Countdown to Twilight

My friend Jolene and I are getting very excited. We have only 18 more days until the premiere of Twilight. This movie is based on the widely popular novel by Stephenie Meyer. I hope it's as good as the book, but that may not be possible. The series is definitely a must-read!

Sam and Dean

Just wanted to post a picture of my favorite brothers on my blog. My friend Jolene and I love to watch Supernatural with Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester) and Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester). It has a really great story line and several awesome guys to look at!!

(Wednesday, June 18th) After our amazing experience of the theatre from the night before, I was still feeling very energized when I awoke to my first morning in London. We were scheduled for a guided tour of Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath in just about an hour. We boarded our tour bus at 7:30am after a very filling English breakfast courtesy of the Royal National Hotel. We met our driver, Martin, and our tour guide, Priscilla. The best way I can describe Priscilla is very energetic, with many strong opinions. She was definitely a lively part of the day. On the way to Windsor Castle we were given some more history of the city. It’s amazing how much history one city can hold. We arrived at Windsor and although we had a short time table before getting back on the bus, we were able to see many areas of the castle. The tour covered the Queen’s doll house, several sitting and dining areas and what I’ll call the Heraldry room. The room was covered in hundreds of family crests, from many generations. We were also very fortunate to see a parade of the guards coming up the street to the castle for the changing of the guards. Although we didn’t get to see the changing, the parade was very lovely. After a few minutes to collect ourselves we were back on the bus for Stonehenge. Once again our guide didn’t fail to give us quite a bit of history on our way, but she did get off on a few tangents. Finally we arrived at Stonehenge. Now, you’ve all seen pictures of it online, in a documentary or wherever, but nothing compares to seeing it in person. What this structure must have meant to those who built it. It is amazingly large and would have taken great effort to put together. It’s was definitely not done on a whim, it had a great purpose. Once again, a few moments to collect and we were off to lunch! Our schedule for lunch was to stop at a very old pub called The George, located in Lacock. The town and pub may have been small and tucked out of the way, but that was why it was so popular. The look and feel of the town made it the perfect setting for filming and it had several famous movies to boast of. For example, The Other Boleyn Girl, Pride and Prejudice and the 1st, 2nd and 6th Harry Potter movies were filmed in the streets or at the beautiful Abbey. We didn’t have time to visit those areas of the city, but there was a picture frame hanging in The George that described all the excitement. The lunch itself was very good, very filling and was just what most of us needed to recharge for the remainder of the day. Off once again, this time to Bath. The city itself is breathtaking and very picturesque. It’s built on the side of a mountain and features some very interesting structures. Not only does it contain the Roman Baths and the Bath Abbey, but there is a bridge built there that, while you are on it, looks nothing like a bridge. You would think you were just driving down a street, but if you looked through the windows on one side of the shops you would see the river that flows through the town. The shops on that side are not very deep so you can just see right through their windows. The Baths were amazing, beautiful artwork and structures and the fact that after so many hundreds of years the water flowing from the springs is still warm! Yes, I stuck my hand in it just to make sure. On the road again (isn’t that a song?) and this time back home to London, but only after our driver gave us one last beautiful view of Bath. It was about a 2 ½ hour ride back so most of us caught a little nap. When we arrived in London, five of our group (including myself) caught a cab for a very hurried ride to the London Eye, before it closed. This ride, which looks like a really large Ferris wheel, took us up 135 meters above London. We were able to see some spectacular views and get some amazing pictures. It was well worth the time we took at the end of our busy day. We took a small stroll down some of London’s streets at night before we caught a cab back to our hotel. That last evening consisted of packing since we were leaving the hotel around 3:45am to check in for our flight home. It was exciting, but sad just the same. We’d all been looking forward to this trip and we’d all had an amazing time, but all good things must come to an end. As I was packing I noticed the Harlaxton crest on a fleece blanket I purchased. There were thirteen crosses on it and I thought it fitting that there just so happened to be thirteen of our inaugural group. What an amazing trip and wonderful memories I’ll treasure for a lifetime.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

(Tuesday, June 17th) We left Harlaxton today : ( . It was exciting to be going into London, but a little sad to be leaving the place that was our home for the last 8 days. We had another wonderful breakfast, did room checks and went through the "check-out" procedures. Once everything was loaded on the bus, we were off! Our driver, Dave, took us for one last turn around the circle drive in front and then down the mile long drive stopping for one last look. What a beautiful place! We got a little more rest as we made our way to London. Dave took us for a big of sight-seeing as we arrived on the outskirts of the city. We arrived at the Royal National Hotel along with about a dozen other coaches, the lobby was a mad house! Our brave trip coordinator, Martha, marched right up front and got our room information so we could go ahead and put our bags away. We had a very short time before we needed to be back at the hotel and ready for the theatre so we split up into groups based on which places we wanted to see and headed out. Some of us quickly learned the Tube system and made our way to the British Museum, the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. It was a whirlwind trip, but nice to say we'd seen all those places. We all made it back to the hotel and got changed for the theatre. We saw The Chalk Garden at the Don Mar Warehouse. It was a very wonderful play, very cheeky! : ) The weather was very nice so we walked to the theatre and back which gave us time to soak in some of the scenery. What an amazing city! We are off to Windsor, Stonhenge and Bath tomorrow, until then!

