Tuesday, we got up and took the train to Dumfries. Again, the scenery was simply stunning. When we got to Dumfries, we wandered the streets for a really long time, trying to find either the tourist information center or the proper bus stop to take us out to Ruthwell.
We did find the bus stop, and hopped on at the last minute for a 40 minute ride out into the middle of nowhere. Seriously, the bus stop was next to a farm house and a few cow pastures. It was ridiculous! 
Enchanting, but ridiculous. Anyway, we walked down the road to Ruthwell Church, which houses the Ruthwell Cross. The Ruthwell Cross is an Anglo-Saxon preaching cross with fragments of the poem "The Dream of the Rood" carved on it. 
"The Dream of the Rood" is a fantastic Old English poem portraying Jesus as some sort of warrior king who leaps up onto the cross to be crucified and shows the nails in his hands and feet as arrows. It shows us a lot about Anglo-Saxon culture and how Christianity is easily manipulated to convert as many people as possible. Anyway, Catie and I had read this poem in English 221, so we just had to go see it. After that, we had planned on going back to Dumfries to see the grave of Robert Burns, so we could reunite him and Clarinda in the photographic afterlife, but instead, just got back on the bus straight to Carlisle (which is back in England).In Carlisle, we went to the castle, after walking the entire way around the castle walls looking for the entrance.
It wasn't as informative as Edinburgh Castle, but we did learn all about the Jacobite rebellion in 1745, when there was a dispute as to who would take the throne and the Scottish Highlanders all rallied around Bonnie Prince Charlie and invaded England. Scottish prisoners were held in the dungeons of Carlisle Castle with little food or water, and you can still see where they would lick the stones to get something to drink. Also, Mary, Queen of Scots was held prisoner there before her execution, but that was well before the Jacobite rebellion. 
(This picture has nothing to do with anything I just mentioned. I just thought it was funny to see tanks in a castle.)
That night, we stayed in this lovely little bed and breakfast, which meant that we got our own room and fresh towels and a full English breakfast in the morning. It was such a nice break from hostels! The reason we stayed there was because there are no hostels open in Carlisle in November, not being tourist season. So we went to the public library to use the internet and got Chinese take-away and watched a rerun of the Daily Show, Batman, and some other TV shows. Just watching TV was exciting.And you can see that I am now back to form with the livestock pictures. I spent a good long time looking at the cows when we were at Ruthwell. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go read about the "Kingdom of the English" and freak out about how I'm graduating in just over a year and a half.
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