Latest happenings

First and foremost, if you've been following the international news, you'll know that a volcano erupted in Iceland on Wednesday, and the ash cloud has proceeded to cover most of Europe. Although this doesn't directly affect me, it has come at a very inconvenient time for most of my housemates who have now had to scrap their spring break plans for this coming week, since, due to the ash, almost all flights in the UK have been cancelled.

Fortunately, none of my spring break plans involve flying so it's still a go for our grand backpacking adventure through Wales and the English Midlands this week. If all goes as planned, my friend and I will be spending the next few days hiking in the mountains and exploring small towns before we work our way back to London through central England by train and coach.

Most of today has been spent getting ready, but yesterday I tagged along with a few friends on a day trip to Canterbury, about 2 hours southeast of London.

The town center was quaint and touristy, like most we've seen, dominated of course by Canterbury Cathedral.

Our plan was to do all the free things in the area... which turned out to be not very much. Using some free maps from the tourist info center, we walked through a few parks, looked at the ruined abbey from afar, and for lunch we had a picnic at another local park, enclosed by an old medieval wall.

In one corner of the park was a tall monument on a mound, which we all climbed to take in the impressive views. It's a decent city, but there isn't a whole lot to Canterbury besides the few ruins and the cathedral.

A little wind-blown Blue Tit!

Nonetheless, we managed to make a full day of it there and especially had fun walking along the medieval walls along the park. It's very strange to see something like that right next to a busy city road!

Eventually we came upon an old Norman Castle, which I thought was really cool. You could go inside of it, and even walk up the spiral staircase into one of the turrets. Again, it was really funny to have something like that sitting in the middle of a city, literally in some peoples' backyards.

A pretty canal in another garden.

Eventually, we ran out of free things to do, and, with 3 hours to kill before our coach ride back to London, we finally gave in and spent £7 to go inside Canterbury Cathedral. And boy, was it worth it! The cathedral was massive. There was an enormous nave, quire, chapter house, a dark crypt, and a great cloister outside. It was all just gorgeous.

Once we had seen all of the inside, we wandered around the back, where we found even more. There was an old monastery and garden, and several large, empty rooms. It was just spectacular, and incredible how old and well-preserved everything was. It was definitely worth £7 and made our day in Canterbury just that much more enjoyable.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Wales so I probably won't post again until next weekend.

Until next time,

Cheers!