Grantham

On Monday we took the mini-bus down the city of Grantham. Unfortunately it was cold and raining again so we didn't take as much time touring the city as we would have liked. We did visit the historic St. Wulfram's Church. It contains one of the last chained libraries in England. The books were first donated by Francis Trigge, in the sixteenth century who wanted the collection to belong completely to the church. He had them chained to the shelves and you had to have a pre-requested appointment to go up and view the boolks. Like so many of the churches before this, the artwork and structure were just beautiful. It seems like the smaller the church gets, the more beautiful the interior. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this church yet because it wouldn't work with the low lighting. I should have some soon. We ate lunch at a true fish & chips shop today. It was very greasy and difficult to eat out of a paper cone, standing up. That's a story in itself. : ) We had some time after lunch to visit a few of the shops and we found some really neat things. Then we boarded the bus and traveled back to Harlaxton. Before dinner Patty and I did a small walkthrough of some of the house and video taped it for our families. I'll have to do some editing, but it should be really neat. After dinner we had a class in the conservatory (with the lead pipe, by Prof. Plum; a little Clue humor) and taked about our likes and dislikes for the trip as well as our plans for London tomorrow. Then we has a small celebration for Christi's birhtday, she turned 50 in England! We are all sad to pack up our things and say goodbye to Harlaxton. We gathered out front for a few group pictures in front of the manor. I'll have to post some of those when I get my hands on them. Well, tomorrow we are off to London! Until then.....

Sandringham

On Sunday we visited the royal family Winter retreat of Sandringham. It is located near Kings Lynn, about 1 1/2 hours East of Grantham. The tour of this home was different than those of the previous structures we've seen. Sandringham is considered a country home, versus a castle or manor. This home is still very lived in and would be closed to the public when the royal family decide to take a holiday there. Another unique thing about this home is that it is owned by the royal family. Other dwellings that they visit on holiday are owned by the government.

We toured the home (which we couldn't take pictures of inside), walked through some of the gardens and toured the museum. The museum included many family treasures, a collection of cars and a variety of preserved wild game from hunting expeditions. Some were amazing, but others a little creepy.

We also visited the Church of St. Mary Magdalene located on the property. It was very beautiful inside, but again, no pictures of the interior.

Our charter bus driver then took us just North of Sandringham to the shore of the North Sea. It was so beautiful! We ended up back at the Manor for dinner. Another lovely day, and we are going to explore Grantham tomorrow!

York & York Minster

On Saturday we boarded the mini-bus for York, which is about 2 hours North of Harlaxton. More beautiful scenery and our driver, Doug, pointed out a few landmarks on our drive. He's been very friendly and informative throughout our trips. The building in this picture is now a shop, but back when it was built it was used as an Inn and Pub. It was pointed out to us that they were built a particular way so they could not be scaled. After the first floor, the second floor set out about a foot farther than the first because if you are climbing, it is more difficult to reach behind you.

We entered the town of York through the openings that would have been doors to the city walls. We were able to go up on top of the walls and lookout over the entire city. It's amazing that they are still standing and the city also takes great care to make sure they are kept in good shape. When we walked through the streets you good see how the shops and inns would have been laid out along the city streets so that residents and visitors could stay within the walls.

Our main destination was York Minster which we could see before we even entered the city. It is not the largest cathedral in Europe, but it is the largest. It dates back to the early thirteenth century, but has been repaired and updated a few times over the centuries. It's hard to describe how beautiful they are, but each of the churches we've able to visit have all been extremely beautiful in their own way.

After York Minster we were able to spend a little time exploring the town, shopping and soaking in the atmosphere. The streets with their tall towering shops and narrow streets for walking reminded me of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. We visited several shops and noticed that some items were very inexpensive while other items, such as books, were almost double what they are back in the states. We also saw a street festival going on, some strange street art (a real man, painted purple on a bicycle) and musicians.

It was a very relaxing, wonderful day. I look forward to tomorrow when we visit Sandringham.

Wet & Cold: London & Cambridge

Wet and cold has been the theme for the last two days. Although it was pretty cold, 55 - 65 degrees, we were still able to do everything we wanted. It rained on us in London, but we didn't care. More about that in a moment.

