Gloucester

Gavin and I took a day trip up to Gloucester to visit the Abbey that is there. Gloucester is about 90 minutes away from Bristol and is a fairly small town right next to the Welsh boarder.

The High Street. It was really crowded since it was a Saturday.

The Gloucester Abbey. It was built in about 1022 and dedicated to St. Peter. In 1540, Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey and it became a cathedral instead.

There was a sculpture exhibit going on that day. Some of them were really weird.

The cloisters. One of the Harry Potter films was filmed here. I think a couple of the later ones.

I love the intricate details in the ceiling.

The garden area by the cloisters.

Me and the turtle statue.

We're not exactly sure what this statue is, but it looked like a missile or a submarine.

Like in most cathedrals and abbeys, there are graves everywhere. I still haven't gotten used to walking over some one's grave like that.

This was my favorite sculpture in the Abbey. I loved the detail of the alter, as well.

This was used in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. They still use is in important ceremonies.

This is the grave of King Edward II

King Edward II. I heard that these sculptures on their coffins are usually carved from their death masks and are an accurate depiction of what the person looked like.

Inside the cathedral. I loved all of the stained glass everywhere.

It was a little awkward to be walking around and taking pictures because they were preparing for a baptism of a baby. They had that section roped off, but still. It was a little weird.

I loved this stained glass because it looks more like a drawing. I've never seen any like this before.

Robert, Duke of Normandy, who died while being held prisoner by his younger brother King Henry I.

One of the more interesting sculptures.

The choir benches.

Looking up at the ceiling. It still amazes me how tall these buildings are.

One of the side hallways along the main cathedral.

Oxford

We took a day trip to visit the city of Oxford. It was such an interesting city. We were expecting a typical college town, where there is a main campus for the college and the city around it. However, Oxford University is the city. Each college withing Oxford is a different building within the city and it's a little hard to tell what's part of the university and what's not.

The outside of Christ Church.

Christ Church.

This is the main dining room. It's what the one in Harry Potter was modeled after. You can only visit this during certain hours because it is still in use by the students in the college.

The head table.

The grand staircase in Christ Church.

The Christ Church courtyard. I think the dorms are along it.

The cathedral in Christ Church.

The organ.

The clock outside the Church.

The court yard of one of the colleges.

Part of the University's botanical garden.

The botanical garden.

The river Thames.

Oxford students have to wear their robes at all time. They are just like graduation robes.

I loved the details in the architecture here. Most buildings had gargoyles and faces on the buildings.

This is to show how big the doors are. That's a normal sized door in the middle.

Entrance to the library.

Library

Around the library, there were different entrances for different sections of the library with Latin above them.

I loved walking around and looking at all of the different buildings.



Our rental car this time was a stick. It took Gavin a bit to get used to driving a stick with his left hand. He kept stalling at first because he was putting it into third gear since he couldn't quite reach first gear. Once he got the hang of it, he did really well.
We had another beautiful sunset on the way home.
We loved visiting Oxford. It was such a nice, beautiful city/campus.

Tracy's Thoughts on Portugal.

I just wanted to add a couple of things that Gavin didn't mention in his blog posts on Portugal.

Gavin seemed to do really well with the language. I know he hasn't had many chances since his mission to speak it, and he was really worried that he wouldn't be able to speak well. From what I can tell and from what a couple of people have told me, Gavin was speaking fluently, like he never left.

Gavin was speaking so fluently that he actually started speaking to me in Portuguese. Then he would stare at me like I was an idiot for a minute before I would finally tell him to speak English. This happened more than Gavin would care to admit.

When he was writing his blog posts, he actually wrote parts of it in Portuguese.

One funny moment was when I wanted to buy a hand painted baking dish and the lady selling it didn't speak English and I didn't speak Portuguese. I would ask her a question, then look at Gavin to translate for me, then she would answer me, then look at Gavin to translate for her. Took a little bit, but we finally made it.

The bolos were amazing!

While walking around, we met a little gatinha (baby kitty). Her mom was sitting on a fence and we stopped to pet her. Her owner came out and started talking to us. Gavin told him that we thought she was really cute, but he said he had cuter ones. Then the baby kitty came out to say hi.

I was the one who told Gavin the little boy at the church was scamming us. He was ready to pay him. ;)

My favorite part was meeting the people from his mission and seeing how much they loved him. Even after ten years, they still remembered him and spoke of what a wonderful missionary he was. A couple of people even spoke about him during testimony meeting about how much the appreciated Elder Verde not just because he was a missionary, but because he showed an interest in them as people and their culture. They kept making references to him wanted to learn how to make a traditional soup recipe. Even those I met who had no interest in the church talked about how much they enjoyed talking with Gavin because he showed a genuine interest in them.

It was really neat to see a place so important to Gavin. It was such a beautiful place filled with wonderful people.