The Rest of the Day-by-Day!!!

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

Mini England Day-by-Day :)

I just got back from a 5-week trip to the United Kingdom. YEAH PRETTY FREAKIN' AWESOME!!! Every day earned at least two pages in my journal [yes, I journal like a nerd, get over it], but obviously that's too much to put on here and it would be really boring to read. But it was too fantastic a trip to let. So here's a brief day-by-day :)

January 30 - Canada and plane
- saying bye to everyone :)
- setting off a gazillion metal detectors and then getting on the plane to Manchester

January 31 - Manchester and Hemingbrough
- getting off the plane in Manchester and driving to aunt & uncle's small town [about the size of Clinton] house in Yorkshire
- settling in/getting used to the time [arrived at 8am English time, 3am Canadian time, so no sleep whatsoever for like 30 hours!]
- picking Oli up from school around 3 and exploring the town - SO ENGLISH!!! :D

February 1 - Hemingbrough and Selby
- exploring nearby town of Selby [about the size of Goderich] and the Selby Abbey, which was built in, like the 1200s
- exploring the Hemingbrough Church, which is also very old

February 2 - York!
- walking along on top of the city walls
- exploring St. Mary's Abbey ruins
- exploring the York Minster, which was first built in 600 or something
- walking down the Shambles

February 3 - York
- York market
- just exploring all the old streets

February 4 - Hemingbrough and Barmby
- walking on trail along the River Ouse to a town called 'Barmby on the Marsh'
- walking with Marije along the outskirts of Hemingbrough/along the English countryside

February 5 - Knaresborough, Uncle Andrew's ancestors' hometown, and Ripley
- Knaresborough castle ruins
- Uncle Andrew's Great-great-great-grandfather's headstone
- tour of Ripley Castle, home of the Ingilby family for over 700 years [30th generation]
- trying on armour from this big important battle in the 1600s xD and apparently it's the only place where that armour is not behind glass

February 6 - Haworth and Salt
- exploring Haworth, the hometown of Charolette, Emily, and Anne Bronte, who wrote books like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre
- moss-covered stone fences that ran up and down the massive rolling green hills for miles
- big art gallery in Salt, a town/city that a Quaker guy founded [pretty cool since I'm a Quaker]

February 7 - Selby and York
- tour of Selby Abbey by Oli :)
- Jorvik Viking Centre in York, which was most definitely the BEST way to teach a history lesson. No buts, it was awesome and definitely NOT just for kids xD haha
- Clifford's tower
- walking past the flooded River Ouse in York, which is apparently normal

February 8 - Wakefield and Leeds
- coal mining museum in Wakefield/going down into the mine
- Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, which I didn't really get all the sculptures, but it was in a fantastic setting and there were rocks to climb xD
- special birthday dinner for Uncle Andrew's sister in Leeds

February 9 - Yorkshire Moors and Scarborough
- the incredible Yorkshire moors, all covered in sheep and heather
- walking along the outside of Scarborough castle
- Scarborough on the coast = a mini Las Vegas xD

February 10 - Edinburgh!!!! [which, if you didn't know, is in Scotland]
- big long train ride/wrong train, but got there anyways/finding hotel
- exploring/walking up and down the Royal Mile - sooo Scottish xD
- haggis, neeps & tatties :) actually pretty good

February 11 - Edinburgh
- exploring Edinburgh Castle [former home of the Scottish royal family]
- seeing the old Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny [if you ever watched that movie]
- MEETING FREAKING JK ROWLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Scottish National Gallery of Art, but so unfocused on it after MEETING JK ROWLING
- checking out Grassmarket and the Royal Mile again

February 12 - Edinburgh and back to Hemingbrough
- Hollyrood Palace, the home of HRH The Queen stays in the summer
- hiking halfway up to Arthur's Seat, some 'mini-highlands' right inside Edinburgh
- up and down the Royal Mile again
- train from Waverly/transferring at Doncaster/arriving in Selby/ride to Hemingbrough

February 13 - Hemingbrough and a town I forget the name of
- attending church at St. Mary's Church in Hemingbrough
- exploring the ruins of this giant abbey in that town I forget the name of
- the small local town park - so freaking beautiful!!!

February 14 - Hemingbrough [Valentine's Day]
- looong walk around the outskirts of Hemingbrough again [the countryside is just so pretty!]
- more of a slow, normal day

February 15 - Selby and Hemingbrough
- shopping [British fashion is so much better than Western styles!] and exploring Selby Abbey again
-tearing down wall paper with Tim and Uncle Andrew
- QI with Stephen Fry, the Brit Awards, Skins, Top Gear, and Horrible Histories = all TV shows that Canada really needs to get

February 16 - Hemingbrough
- a lot of History homework so not really that much...
- Oli's school friend Daniel coming over: "Marije, does my voice sound wangey to you?" LOL
- eating this English dessert just called 'meringues', even though it's more than just meringue. It's a piece of hard meringue, a giant dollop of clotted cream, and a dollop of jam - it's DELICIOUS!!!

