Stonehenge

Dear Readers,
So I finally got back to Stonehenge! My Welsh friend from my last trip to Wales came with me and we had an absolute blast. Salisbury is an amazing city with so many old buildings and monuments to see. We actually got a tour through Salisbury and the surrounding plains up to Stonehenge and then back through Amesbury. It was an interesting tour, though I'm not a fan of bus tours since you can't stop and take pictures.
Was I thought it was going to be? No. Was it amazing? Yes. I wish I could have run around amongst the stones. It would have been cool to have gotten a closer look and imagined myself back in the neolithic times when the site was in use for whatever purpose it was created for. It was incredible to stand in front of a monument that took hundreds of thousands of man hours to create, with a purpose we can only fathom at.
I spent several days relaxing in Wales and immersing myself in the culture. I spent time with my Welsh friend and his family and getting to know some of the customs/sayings/culture of the Welsh, plus some Scottish and English that are in their backgrounds. It was nice to have one on one chat times with people for hours on end about differences in our cultures. Anyone who tells you there are no differences between American English and British English is insane - according to my Welsh friend and family, there are very distinct differences between the Welsh, English, and Scottish English languages, and American's speak a whole other "Strange" English. I would agree, though obviously in my opinion their language is the strange one. We spent hours laughing about how "funny" the other person says certain words.
I came to study abroad to learn about other cultures - its strange that I connected so well with a Welsh family rather than an Irish one, but it was interesting to sit down and have a conversation where half the time I had to say "what do you mean by.... (this word, phrase, etc.). Despite the language barriers though, I had an incredible time, and can't wait to go back for trip #3 at some point in my future!
Well the end of the year is wrapping up and I have a ton of stuff to do! Check in next week for a wrap-up blog on leaving Dublin and my experience here!