We boarded a bus on Thursday morning for London's Kings Cross station. Yes, that would be the same station from the Harry Potter movies and yes I was very excited to be going there. We got off right next to platforms 4 and 5 which were the two platforms that were renamed 9 and 10 to film the movie. Where platforms 9 and 10 actually are is a framed out archway of platform 9 3/4 with a sign and a trolley sticking halfway out of the wall. And you ask, did I get pictures? Of course!

We left Kings Cross station and went over to the next street to purchase tickets for the double-decker tour bus. As we were standing on the street waiting for the bus several of us soon decided that it would have been really nice to have worn/packed long-sleeve clothing. Luckily some of the group had extras, we were able to share and noone froze completely solid. Of course we rode outside, on top of the bus and that made things even better. : )

We saw so many beautiful buildings and just couldn't take enough in all at once. We saw Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Big Ben, the London Bridge and so many more! We may get a chance to see one or more of those up close in a few days. We got off the bus later to see the Tate Modern Museum. There were many different art pieces there and I have discovered that art is just not my thing. : ) I love architecture and all the older, beautiful buildings, but paintings and pottery are not my thing. There are definitely plenty of options for me to see beautiful old buildings here, English is full of soooooo full of history and character.

After the Tate Modern we were supposed to go see the British Museum or the National Gallery, but we just ran out of time before we had to catch the train back to Grantham. We had a bit of a walk though to the bus pickup and it started raining. Although we were annoyed at first that we were getting wet, we soon realized how amazing the setting was. As our instructor pointed out, we were walking in the light rain along side the River Thames, there is nothing more London than that.

We had a nice train ride back to Harlaxton, we all got much warmer. Most of us did a little laundry and then we hit the sack for the next day's trip to Cambridge.

Friday morning we boarded the train again, this time for Cambridge. It was cold again, but no rain. We all learned our lesson from the day before and brought one and even two outer layers. The ride to Cambridge was nice, and we even met some very nice and interesting people along the way.

When we arrived in Cambridge we took another double-decker tour bus around the city and saw some amazing structures. There are 24 different colleges in Cambridge including Cambridge College itself. There are many people that take the train, including those who work outside of Cambridge and the college students, that there a bike parks all over. We even saw some that took there bikes with them because they folded up so you could carry them onto the train with one hand.

After our tour we visited the Fitzwilliam Museum. It contained some very amazing pieces like a lot of Egyptian artwork and some of the early bibles and scripture text. Very beautiful. The most amazing was the foyer area of the museum. I don't have pictures of that, someone else got them, but I will post them as soon as I can get my hands on them. It was spectacular!

We visited a few shops in Cambridge and rode back to Grantham on the train. We stopped in Grantham and ate at the Wetherspoons Pub. It had a very nice atmosphere and the food was excellent! A little more laundry, read some emails and it's off to bed. We are headed out again early tomorrow morning for York. Until then!

Lincoln Castle & Cathedral

On Wednesday we got started early and boarded the Harlaxton mini-bus again for the town of Lincoln. It was about an hours ride and we saw some beautiful scenery on the way. I even saw a Rav4, Yaris, Previa, Prius and Hilux (all Toyota models). It was very neat to see some of our vehicles in use over there and built with small variations to be driven on the left-hand side of the street. Once we arrived in Lincoln we all decided to tour the Lincoln Castle together, it wasn't a set item on our tour. It was very ineresting and very scenic. Below are some of the pictures I took from the castle wall. To the left is the Lincoln Cathedral, the middle is the castle wall and to the right is the court house that is located within the castle walls. It is still a functioning court house.

We also learned about the prison that ran for two years at the castle. It was very medieval and so horrible to the inmates that it was opened and closed all within two years. I'm not going to describe those things here, but you can check them out a (http://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/lincolncastle). The one thing I will mention is the boxes they would lock prisoners in during church services. They were very small and didn't allow the prisoners much room to move. We were given a chance to get locked up in one and of course I took it. Here is a picture of what the box looked like. They would close the door on one box, file another prisoner in and close the door on that box until the row was filled.

There was also a display in the castle of the Magna Carta. This was a document created, to quickly explain, to take some of the power away from the King because he was abusing it an hurting the farmers and other peasants with taxes and other laws. Our Declaration of Independance was models after the Magna Carta. Because this document was so old, I wasn't able to take a picture of it. It was neat to see, like seeing the Declaration of Independence which I saw many years ago. I'm sure the Magna Carta means as much to the English as the Declaration 0f Independance means to us.

After the castle, we went down the joining street to the Lincoln Cathedral. It's been many years since I've seen a cathedral, but it is still just as breathtaking. It had many beautiful stain glass windows and so many amazing pieces of art. I've attached some pictures, but they don't do it justice.

