We had a great time in London and had the opportunity to visit Stonehenge, Oxford and Windsor castle. It turns out that you can no longer go up close to the actual Stonehenge rocks and have to stick to a path on the perimiter. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing what kinds of powers would be bestowed onto me when I stepped into the center of the circle. 

We also got a chance to see an incredible Hindu temple that took over 14 years to build using traditional building techniques from Hindu scriptures. Much of the stone was flown in from India and it looks like there's still work to be done before the temple is finished. More info on this temple can be found here. 

OXFORD

Apart from housing world famous Universities, the center of Oxford features the charms of a medieval city. The oldest building, appartently close to 1000 years old, is located on the main shopping street (Cornmarket Street) in this part of town, but it's not the building you would expect from these photos, it's the Saxon Tower of St. Michael just across the street (below).

WINDSOR CASTLE

One of the most fascinating things about Windsor Castle for me was the fact that people actually live there. Yes, inside the Castle. Many families that work in the Castle or service the various ceremonies actually get apartments inside. Neat!

Ok, on to Paris...

Yup, in the UK sign up for a cell phone contract, get a free phone and a free "gift", ie: PS3, LCD TV, Wii, XBox, etc.. 

There's no catch, except that you can only get these deals from 3rd party stores that offer plans for all of the major providers. Our friends signed up for a 2 year contract, got a free Blackberry and 32" TV, their friends got an XBox 360. This won't work for a hot new phone like an iPhone 4S, but will work with last year's models. 

I can only assume that either something shady is going on here or these 3rd party stores get a big enough commission from each customer that they somehow make a profit.