For the past 10 days or so, my commrades and I have been wandering the UK (mostly Scottland, Northern Wales, and the Lake District) in search of adventure. Ok, Ok, it was kind of planned for us, but we totally had some adventures anyway! I'll give a brief description of what we did each day. This might have to be in parts, so hold tight! There may have to be another post covering the tour, but worry not. I will provide pictures, so its not quite like that awesome Brit-Lit textbook or Balfour Declaration book for class. Ahem.
Day One we scored a trip to Stratford on Avon, the site of Shakepeare's birth and final resting place, at Trinity Church. He grew up on Mary Arden's farm, which we also ended up seeing because it was totally functional and period-maintained. There was a lovely woman who nominated me to hold Izzy, a heart-faced barn owl, for her birds of prey illustration. What I found most amazing about this bird was that she said Izzy could hear the heartbeat of a mouse 20 feet away, let alone every one of our heartbeats in the area. I can't even begin to imagine what life would be like if I had that kind of hearing. The farm was very nice and peaceful, and we explored many aspects of the farm life and saw the animals and met people in their own period pieces as well.
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| This is a rare English Barn Owl |
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| Peek-A-Boo! From the staircase |
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| Surprise, it's Narnia! Ruins of Kenliworth Castle |
That night we also went out to a really neat little restaurant called Avon Spice, where we ate curry, etc... from Bangladesh and India! They also gave us something that looked like a crispy tortilla, with plenty of spicy and subtle topings. Because they liked us so much, they gave us a shot of something I assumed to be like Bangladeshi hot-chocolate on the house! Faith tried it first, and right then I knew something was up. Megan did not want to drink it; it turned out to be Bailey's chocolate drink or something, and boy did it burn!! I think its the strongest thing I've ever tasted, besides the Malta from Haiti and the Stoney from Uganda. Haw haw, a cultural experience. We ended up going with the group to see "Twelfth Night", which is one of Shakepeare's most beloved/loveable plays IMHO. I read this in Brit Lit class and loved it-- seeing it played out on stage really made it come to life though! Here are some pictures from the earlier excursion to Trinity Church. Very worth seeing.
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| Trinity Church |
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| Me and Sadia, kneeling to pray. We are right in front of Shakespeare's grave. |
For those of you who don't know the story, its a fantastical tale of shipwrecks and misplaced identities. I would say its the same plot as "She's the Man" (with similar character names as well! Curious...), but I recommend seeing this or reading it if you can. Viola is the main girl, who is found after a shipwreck, and she assumes the identity of her twin brother, whom she believed was dead. And as she works for Count Orsino, Lady Olivia falls madly in love with Viola...because she believes she is a man! Things get really chaotic and funny for many of the characters in the mean time, as a rather pompous character, Malvolio, recieves the torture of having dressed in yellow-stockings and cross-garters in front of the woman he is trying to impress, much to her chagrin and disgust. Provides much to laugh about, from the audience's standpoint. I almost died laughing, and so did Faith and Megan apparently. I wonder if I was the only one who squirmed, though?
Next day was great; I tried the full English Breakfast with Black Pudding, which (surprise!) is not pudding. Its a patty made with pig's blood, that's all I will say. But I tried two bites of it for good measure, so next time I could have a good answer for the question, "what's the weirdest thing you've eaten?" By the way, the best answer I've heard to that was a Missionary to China said he tried ant and wasp larvae. Certainly weird, for sure. Anyways, since it was Saturday, we were heading toward York. Our first stop was in an amazing town called Stamford, where we got out and had lunch at a really cute cafe: paninis ("toasties") and then we caved and I bought us some truffles. They were quite memorable! Ginger was the best, then there was a pinkish-sweet one that was aromatic like a rose. I think we tried a keylime one that was green, and then a cherry one that once you take a bite out of it, its all or nothing. I got the short end of the stick and had cherry juice spilled on my hands, table, and trousers. Hehe, just a day in the life.
Best part of Stamford was going through this secret alley that lead us to a C-A-R-N-I-V-A-L!!! Woohoo! Faith and I browsed through all the games and epic foods (they had donuts and other funnel-cake like things), and then we decided to go for it. We did the biggest ride there! It terrified me but Faith was very supportive, so we both made it through. Stamford looks very different when you're upside-down twirling 50 feet above the lake. To settle our stomachs, we took a stroll down to the lake to sit under a willow tree and chat with a few other friends from the trip. Very nice. Sadly I don't believe I took pictures of this! Woe is me! Woe is you!
Once we arrived in York, we had a nice dinner of stir-fry. Well, at least Dr. Tucker and I did. Everyone else pretty much got mac-and-cheese, which reminded me of Panera Bread's classic dish. We were a little puzzled at the serving sizes, and expected dessert, but they told us later that what we had was a healthy serving size. My American stomach tried to hide in shame, but obviously we were all just as embarassed. The night before, we had stayed at this other bed-and-breakfast that served us brownies with a raspberry sauce. A few of our group left before dessert, and I had to fetch them. Alas, we went to bed with high hopes for another English Breakfast. By the way, their idea of an English Breakfast often includes Egg (fried or sunny-side-up), bacon (of sorts), porridge, tomato, beans, and some sort of sausage or "pudding".
I'll skip the fluff: we went on a ghost tour in York. Our guide was crazy-awesome. He looked like Edgar Allen Poe crossed with the guy who plays the kid's stepdad in the first Santa Clause movie with Tim Allen. So like an emo psychiatrist sort of fellow. He held a cane and he held our attention...just enough to frighten us at his "YELP", and send our hearts racing. A popular discussion that night was if we believed in ghosts at all. I still have no real conclusion, because I've heard so many stories, but I think its more of a spirit-related thing, and we just decided to enjoy the tour for what it was. Pretty much after that, Megan decided to take us with her to a club to go dancing, finally. Club Salvation: site of the craziest night of my life. Sort of. It was my first time to do anything of the sort, and there were people dancing (?) and drinking and I felt very uncomfortable at first. I wore a cardigan and had Faith french-braid my hair in pigtails, so it was obvious I didn't come to fit in, so to speak. Apparently I captured a lot of attention, though, because many boys kept wanting to dance with me. One guy seemed just as uncomfortable and sympathised with me, but we never said much. We left to go to the other part of the club's deal and met some guys from a Rugby team, who promptly let us into their dancing group and made sure to paint our faces with ceremonial white-out. Glory. They got a bit obnoxios so we went upstairs and had blast-from-the-past music from the 90's and 80's! I warmed up a bit, then, and could dance in a pretty normal way because I was with Faith and Megan. Carson came along to make sure we were okay, and poor guy got his credit card stolen! We got back at about 4 am, all danced out and ready for sleep.
Okays! So this is where my first Coach Tour Blog ends, so you can go back to your regularly scheduled program of whatever it is you do. Believe me, you will want to know what happened the rest of the trip, so stay tunes, folks!
Cheers, my dears!
Diana
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