Okay, this is getting longer than I expected, I'm little over halfway done, and I should have started work over half an hour ago. So February 17 - March 7 will be added later.
Anneke S.S.

MEETING JK ROWLING! [(the long story)

Grandma, Marije, and I were walking up and down George Street, Edinburgh, looking for the cafe caled 'Elephant House', where JK Rowling supposedly wrote Harry Potter. We couldn't find it, so we decided to have a quick drink and a pastry at a random cafe called 'Cafe Andaluz', which was very fancy. We walked in and were seated at booths with tall seats and mirrors facing us. We ordered our little snacks and began eating.

 Near the end of our small meal, Marije hit my arm and whispered, forcefully, "oh my God, that lady sitting behind us" - I looked, and noticed it immediately - "she looks so much like JK Rowling!" I nodded my head excitedly and we began talking about her. Every time we glanced back, the lady looked more and more like JK Rowling, and we began wondering if it really was her - the similarity was ridiculous. On the other hand, she was only with one other person, and nobody else had recognized her. JK Rowling is the most famous author in the entire world - how could nobody else in that crowded cafe recognize her? We decided to ask her if she was JK Rowling. Even if it wasn't her, she looked too much like her to let this opportunity pass. If it wasn't, we would apologize and move on and if it was, we would politely asked for an autograph and a picture.

When Grandma left to go to the washroom, we deliberated whether or not to ask for a picture, as it could be rude because she was eating. We kept glancing back, and she was glancing at us too, very likely noticing that we were looking at her [thinking back, she was probably laughing to herself]. All the while, we were freaking out, saying, "oh my God!" many times. Marije went to get Grandma when we became very impatient. When Marije returned, Grandma came not long after. Marije said it would be rude to ask for a picture, and Grandma agreed. When Grandma went to pay for the bill, Marije and I approached the lady and her friend's table. We agreed that I would ask, but Marije would stay right there the whole time. We approached te table and waited for a break in their conversation, or for them to notice us. When they did . . .

Lady who looked like JK Rowling[looking up]: Hello?

Me[nervous - she was looking right at me!]: Um ... excuse me. Hi. Um ... are you JK Rowling.

Lady[nodding as if she totally expected it]: I am.
 *At this point, I completely froze and probably had a look of shock on my face. I'm pretty sure I tried to say something but couldn't. Honesly, I was totally speechless and probably looked like a complete idiot lol.

Marije[after a pause]: like ... are you really?

Lady who actually WAS JK Rowling[smiling]: Yes.

Marije: Would you mind signing something for us?

JK Rowling[pushing her plate back]: Of course, no problem. Do you have something I can sign?

Marije[pulling out her student pass]: Here, you can use this. Do you have a pen, Anneke?

JK Rowling [looking at me]: Sorry, I don't have one.

Me [searching my purse like a madwoman]: Yeah, somewhere in here, I think. No, I dont, but Grandma has one.

JK Rowling[searching her own purse]: Oh, I do have one.
*Marije handed the student pass to JK Rowling.

JK Rowling: What's you name, dear?

Marije: Marije. [after JK Rowling looked at her quizzically for a moment]It's M-A-R-I-J-E. It's Dutch.

JK Rowling[interested, while signing]: Huh. Are you Dutch?

Marije: Not really. Well ... sort of - my grandparents are.

*JK Rowling handed back the pass and took mine.
JK Rowling: And what's your name?

Me: Anneke. A-N-N-E-K-E.

Marije: We were looking for the cafe called Elephant House, where they say you wrote, but we couldn't find it.

JK Rowling[handing back the pass and smiling guiltily]: Yeah, I tell people I wrote there. I didn't really.

Me: um ... would you -

Marije[accidentally interrupting]: Oh. Well actually meeting you is so much better than eating in a cafe where "they say" you wrote in.

JK Rowling[smiling]: Well, it was a pleasure meeting you.
*JK Rowling looked at me again, expecting me to finish what I'd started to say earlier, which I almost forgot.

Me: Um ... would be, like, really insulted if we asked for a picture? [Looking back, that was a horrible way of phrasing that, but pretty much everything I said in that moment was horrible].

JK Rowling[shaking her head and starting to get up from the booth]: No, not at all. But we should get going, shouldn't we?

Her Friend[with a round face and short, dark, curly hair]: Yeah, we really need to go. [Looking at me] Can it be quick?

Me: Yeah, of course.

*JK Rowling came out of the booth and walked to stand in between Marije and I.

JK Rowling: Who's going to take the picture?

