England with Glenn
Glenn arrived on Monday and we’ve been conquering England the last few days. Tomorrow morning at 4am we’re off to Switzerland, but before we go, here’s what we’ve done so far.
Oxford city wall in New College On Monday we wandered around Oxford. The picture at left is of the old city wall inside New College. Mostly we just took in the standard tourist sights, and frequent readers will be familiar with them by now.
Glenn at Buckingham Palace We visited London for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and took a tour of Westminister Hall, the home of the British Parliament. Glenn went back on Friday for a visit to the British Museum.
Wednesday. You may have noticed a short note about the joys of sleeping that was posted Wednesday night. That’s because Glenn thought it would be a good idea to force me to go through ridiculous amounts of pain and bike 44 miles. 44 MILES! That’s 70.8 kilometres for those in metric land. That was painful.
Stonehenge Perhaps I should tell you where we actually went on Wednesday, seeing as how I’m complaining about the distance and all. We took the train to Salisbury and visited the very old (dating from 1220) Salisbury Cathedral. After lunch, we started our bike trip. We cycled about 11 miles to Stonehenge, where someone a long time ago accidentally left some rocks lying around. 
After 40 miles of biking We continued on some 23 miles over rolling hills to the Avebury Stone Circle, where we had dinner with 200 motorcycle bikers. With only 1.5 hours until we had to catch our train, we booted it for the last 11 miles to the train station in Pewsey, and I was particularly happy to arrive in the town. But we made it with time to spare.
Thursday, as you might expect, was a slow day, spent in Oxford. We went punting and had tea and cake in an old church cafe. Quiet. No biking. It was great. Friday Glenn went to London while I worked on my dissertation. No really, I actually did work. I swear.
Paper input tape and controls of Colossus computing device Today we were pure geeks and went to Bletchley Park where the British codebreaking went on during World War II. The folks there have reconstructed a Colossus machine (at left) which was based on the work of University of Waterloo Professor Emeritus Bill Tutte, who broke the German “fish” code while working at Bletchley Park. We saw an Enigma machine and the corresponding British machine “bombe” used to break it. 
Release of messenger pigeons in World War II By far the most unusual sight at the Park was the Pigeons at War museum, which contains information about how pigeons were used to carry secure messages during the War. Did you know that messenger pigeons could be released from aircraft in flight at speeds of up to 200 knots? Now you do.
Tomorrow morning we’re off to Switzerland, to spend some time in and around the Interlaken area where Laura and I visited briefly on my last trip. Then we’re off to Vienna, Bratislava (to spend some time with Stebila relatives), and then Prague. We’ll try to update you along the way. In the mean time, be sure to check out the rest of the pictures from our jaunt in jolly old England.
Comment by Lino
Doug, I love the picture of Stonehenge, something about the clouds.
Comment by Patrick
How was Avebury.. I hear its far more impressive than the henge. However I only found this out when I GOT to stonehenge and never had a chance to see it.
Also there is a little town half way between salsbury and the henge, amesbury if I’m not mistaken. it has a really cool normanesque cathedral and a few really good pub/restaurants. Very quaint.
Cheers,
P
