Conquering the UK

To all of my dedicated blog fans: I am sorry for letting you down, once again. But I think you will be pleasantly surprised with how many blogs are about to come your way, as the London schedule of the last three weeks begins to fill up with school work and Stacy starts looking for anything else to do, even the dreaded high-pressure blog. I hope you have fun journeying with me throughout the UK, Paris, and all of London for these next few catch-up blogs!

So, like a month ago, our group headed out on the coach to see all of the United Kingdom. Quite a big task, but I think we did pretty well for ourselves. Our first stop was in Liverpool, England, for the sole purpose of the going to the Beatles Museum. That was nice, though, I think my favorite part was the coloring in the kiddies section near the end.

We then hopped back on the coach for a few more lovely hours until we got to Caernarfon, Wales! Here we stayed in THE most adorable family-owned B&B and were served a wonderful homemade meal. One of the only flaws of this place was that there was no Internet (PS – who knew “Internet” was capitalized?). We would soon find this to be a common theme. The next day, after a similarly delicious hot breakfast, we took a tour of Caernarfon Castle, which has some importance that I’ve now forgotten – obviously not THAT important. It was really cool, though, and it was our first castle to tour! We then had 20 minutes to explore the city before we had to get back on the bus to get to our next stop. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Twenty minutes is not sufficient, especially when there’s a food market in town! However, Kaitlyn, Kristen, and I made it work, and even found time to snag a bag of hot, delicious donuts that essentially tasted like mini-funnel cake. AMAZING!

Our next stop was Ambleside, England – part of the Lake District. I learned so many things on this trip, despite being on break from classes. 1) The Welsch people have their own language. YEAH. 2) England has a Lake District! 3) NO ONE BELIEVES IN INTERNET (capitalized) HERE!!!! So anyway, once we arrived in the newly discovered Lake District, we set out to explore the town that would house us for 2 days. We had a pretty low- key evening that culminated in seeing a movie at the cinema a mile walk away from our hostel. The next morning we were dropped off in the next town over to do some shopping and to eat lunch. The Sellers (our professor and his wife), Kristen, Nicole, Kaitlyn, and I headed to the top of a hill and ate our lunch picnic-style. The hill was a really big temptation, as a it was perfect for a roll-down. But, we’re in college and felt that that might be a bit immature. So, we kartwheeled down it instead! It was quite the success.

We then took a cruise on the largest lake in England (the name was too unimportant to remember, apparently) back to our town and prepared for the hike of our lives! The same group got our hiking gear and headed for the mountain that stood beside our hostel. It was a long, treacherous journey. We lost a few lives and we saw a lot of sheep. We waded rivers and crossed rocky terrain. We sweated. We bled. We cried. But, WE MADE IT! We made it to the top of the mountain and were soon joined by several others from our group and paused for some victory pictures before chasing after the sheep and heading back for dinner. It was a victorious day.

Morrrrrrrre driving the next day. I think I lost a few lives with all of the driving and sleeping that happened on this trip. Oh well. We finally made it to Glencoe, Scotland and saw the REAL mountains. Our victory of the previous day suddenly seemed insignificant. But we wouldn’t let that get us down – we were going to a new place, maybe there would be Internet! Never. There’s never Internet. Give up hope already. We spent the night eating and probably sleeping – fake-mountain climbing and traveling for several hours make for an exhausting combination. But we woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to conquer a new mountain…or at least the side of one. We hiked for several hours through the trails, but gave up near lunchtime. Funny how that worked out. And though it had been drizzling all morning, it just so happened that the heavens would open up during our half-mile walk into town. Thus, the ladies who took our lunch orders gave us nasty looks as we rung out our coats and hair at the register. But, as I told Kaitlyn, I never felt that I deserved a bowl of soup more in my life, and dirty looks were not going to ruin it! After the eventful morning, we spent the rest of the day, sans-internet (apparently here it doesn’t need to be capitalized. Thank you, English language), relaxing in the hotel and eating food, naturally. I think we even played cards that night – no Internet will do things to you. The next day we woke up to leave and it was SNOWING! A perfect farewell.

Next we were on our way to Edinburgh, after a grueling 9 hours of mountain roads – not the easiest on the stomach. BUT guess what we found when we got there…INTERNET!!!!!! What a glorious evening! We threw those cards out the window pretty fast. I caught up on TV, wrote a blog, posted a billion pictures, chatted with some friends, it was marvelous. The next day we had a tour of the castle and experienced a weather apocalypse. At the end of our tour, on top of this big hill, in the period of 20 minutes it went from drizzle to rain to sleet to HAIL to a snownado to perfectly sunny skies, complete with bird-chirping. I DON’T UNDERSTAND! But it was funny. After we recovered from that shocker, we ate lunch in one of JK Rowling’s favorite cafes and explored the city a bit. But then we headed back early to enjoy some more INTERNET and lazy girl time in our room :)

The next day we booked it to York where we speedily toured the Cathedral – it’s important and big, that’s all you need to know, and coincidentally enough all I retained! Then we hopped back on and sped to Stratford upon Avon, dropped off our suitcases, and nearly sprinted to the theatre to see Romeo and Juliet, my favorite Shakespeare that we’ve seen. Afterwards, yes at 11, we went to our pre-booked dinner at the Dirty Duck (I don’t know how they stay in business), where we bumped into some of the cast members! It was fun, but mostly I just wanted to sleep. Haha. So we headed back, caught a few Zs (I don’t think I like that phrase, but it fit), and woke up to a full day of Shakespeare history…Wooo…..

We toured his wife’s house and saw his birthplace, but honestly it was not my cup of tea. Maybe it was because we were nearing the end of our tour and I had had a sightseeing overkill, but I rushed through those houses and looked for the nearest distraction/tasty treat. We found it in the form of a milkshake shop! Somehow ice cream always makes life better! Then we shopped around town for a few hours and then, headed home to London! Well, we thought that’s where we were going, except they threw a surprise Cathedral tour at us. Now, as someone who was fed up with sightseeing after 9 days of it, the LAST thing I wanted to do was see some old bombed out Cathedral. But let me tell you, this might have been my favorite place on the tour. Coventry Cathedral was bombed during World War 2 and only the skeleton of the old building remains (they have since built a new Cathedral next to it). The Cathedral, though, now stands as a center of reconciliation. The priest who was head of the Cathedral during the war wrote a powerful message above the rubble the day after the bombing: Father Forgive. Note, not “Father forgive them”, but simply “Father forgive”. He wrote this to remind us all that evil/sin/wrong exists in all of us, therefore none of us are blameless without Christ. Before we point out the speck (even if that speck is Nazism or war or civilian bombing) in our brother or sister’s eye, we should remember the log in our own. It was such a powerful thing to see amidst the devastation of the empty church. And what an amazing first response to have, when such a blatantly evil act occurs. That visit really humbled me and I hope I respond with more grace when wronged in the future; And not only that, I hope to continually fight for reconciliation and forgiveness among people everywhere to help bring healing. Father Forgive. Wow.

Good conquering Evil

Father Forgive

Well, that was my spring break. We got back to London that Saturday night, slept a LOT the next day, and went back to class, grudgingly, on Monday. I don’t think I fully recovered for another few days, but it was well worth it: Mountains, snow, kilts, accents, donuts, cathedrals, kartwheels, movies, and plenty of NO INTERNET – what a great spring break! Next year’s going to have a lot to live up to!