern and built with machinery.  Considering that it was somehow dragged hundreds of miles by primitive people over 5,000 years ago... I think it's amazing.

Has anyone been dying to see what our bus looks like?  Here it is.  As I approached the bus I called to my English professor, "Dr. Paxman, I need a picture of the coach, would you like to pose with it?"  He immediately tore off his baseball cap, chucked it inside of the bus, smoothed the few hairs that are still on his head, and then struck this pose.  It is now the most popular picture circulating within the Center.  I love this guy- you never know what he's going to do!

Bath was another second visit for me.  I really love this city, and was stoked to go back.  On my first visit, Diane had told us about the famous "Sally Lunn's Buns."  After seeing the Roman baths we rushed through the narrow streets to find this- the oldest house in the whole city, dating from the 1620s.  When we squeezed into the little hallway we were told (ever so rudely) that the buns had all been sold for the day.

My family was devastated.  They made me promise that when I returned to Bath I must get ahold of a Sally Lunn bun and describe to them, in excruciating detail, exactly what it tastes like.

We made it, and we got our bun.  First, a little history:

In 1680 a refugee from war-torn France came to Bath and found work with a baker.  Solange Luyon must have been too difficult for the English tongue, because she soon became known as Sally Lunn.  It was she who helped the bakery become famous when she introduced to the bakery some French tricks.  Her recipe was kept a secret, and kept people coming back for more- even the rich and famous. 

This is what the kitchen looked like when Sally was baking in it.  (That's right, England has museums for everything.)

In the 1930s Sally's recipe was discovered in a secret cupboard over a fireplace.  So now it has been resurrected, although the recipe is still kept a secret and is passed down only with the deed of the house.

So here is me eating it.  Because it is absolutely enormous, Sarah and I split it.  The thing cost three pounds.  Apparently if you dine in then they will do all kinds of fancy things to your bread.  They can glaze it in almost anything, it sounded like.  We just bought it and ate it plain.

Here's the detail:

Despite the size it was light and fluffy.  Imagine the best French bread you've ever had.  That's what it tasted like.  Nothing extremely different about it except that it was extremely good.  It was French bread perfected.  I can't even imagine how good it would have been with butter or a glaze of some kind.  

As we walked around Bath we kept seeing this guy.  He would juggle around a little bit... mostly just dropping his torches every other second... and then pack up and move down the street further.  I guess he kept hoping to catch a new crowd that hadn't seen him biff it earlier.  He was everywhere.
Back at the baths!

This is Stourhead.

If you can, click that picture and take a closer look.  Or even google the place and look at pictures taken by people who actually know how to use a camera.  Stourhead is, without a doubt, the most beautiful place I've ever seen.  

It is the location of the part of the film Pride and Prejudice with Kira Knightly, when Mr. Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth.  If you have ever seen it, it is raining and they are standing under what looks like a temple.  It is called Apollo's Temple, and it is here.  We actually didn't get to see it because it is currently hidden behind scaffolding.  At first I thought this would be a bummer but the rest of the place was so gorgeous that I didn't even think twice about it.

These gardens are very old, but I love the way it was done and how it is still maintained.  We were asked to compare it to the gardens of Versailles.  We haven't gone as a group yet, but I actually had the privilege of going there almost three years ago.

I remember learning that Crazy King Louis XIV wanted to see something different every day when he looked out into his grand, geometric gardens.  And so every night the servants would be digging up plants, replanting them, trimming them- every night to appease the king.  And although the gardens there are beautiful, the hand of man is clearly evident in the design.

At Stourhead the idea was to simply enhance the beauty that nature already provides.  The little grotto there seems to just be part of the nature, made of stone and keeping the statues hidden in nooks with waterfalls.  Everything just fits.  It's the perfect garden.