Alright, I split up the past week into four entries, because it's easier to put up pictures when there's less text to work around. This and the three entries below it are about the past Thursday through Sunday. Nothing interesting happened in the rest of the week before then.

On Thursday, I went to Oxford, and from there went to South Leigh. Before that, though, I just wandered around the city center and took pictures of all the colleges. Oxford is seriously full of colleges, and they're all amazing to look at. I then went to the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, which has a very high tower that gives pretty good views of the city. It was after going up the tower that I took the bus to South Leigh, and there's more information about that in the next entry.

After I got back from South Leigh, there was still a bit of daylight left (I got to Oxford around 9 in order to make sure I got see everything before it got dark at 5) so I went to Christ Church. This is where parts of Harry Potter were filmed, and it's a really pretty place, though not as impressive as I was told.

I really enjoyed Oxford, but there isn't a whole lot to say about it, because all I really did there was walk around and take pictures. Plus, nothing terrible happened to me, so it was almost boring in comparison to some of my other outings. South Leigh was amusing, but Oxford was just really pretty. Also really cold. I think this was one of the coldest days that I've been traveling on.

This entry's really lame, partially because it's the last one I'm writing and it's late here in England right now. I'm sorry. The others are good, though, I promise. Here's some pictures of Oxford. This first is of St. Mary the Virgin, and the next three are views from the church's tower (I don't really know what of, but it's pretty). The next three are from around Christ Church, and then there's two more just of the city itself, and the last one is of Oxford's oldest building. Sorry I don't have a better picture of it, but I just remembered it on my way back to the train station to go home.

My trip to Cerne Abbas will forever hold the title of "Worst Walk Ever", but getting to South Leigh comes in at a very close second. I think that South Leigh is the farthest from civilization that I have ever been, and it was a little bit awful since I was so alone and it was pretty cold out, but the area itself is very pretty, and the church was worth going to see.

From Oxford, I took a half-hour bus to a place (if you can call it that) called High Cogges (pronounced "cogs", as I learned after confusing the crap out of the bus driver). From this "place" I had to walk another half hour down the loneliest street I've ever been on until it literally dead ended at a cul-de-sac called South Leigh. South Leigh consists of a village hall, a couple houses, and St. James the Great. Luckily St. James is an adorable church, with some very nice Medieval artwork, so it was worth the trip. It also has what I find to be the most hilarious piece of stained glass ever, which I like to call "The Disgruntled Jesus". It's of John the Baptist preaching to a group of people, and Jesus is in the background looking extremely off put by the whole situation. Perhaps he's jealous of all the attention? In any case, there's a picture of it below.

When I finally made it back to High Cogges, I had to wait around a half hour for a bus to show up, which was really pitiful because it was so cold out and I was seriously the only person around. But I got back and finished my Oxford visit just fine.

On Friday I just did a little shopping in Bristol and hung out with friends, and got ready for even more traveling on Saturday.

Here are the South Leigh pictures. The first is of High Cogges, my bus stop, and the next is of the road I had to walk down to get to South Leigh. Then there's the village hall, and the outside of St. James the Great. The next two are of some of the artwork inside the church, and last but not least, The Disgruntled Jesus.

On Saturday, I went to Coventry and Stratford-Upon-Avon. I did both in one day, which was really not a good idea because it wore me out entirely, because they are both around three or more hours from Bristol, but only an hour and a half away from each other, and it costs much less for a bus between the two cities than for train tickets to each individually from Bristol. It took a bit of planning, but I managed to get what I needed from both places on the same day.

The train to Coventry is over three hours, so I was going to be leaving around 7 in the morning, but unfortunately that's about when I woke up. Luckily I caught the 8:00 and it really ended up not making much of a difference, because I got done sooner than I thought I would.

Now Coventry is the most normal-looking town I have been to so far, in that it's not a very touristy place to go. The reason I was there was the Holy Trinity Church, which contains a Last Judgment painting that I wanted to see for my thesis. Just across the street from it is the Coventry Cathedral, which, I have to say, is one of the most amazing places I have been to yet, aside from Wells Cathedral. First of all, it's a modern building, which is amazing in and of itself after all these weeks of Medieval churches. Also, it's built on the ruins of the original Coventry Cathedral, some of which is still standing, because the whole city was pretty much done in during one of the WW's (I don't remember which). This fact is also what accounts for Coventry looking more like a city that I'm used to, since most of it is fairly new in comparison to everything I've seen so far.

In any case, there really isn't much else to see (in my case, anyway) except for those two churches, so once I got done there I moved on to Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Here are some pictures, the first seven are from the Coventry Cathedral: two of the outside (that massive statue is of the archangel Michael defeating Satan), one of the ruins from the original cathedral, and four from the inside of the new part. The next three are from the Holy Trinity Church, which was actually so poorly lit that I had a hard time documenting the Judgment Day painting. My cellphone actually worked better than my digital camera, but these are what I have on my camera of the building.

After spending a few hours in Coventry, I took a bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is around an hour and a half, in order to see another church. SUA is also where Shakespeare was born, so there's a little section of town where is house if preserved that's dedicated to him. The town is really cute, but not all that impressive, especially since it's the home of one of literature's greatest contributors. In any case, I only spent about two hours there before I had to catch another bus back to Coventry in order to catch my train home.

On the way from the bus stop to the train station I got lost, and being in a strange town in the dark with no idea where I'm going is never fun. I got there eventually, though, and even caught an earlier train, so I got home about an hour before I thought I would. My shoes, however, are completely done. The left one has received some sort of puncture wound on the heel that goes all the way through, meaning that any water that would be repelled by the water-proofing spray on it is simply absorbed through the bottom, soaking my entire foot. My plan is to buy some cheap ones to hold me over for the next week tomorrow, because I really can't have shoes like that in the rainiest city of the rainiest country in the world.

Almost the whole weekend was spent in transit, but it was still really fun. But I didn't even know how tired I was until I actually went to bed and didn't wake up until after noon on Sunday. It was rough. It's weird to think that, in thirteen days, I'm going to be heading home. I had put that god-awful flight in so far out of my mind that I forgot about it, and now I'm having flashbacks and getting nervous for the return.

In any case, here's some pictures from Stratford-Upon-Avon. The first is of Shakespeare's birthplace, the two of the church I came there to see, and two more just of things in the center of town.