"...And we had the pagans in Britain... And they built Stonehenge. One of the biggest henges in the world! No-one's built a henge like that ever since. No-one knows what the fuck a henge is..." - Eddie Izzard



We arrived in London on May 31 and rented a car to get to Oxford. This was my first experience of driving in Britain. As you all must know, cars are driven on the wrong side (ahem, I mean, left side... opposite of right is not always wrong...) of the road here. What's more, the driver sits on what we would call the passenger side of the vehicle. This is actually what threw me off a little at first, as I'm used to being in a certain position relative to the lanes on the road. Monika got a little antsy a couple times when I drifted closer to the curb or shoulder than she would have liked. After a few minutes, though, that was no longer a problem either. Driving manual with the stick in the left hand wasn't really a big deal at all, mostly thanks to the fact that the clutch, brake, and gas are still in their usual North American configuration. Road junctions and roundabouts were quite new and different, but manageable as long as you stay concentrated at all times on exactly what it is you're doing.



We stopped in Oxford where we stayed with Monika's friend Nuala who is doing her phD there. We got to see some the university, and got a very good tour of some of the local pubs. The beer and food was good, as was the company, since we shared the evening with Nuala and some of her collegemates and friends.


The next stop was Stonehenge. One of the problems with the most amazing places on Earth is that they often become tourist traps. This, of course, detracts from the amazement these sites should evoke. Before travelling to Europe, I read up on people's experiences from their visits to Stonehenge. Basically you travel in a horde of tourists along a cordoned path around the stones, never getting a chance to actually walk up to or between any of them or to be any further than a metre away from the next person. The site is also next to a road which gets pretty busy and loud during the day. It cuts so close that many people stop on the shoulder and just snap pictures through the fence since it's not really much further than the cordoned path.





Luckily, you can book to see the Henge outside of regular hours, when they let you in for an hour to walk freely amongst the stones. Best of all, these touring hours are limited to 25 people at a time. So, we got up at "the ungodly hour" (as it was aptly put by Chris, Nuala's housemate) of 4:15 am and headed off for our reserved touring at 6:15. But getting to go right up to the stones, and getting to just stroll around with so few people about (even the traffic on the road was light), made it totally worth it. It allowed us to actually soak in some of the mystery of the site, without having it all dispersed in a tumult.