Her Friend[reaching for the camera]: I can.

*I handed the camera to her. JK Rowling held out her arm for me to come and stand beside her and Marije. I came, and she put her hand on my shoulder. The lady took the picture and handed the camera back.

Me: Thank you so much.

JK Rowling: No problem. It was a pleasure meeting you girls.

Marije: It was really great meeting you.

JK Rowling: I'm glad. Good-bye!

Us[shyly]: Bye!

Also:
- before we sat down, we noticed it was crowded and almost decided to go to another cafe!
- JK Rowling was SO nice! She wasn't annoyed or bothered at all that we came up to her. She was very patient and, if she wasn't so famous, would be very easy to talk to :)
- very obvious she was used to speaking with people that come up to he
- the picture is a little blurry but it's still recognizable, and apparently you can get that fixed somewhere...
- couldn't focus on the National Scottish Gallery of Art at all when we went there after the cafe.
- she spelt my name wrong
- this all happened on Friday, February 11, 2011 at around 3 in the afternoon. Of course, this is the UK, so if people at home are reading this, it was around 10 in the morning your time.
- she wrote:
"To Anneka, with lots of love,
JK Rowling"

I'm on a laptop that's not mine right now, so I can't put the picture on right now. I will post it, however, either when I magically find a way to on this laptop or when I get home.

England! Day 4ish...?

Since December, I've been super excited for February because I'm going to visit my aunt and uncle in England for five months. Well...I'm in England - and it is soooo awesome! And super English :P

So the flight was pretty great. Just thinking that we were in a tiny little tube shooting across the sky took my breath away. And then there was free movies, TV shows, and music and our own personal TVs. Heaven. Those six hours went by in about one. Then arriving at the airport in Manchester was confusing. Customs took FOREVER! It only took like two minutes at the desk but about an hour of waiting to get to that desk. Finding our luggage was cool - it was like a game, finding and grabbing the right ones before they went back around the loop. Uncle Andrew was there waiting for us. It was about eight or nine in the morning in Manchester [three in the morning Canadian time, so by then we'd been awake for over twenty-four hours]. Apparently lemonade in England means 7-Up or Sprite. Not cool. And my bank card didn't work. Not cool either. And they charged me for exchanging my Canadian and American money. Super not cool. But I did manage to get about ninety-ish pounds! Cool :)

Everything in England is so much prettier than it is in Canada. It's as though they take so much more pride in where they live. The houses are all made of brick - even the rooves, and very old. There's actually laws on what you can use to build you house. There is no siding or shingles or anything ugly like that. The houses are also built very close to the roads so there's very little room for front gardens [yards]. The roads were fun to get used to. Uncle Andrew could zoom around all the little curves easily on the left side of the road, but it was kind of scary being constantly scared of hitting something.

So I'm gonna finish this up because I don't want to type much longer. But anyways, we take the bus out of Hemingbrough almost every day [there's not much to see here] and either go to Selby or York. Believe it or not, it's the same price for an all-day bus pass as it is going one way. There's a lot more to see in York, but Selby is closer and they both have these beautiful churches [Selby Abbey and York Minster].

York is so beautiful I could write a whole article on it alone. All the roads are bricked and the building are very, very close. Well, inner York anyways, which is all I'm going to talk about because the outer city is just like a normal city and very boring. The inner city is everything inside the York city walls. Barely anybuildings are new, although many are refurbished and there is hardly any traffic. We walked on top of the walls for a bit. It was really interesting seeing the little wedges for the bow&arrows. The St. Marys Church ruins were beautiful and seemed as though they should have been in the middle of a garden. One of the things that's really neat about England is that although they are very big on propertly lines, all of the ancient stonework that's open for the public is not blocked off. So we were able to go right up to those ruins and climb a ways along the bottom, but I assume if we had really climbed to the top of them, we would have gotten into trouble. Right beside the ruins was an absolutely gorgeous building. I have no idea what it was called, but it was all stone along the bottom, that English thing where they have white walls and visible dark wooden beams for the walls, and a wooden beam roof. There were also several arches coming off of one side. It was sooo pretty! There was also this really cool street called Shambles where the butchers used to have their shops. The street is tiny, all the buildings are old, and some are even hanging over the road. Afterwards, I found out that street is famous, but I didn't know that then. Among other things, we also had a tour of the York Minster, which is BEAUTIFUL! It's too much to put down here, but there is so much history behind it, what with the Romans, Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and so on.

Yeah, I've really gotta go now. Money is another thing too. Pounds are like dollars, but worth more. I already knew about that before I came but it's still hard to wrap my mind around because everything seems so cheap when the money is worth so much more! Seriously, chocolate bars are like 50 pence each or you can get three for a pound. Yeah. One chocolate bar is 50p.

So long!