Saturday Afternoon Exploring Bristol

The weather continues to be warm and so this afternoon I took off to explore downtown Bristol. Besides stopping in a few stores along the way (Barnes and Noble, a used book store, supermarket, etc.) it was mainly a downhill walk. At the used bookstore I scored a three year old travel guide book for Britain and Ireland for 1.50 pounds (around $2.55), who says everything is so expensive here. Actually many things you can count on costing twice what they cost in the U.S.

Along the way I saw some old church buildings - Baptist, Methodist, and Church of England. I walked up the hill to the University of Bristol and it happened to be the weekend back for the students. One of the pictures I've included here is of one of their principle buildings - it looks a little like a cross between a church and a tower. Again, everything has such a long history here. I stopped at the main Cathedral (a church has been setting on that spot for over 1,000 years and some of the oldest part of the structure dates back to 1140 CE. It just so happened that it was time for the Saturday Choral Evensong Worship service. The choir sang beautifully though I could not tell if it was always in English, and the OT reading was from Exodus 19:1-8 (incidentally, I will be looking at Ex. 19:6 this next week in my research) and John 20:1-18 about the resurrection of Jesus. The prayer time was a long pastoral prayer for the city, nation, poor, the attenders of the service, and for prayer requests that people had written and left before. Before a young ordinand, who looked like Orlando Bloom in "Pirates of the Caribbean" with the long hair in a pony tail and dressed in an all black robe came and told me there was not photography to be take, I took a shot of the inside of the cathedral and the tomb cut out of the wall of Abbot William Hunt, 1473-1481. His curacy predates Columbus discovering the Americas by 11 years!

After the service I went down to the floating harbor. The Avon River flows through the city and the tidal changes causes it to rise and fall. It was a pretty cool place on a warm Saturday afternoon and there were a lot of people out. There were ferries that would take people up and down the harbor. I decided to walk and ended up at the museum of the SS Great Britain, the first screw propeller ship. Before catching a ferry across the river to catch a bus back to the school, I spotted this pirate ship that takes people up and down the river, and they even let you dress like pirates! Ho, ho, ho!