[album]http://www.thefreefood.net/photos/tags/summer2004partfive/,http://static.flickr.com/35/88615724_952172b492_s.jpg,View more…[/album]

Now that you’ve seen college life at its most … moving, while looking at the pictures from the moving party, it’s time to see some pictures of, well, stuff. This stuff is from the Midlands trip. We stayed for 6 days in the Shropshire county town of Shrewsbury and went on a series of trips to see important sites from the Industrial Revolution (and some other stuff).

We traveled to Ironbridge to see the world’s first cast iron bridge, as well as the furnace where Abraham Darby first smelted coal using coke. We visited Stoke-on-Trent to see how the pottery industry operated in the Revolution, and Wedgwood to see how it operates today. We traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Shakespeare’s birthplace, and to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet. We went to the Lancashire to see how the cotton industry evolved in the Industrial Revolution to displace wool as the dominant fabric, despite the lack of cotton grown in England. We went to the Black Country to experience how the coal industry mined and hauled in hazardous conditions. And finally, we went to Snowdonia, Wales, where we traveled to the summit of the highest point in Wales, and got a sense for just how diverse a place the U.K. is.

To some of you, this undoubtedly sounds pretty cool. And it was. But let’s be honest, if you haven’t been there, a lot of it probably sounds kind of boring. Unlike the next sections of my trip, in Paris and Rome, these are not the sites that most Americans think of or hear about. Hey, even Nathan knew that after awhile: “Well, it’s got a steam engine, and that’s what we do, so we’ll go.”

Maybe these pictures will help. Probably not. I know that. So if you like the pictures, let me know. And if you hate them, let me know too. I liked the Midlands, but I won’t be heartbroken if you don’t.

As for all you monument junkies, don’t worry. Tomorrow we see Paris.

Posted on October 1st, 2004 by Lee
Filed under: Uncategorized