Tell me how Wales was made so happy as to inherit such a haven

So now we're on the third day of my trip west, which brings us to Wales!  That's right people, like the country of Wales.  I was probably most excited about this part of the trip.  We went to Tintern Abbey in Wales, and it was really neat to see all of the road signs written in both English and Welsh.  Welsh is a really strange language and I wouldn't be able to even try to begin to figure out some of the words if it weren't for the fact that it was also written in English.

But the abbey was really neat.  I found a nice window that I climbed up to sit in for like fifteen minutes to just think and look around me and write.  There were all of these gorgeous tree covered hillsides around and beautiful clouds and blue skies (I swear we've had the very best luck with weather) and this great huge abbey that was so tall that you couldn't believe it.  The most interesting part was the smell, because it smelt really old but because it's been open to the fresh air the whole time it doesn't smell musty and stale like most old places.  Anyway, apparently we weren't supposed to get up on any part of the abbey because one of the ladies in charge came around and told us all to get down (there were several of us in windows).  Which was alright, because I wanted to circle the abbey in any case.

This is me at the front of Tintern Abbey, or Abaty Tyndyrn if you're Welsh.

It was just one of the most peaceful experiences that I've had and it was cool to go to the room where they copied scriptures nearly a thousand years ago.  Really I think it's been one of the best parts of the trip so far.

Anyway, after we left the Abbey we went to Chipping Campden, which is this absolutely adorable random town in the Cotswolds.  We bought these absolutely delicious sandwiches for lunch with really good bread (although to be honest I think the best sandwich bread I've had so far was in Greenwich when I bought a sandwich for lunch there.  Sandwiches are cheap, so we buy a lot of them) and just wandered around the town.

The town was absolutely beautiful.  There were sheep fields and all of the houses are made of this light limestone and have ivy and roses growing all over them.  And all of the houses have plaques on them saying what the name of the house is like "Molly's Cottage" or "Spring Corner" or other cute things.  Calling the Weasley's house the Burrow all the time makes so much more sense now.

See how the vines just grow right up the house?

I took an awful lot of pictures of roses on houses while in the town, but the house above doesn't have any.  I basically think that I want to move to this town and cover one of these adorable stone houses with roses.  I may have a bit of an obsession.

Anyway, then we drove up to another small little town (I didn't ever quite catch the name) and went on a "walk" through the countryside that was really a small hike.  And guess what?  We passed a MANOR on the way.  Yeah, a real English manor.  Complete with their horse pastures, a clock on the house, and deer hunting grounds.  It was really neat, and the countryside was so beautiful.  We just walked through sheep fields and looked out over the valley that was so green and beautiful.  Apparently there's just these trails all over Britain and you could basically walk anywhere in the country.

Actually, while we were in Chipping Camden we ran into these two nice elderly gentlemen who had just walked into town.  They had taken the last nine days to walk from Bath to Chipping Camden where we were, which is about 100 miles.  Um, yeah.  They would just walk for the day and stay in some small town, buy some food in the morning and fill up their water, walk some more that day until they reached the next town.  You know, just for fun.  It's like backpacking without actually having to carry everything that you need.  I think it sounds perfectly splendid.

Yeah, so then we went back to Bristol, and because it was Molly's birthday and we were her roommates whilst in Bristol, so we bought pizza and a small carrot cake and had a party in our bedroom.

Pizza!  We were, as I so cleverly said, eating American food, listening to Eastern music (I forgot to mention the really cool music that I bought in Bath), and sitting in England all just to have a birthday party.  Although I suppose that you could argue that pizza's Italian.

Anyway, it was a fabulous day filled with lots of walking, but really just so wonderful.  I fall more and more in love with England every day, particularly the English countryside.