Yep, a month later I decide to finish it off. Here it is - the last part of my mini England day-by-day. Oh, and I found the picture of us with JK Rowling!!!! EN-FREAKING-JOY! And Blogger's being a little wierd, so the layout may be a bit confusing.
Thurs. Feb 17/11 - York - exploring the Merchant Adventurer's Hall [from the 1300s!] - exploring the market via Shambles Fri. Feb 18/11 - Hemingbrough - spent the day visiting with Jane & Tim and George & Leo :) Sat. Feb 19/11 - Hemingbrough - actually it looks like I got a lot of homework done on this day... Sun. Feb 20/11 - Hemingbrough - exploring the town & outskirts of Hemingbrough - British TV shows [the best!] Mon. Feb 21/11 - York and Selby - Selby market and abbey - wandering through the viking festival and walking on the city walls - exploring the Yorkshire Museum Tues. Feb 22/11 - York - Viking Festival!!! viking shops, food market, strange meat burgers, activities, and loads of VIKINGS!!! :D - major grocery trip :P Wed. Feb 23/11 - Selby and Hemingbrough - bought train tickets to Edinburgh!!! and mailing off letters - meeting Lucy and Michelle who were visiting from London/talking with them Thurs. Feb 24/11 - York and Hemingbrough - walking through York's expanded market and viking festival with Lucy and Michelle/seeing them off :) - learning just how big the band JLS is in Britain :P haha - walking along the River Ouse in Hemingbrough with Oli and Marije Fri. Feb 25/11 - York - last the of the Viking Festival - watching the traders[fur, jewellery, clothing, knives, woodworking, etc.], vikings making clothing and shoes and tapestries and stuff, learning loooaaaads about the vikings we'll probably never need, buying a couple things, embroidering, and feeling different furs - walking back to Hemingbrough :P 3 hour walk - bus ride home/ last view of York!! Sat. Feb 26/11 - London!!! - craazy hectic managing to catch right coach bus halfway across a city we'd never been to in our lives [Leeds]! - super long bus ride but finally arriving in LONDON, ENGLAND!! with 3 hours to explore... - 'Big Bus' mini-tour to see the sight of Camden Market, street where the character Sherlock Holmes lived AND where the author lived, passing Abbey Road, the place where Paul and Linda were married, place where the first public transit station was set up, and finally getting off a Traffeilgar Square - walking to the National Gallery of Art, Big Bed, Westminster Abbey, the River Thames, and seeing the London Eye - finding the mini-bus again and passing Buckingham Palace, walking through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, and STILL managing to catch the coach in 3 hours Sun. Feb 27/11 - [leaving]London and Windsor - tour of Windsor Castle, where the Queen occasionally stays and a lot of official things are done - really neat ancient tapestries, Queen Mary's incredible dollhouse, real rough notes from DeVinci, huuuge armour & weaponry room, numerous incredible tapestries and paintings, and many other things [loved the green room xD] - exploring Windsor city & finding the bus again - more craaazy hectic managing to catch the right train halfway across a city we'd only been to once[Leeds again]! - those two days felt like a week! Mon. Feb 28/11 - Hemingbrough and Selby - slow, relaxing day recovering from craziness day before and preparing for craziness tomorrow! - shopping in Selby/settling money issue Tues. March 1/11 - Edinburgh - loooong train ride to Edinburgh, Scotland/getting a lot done - managing to find a place to say because The Hostel rejected us [checked out about 5 different places] - climbing all the way up to the top of Arthur's Seat :) the view and feeling is sooo envigorating - turns out we walked for 6 hours straight and didn't eat for over 12 hours that day ... we were honestly so freaked out about finding a place to stay that we didn't even notice till 9pm when everything was done and we realized we hadn't eaten or sat down at all Wed. March 2/11 - Highlands! Ilkley, Callander, Portree on Isle of Skye, and many other names I forget - finding Rabbie's Tours place :) our tour guide had bright orange hair, a strong Scottish accent, was wearing a kilt, and playing traditional Scottish music from his van - YES!!! :D - highlands.highlands.highlands.highlands. I can't even describe how amazing they are - you just have to go there yourself! They are absolutely breathtaking and constant. Driving through there is like a fairy tale or something you've only seen in movies, but people live there. It's so unbelievable that it could possibly the least populated area in all of Britain. - I have 4 pages trying to describe it because it's so much harder than saying "we went here", even though this was sooo much better than London was. - eating REAL haggis for supper in Portree, Isle of Skye - the hostel we stayed at was so great - if all hostels are like that, I don't know why people would ever stay in a hotel Thurs. March 3/11 - Isle of Skye :) - driving/exploring through the dark, misty landscape of the Isle of Skye with mountains and hills pointing up everywhere and herds of sheep dotting everything - the most western part of the island - sheep-coverd cliffs jutting out into the ocean that eventually faded into mist. We had to weave our way through the sheep in order to get to the edge. It's most definitely not a joke when they say Scotland is covered in sheep!! - driving up to the top of Ben Naevis [I think it was called?] and through Fairy Glen, where the hills are crumpled beneath the layers of rock that are above them, giving them a really strange and interesting look - old graveyard with the tombstone of the woman who saved Bonny Prince Charlie from the Southerners after the loss of the Battle of Collodin[don't think that's how to spell it] - most INCREDIBLE fish & chips I've ever eaten in a little shack in Portree - wandering down the dock/seaching for shells & beachglass Fri. March 4/11 - Portree, Fort William, Edinburgh, and various other places - stopping by a beach on our way out of the Isle of Skye/finding more shells/breathtaking mountains again - tour of Eilean Donan castle, set of The Highlander and Maid of Honour - wandering by Loch Ness and in Fort William/trying a Scotch Pie - stopping at random scenic views - each one was absolutely stunning and incredible and just aaaggghhh!!! - leaving the Highlands :( back in Edinburgh - saying by to our tour guide, Julia, and all the Spanish people - they were such great people to travel with!!! - watching Dr. Who ... in Britain ... while eating Mars bars - we were living the life of Charle McDonnell! ahah Sat. March 5/11 - Edinburgh, Selby, and Hemingbrough - wandering very slowly from our hotel to the train station, taking in every last piece of Edinburgh, Scotland we could - nice, long train ride/sleeping a bit :) - wandering through the Selby Abbey for a while, just saying good-bye :P - walking through the street of Hemingbrough ... never gonna forget that place Sun. March 6/11 - Hemingbrough and Selby - super long walk around Hemingbrough and River Ouse ... for the last time/ taking pictures of every single thing we passed, just to remember - driving to the restaurant with Auntie Jo, Uncle Andrew, Oli, and Marije through the countryside and past and all-girls boarding school - still love the concept of "driving through the English countryside" - a very nice Italian restaurant inside an old church - what we did was not itself great, but the knowledge that it was our last day made it great [I copied that line straight from the Journal cuz I couldn't think of how to reword it :P] Mon. March 7/11 - Manchester aaaand Toronto [and Clinton] - saying bye to everyone [and everything... :P] - craaaazy 2 hours of terrifying airport trouble, but we did get into the plane! - 8 hour flight :) love the feeling - seeing Mom and Dad again! :) and then Grampa & Grandma & Karsten & Maggie :) And that concludes the most incredible trip of my life :) A month later, and writing that still makes me feel totally nostalgic. It was incredible. Anneke SS
