Friday started off really early, as we loaded the coaches to go to Stonehenge. Our tour guide on the bus tried to give us interesting details on the way over (it took approximately 2.5 hours to get there), but none of us were actually awake to listen to her. Also, I don't know where anyone got the idea that Stonehenge was middle of nowhere and that it was difficult to get there. It is situated between the fork of two major roads...I guess the only inconvenience is that you'd have to take a taxi from the nearest train station as opposed to walking or something. Regardless, as the case always seems to be when a trip outside London is involved, the weather was rainy and chilly. We got off the coaches and were given a time limit of around 45 minutes to walk around Stonehenge, and we spent most of that under umbrellas, trying to battle the wind while taking pictures. There is nothing really that I can say about Stonehenge. I am glad to have gotten to see it, but one walk around the pavilion and I was ready to move on. The weather improved towards the end of our visit, so that made hanging around the rocks a little more enjoyable.

This was what the weather was to start out with.

Miranda and I in front of the rocks.

The scene when the weather improved.
After Stonehenge, we boarded the coaches to go to Salisbury, a town about 20 minutes away. Again, the tour guide tried to tell us interesting things about it, but Miranda and I were too busy talking amongst ourselves to hear much (in our defense, the lady was softspoken). I did gather, however, that the steeple of the Salisbury Cathedral is the tallest of all Gothic cathedrals in Europe. They were working on the Cathedral, so part of it was under scaffolding.

Here is the Church and here is the Steeple...

Apparently all this was painted in brilliant colors originally, but restoration during Henry VIII's time stripped the Church of all its colors.

It was pretty amazing inside.
And now for a rant/observation. There is Indian food available everywhere here. Even outside of Indian restaurants. We had lunch at the Salisbury Cathedral cafe and as part of their lunch menu for the day was chicken korma with naan and rice. It was amazingly delicious too. I will continue with this thought when I talk about Haworth.
The group of seven that planned on going to Haworth met after lunch to walk to the railway station. We missed our first available train because my professor was in the bathroom, and so waited another hour until the next train. When we finally boarded the train, we only took it as far as Bristol-Temple Meads, at which point we boarded a train for Leeds. Finding a non-reserved seat amongst all the reserved ones proved to be difficult, but we finally did and settled to talk some more.
We reached Leeds a little after 9pm and immediately boarded the Skipton train to get off at Keighley. From Keighley we took a taxi to our hostel, which looked pretty scary from the outside, but was very warm on the inside. It was close to 10.30 by the time we checked in, and not having had dinner, we decided to get some. The only place open, we were told, was an Indian restaurant about 15 minutes away. Bear in the mind the trouble we took to get to Haworth...and the only place open out there was Indian. I was amazed. The food was very reasonable and very good, and so we headed back close to midnight, stomachs full and eyes droopy.
We woke up early the next morning, had an excellent breakfast (eggs, beans on toast, etc.) and left in pursuit of the Bronte Parsonage. This is what our hostel looked like, by the way.


The girls's room. There were four bunk beds. There were two people in there we didn't know.
Everything in Haworth is hilly. We had to climb a really steep cobblestone-paved hill to go up to the Parsonage, but it was totally worth it. Bronte Village, as the area around the Parsonage is known, is very charming and was still asleep when we got there. So we ventured into the Church were Patrick Bronte, the father, was a parson.

The Church.

View down the street in Bronte Village.
After walking around the Church and reading the memorial stones of the Brontes, we went to the Bronte Parsonage, which is now a museum. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside the museum, so I only have pictures of the outside.


I was completely enchanted with everything I saw and read inside the museum. I saw the couch on which Emily Bronte died, and the room in which Charlotte Bronte did her writing. I saw Branwell Bronte's paintings, and he was very talented; it's a wonder why he was rejected by everyone. Apparently when he was a tutor at a certain Robinson household, he had an affair with Mrs. Robinson....wouldn't it be fantastic if that was the grounds for The Graduate, and consequently the song? That's why I love literature, and the humanities in general; it allows for amazing references. The gift shop is the best I have seen yet, so I was a little self-indulgent, but still did really well with the money.
After the museum, we went in search of the moors. Although it was visible from where we were, it was a hike to actually get into the wilderness beyond civilization. We somehow missed a path leading us to the moors, and had to walk across dung filled sheep fields. I cut my hand on some stone trying not to fall into muddy water, climbed more steep hills, but it was all worth it for these amazing views.




I love that the camera captured the clouds's shadows in the one above.
We hiked almost 5 miles to and fro that day. We were trying to make it to Bronte falls. We never made it to the actual falls, but we made it to Bronte bridge and the stream that runs from the falls.



That's the Bronte bridge.
A long hike (along the path this time) later, we at The Black Bull, the pub where Branwell Bronte drank himself to ruin. We had time to walk around the village before we had to take a steam train back to Keighley and make our way back to London. The steam train was just like the Hogwarts Express. It was a really neat experience.

Everyone that went to Haworth, minus me.

There's our train.
We finally got to Keighley, took a train to Leeds and then got on a train back to London King's Cross. We pulled in to the station a little after 9pm, and finally got back to campus close to 10.30pm. A shower, dinner and sleep were all that were needed to end the day.