We even saw the Chapel House, which was were they filmed a part of the the DaVinci Code.

We are off to London via King's Cross station tomorrow. Should be another exciting day!

Belvoir Castle & Harlaxton

On Tuesday we attended a history class on Harlaxton Manor. Dr. Edward Bujak decribed to us the various Victorian houses that influenced the construction of Harlaxton. The first owner, Gregory Gregory (yes, that is his name) was determined to build an awe-inspiring Elizabethan structure and he did just that combining all the best parts of the grand homes he loved. Dr. Bujak's class was very interesting, but we were still fairly tired from the plane trip. You can see pictures of Dr. Bujak and the class on the Harlaxton blog. After class we boarded one of the Harlaxton mini-buses and rode to Belvoir Castle which is located in the neghboring town of Grantham. Our bus driver, Doug, was very kind and gave us a little lesson on driving in England. He described several of the signs, but the one that stuck out at me the most was "Dead Slow Children". :) It is comparable to our sign "Slow Children", but for them Dead Slow means the same as Slow for us. It was a very shocking sign to see at first. Belvoir Castle was beautiful, to say the least. It is currently inhabited by the 11th Duke & Dutchess of Rutland, having been passed down through the years. It's been through several damages, including fire, and has been rebuilt. The picture to the right is of the front entrance that shows a door, like a garage door, that would have allowed the carriage to come in and let guests off. Many of the rooms were beautifully decorated, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. Take a moment and check out the website, the rooms really are gorgeous (http://www.belvoircastle.com/).

That evening, after we returned to the manner, we were given a tour of Harlaxton. Our guide, Geoff, was very interesting and quite the jokster. We were able to walk through the front doors which are always kept locked and we walked up the Cedar staircase, very beautiful!

Another wonderful day and we are looking forward to another one tomorrow as we venture to Lincoln to tour Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral. Until then!

Harlaxton At Last!!

Well, finally made it! Though, the trip here wasn't very easy. We were supposed to leave from EVV airport at 1:50pm and due to weather in Chicago we were actually going to board an early flight. However, once we had boarded that plane, went through the saftey instructions and taxied to the runway we were told that we'd have to wait up to one hour on the plane due to Chicago's flight being grounded. That hour turned into an indefinite amount of time, so we had to deboard that plane. Once again in the boarding gate we waiting for about 2 - 2 1/2 hours before we were finally able to board probably one of the last flights to Chicago. It looked like more weather was coming into the area, so they would probably have more delays.

We had very nice flight to Chicago, no problems, until we deboarded the plane. :) We couldn't find our flight on the departure screens so we took off for the concourse with the Heathrow flights, just to make sure we got there as quickly as possible and it's a good thing we did too... When we got to the gate, out of breath, we were told that they'd arranged to fit us on that flight, but we would have to board immediately. Oh, and it was the last flight leaving for London that night! Luckily we all made it on and the flight was fairly smooth. All in all, we made it safe and sound.

Our first "day" at Harlaxton was very pleasant. It was a little longer drive than I thought from London to Grantham, where Harlaxton is. I thought it was about an hour drive, but it was more like 2 1/2 hours with one break. We commented about how much the countryside looked like Kentucky, with it's rolling hills and cows, there was a discussion about whether or not a Cow's moo sounding different in England (LOL!). However, a large difference was the consistenly brick houses and structures and the different cars driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the vehicle!

After our initial culture shock wore off, we arrived at Harlaxton just in time for lunch. The food is excellent, not much different from a cafe, but some of Harlaxton has becomed Americanized. Oddly, there is peanut butter on each table, in case the students don't like what is being served (that's their only alternative). I for one was very thankful for a hot meal!

We were given a brief tour on the way to our rooms, we will get the full tour tomorrow. After that we were told we'd have about 3-4 hours to roam the castle and the grounds. What an amazing place, so beautiful. Our room is the very top window in the picture to the right. The picture to the left is the view of the fountain and statues from our room. Well, it's about 9:30 now (and still daylight out), so I'm going to sign off and try to catch up on my sleep. :)

Getting Ready

I've never packed for this many days before. It's hard to determine what you might want to wear a week from now. Thankfully we have access to laundry facilities at the school so next weekend we'll be washing clothes to get ready for the next week. My friend Jolene and I went to a salon this morning and got a wonderful pedicure to relax us for the trip. I think the last pedicure I had was in 2003 for my friend Carrie's wedding all the girls went barefoot. :) I'd forgotten how nice they feel. Well, 20 hours to go! My next post will be from England!

First Post

Hopefully my friends and family will enjoy following along while I'm gone. To access the trip blog just click the link to the left under "My Blog List". Also, there is a map of our itinerary under "Sites of Interest". Thanks for visiting!