English Towns, Families, and How Charming They Both Are

Welp, another jam-packed weekend has gone by and it was wonderful. I have loads to tell you.

So you know, we took a field trip to Lincoln on Friday as an entire college. How the Manor staff managed to transport 160 students without fail and make it through the day without one of us losing a limb or something is a miracle to me.

Lincoln, so you know, is a town about 40 minutes from Grantham. It's very rich with history and has lots of great little shops full of tea and books and wonderfulness.

The first part of our trip was an educational tour on the different parts of a Roman fortress built in Lincoln in the first century when Rome invaded. They invaded Britain in 43 AD, actually, something I learned in British Studies!

If you're ever on Jeopardy and get that question, you're welcome.

Next was free time, the BEST time on any trip.

 We went to a little restaurant called Magna Carta, then went to a couple bookstores and a few other little shops. So cute.

Below, you'll see a poster I found in one of the book shops we went into, which I found quite amusing.

After this, we saw a CASTLE! One thing I've noted here: we barely have any castles in the US. Actually, I don't know if we officially have any real castles there. But here, they're in abundance. And actually, they're not exactly the type of place you'd imagine, where the king and queen live, that type of place. They were actually built pretty much for protection, and were used a lot by the military. Bummer.

Pretty much everywhere has some type of beautiful cathedral or a castle. Lincoln had both. Of course.

This picture you see below was the beautiful view we had of Lincoln on top the castle...

AND THEN AFTER THIS I'M JUST GOING TO TALK IN ALL CAPS FOR A WHILE BECAUSE I'M SO EXCITED.

I STEPPED FOOT IN A PLACE WHERE DOWNTON ABBEY WAS FILMED. I KNOW, BIG DEAL. IT WAS THE PART IN THE THIRD SEASON WHERE BATES IS PUT IN PRISON. SORRY IF THAT IS A SPOILER FOR YOU. MY BAD. BUT I WAS JUST SO EXCITED. WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THE SHOW WAS PARTLY FILMED IN LINCOLN CASTLE I YELPED IN A SILENT GROUP OF PEOPLE. THEY STARED. BELOW, I HAVE A PICTURE OF THIS BLESSED PLACE...

SEE LOOK, A PICTURE OF BATES AHHHHHHHHHH

AFTER THIS, WE WENT TO GO SEE THE LINCOLN CATHEDRAL. I SHOULD PROBABLY START Calming down now...

Phew. Okay, that's better. I apologize for my loud typing, I'm sorry if I woke your neighbors.

Anyway, Lincoln Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous. It was built in the 1100's! Think of that. I took so many pictures I can't put enough on here. You can just see my Facebook page if you wish to see some. But here's a bit of a sampling...

I thought the last one looked like Dumbledore's podium.

Anyway, the day ended, we got a nice cup of hot chocolate, and headed back to the Manor to watch movies :)

But don't you go changing. The fun isn't over just yet. We have a whole two days left in this weekend!

So the next morning I woke up at 5:45 am. Yes, I know.

We had to catch a 7:30 am train to York, which is a good size town about an hour and half north of Grantham by train.

And oh my goodness, I love trains now.

It was a decent fare, such fast travel, it's not a bumpy ride, pretty comfy, quiet. Ah. I want to ride trains all the time now.

We arrived and basically shopped all morning and it was lovely. York is simply great. Rick Steeves recommends it highly, so you know it's good. I wouldn't call York small; it's a lot bigger than Grantham. But I wouldn't call it big either, because it's got this great town-like charm to it, but with all the busyness of a city as well.

York really had some great shopping. I got some hiking boots that I'm actually wearing as you read, some jewelry, and other goods. I got this little doorknob hanging thing that says "The Loo" for you to put on the door going into your bathroom. The cuteness was on the kitten/puppy level.

Also, apparently, there was a Viking settlement that some archaeologists excavated recently. And they found it below York! Now, there is a museum there for the public, and we went in! They had some exhibits of dirty Vikings yelling at each other in their language and building huts out of mud and stuff. But it was still really fun.

Also, just a little tidbit you might enjoy. I was in a store, and we came across some Maker's Mark and Jim Beam for sale! We all just kept saying "That was in Kentucky! That was in Kentucky! Home, home!" I see Jack Daniels and Maker's Mark on sale all the time here, they really do love bourbon and whiskey. When we ask some Brits what they think of when we say "Kentucky", if they've heard of it, they either say horses, whiskey, or fried chicken.

We headed back to the manor via train, which actually was a funny story because our train ride changed. I was in the wrong compartment, and all kinds of weird stuff. Because if I wasn't in the right compartment I could've been asked to leave the train. Oops. While the train was moving, we said we were going to go outside and get on top of it and have a sword fight. Like in the movies.
We did it, no problem.


Then, the next day, I got to go to church with my host family! I'll call them my host family for convenience's sake, but they're really a meet-a-family officially. I live at the manor, but this is a family assigned to me that I might have dinner with once a week or so in order to give me a cultural experience and vice versa.

And they are just wonderful. They live in a place called Piglet Cottage. That name is so cute I'm speechless. They're a mom and dad, with a boy who is 11 and a girl who is 9. They're so great already. We (Jenny, my host sister, and I) had dinner with them on Wednesday, and we went to church and had afternoon tea yesterday.

They gave us this HUGE box of chocolates which is about as big as a table, and made us tea and scones! Ah, I love it. They're so fun to talk to, so witty, and very conversational. Just so much fun.

Anyways, sorry this is a bit long, like I said, just so much to tell you!
This weekend, I'm headed to a Christian retreat with British college students. I'm so excited for it.

Cheers,
Shelley

Cambridge and Other Little Adventures

Hello there, reader!

Thanks for visiting my little blog, I hope your stay is pleasurable.

Well, It's been about a week since I've written a post, and a lot has happened!

Between classes and living in England and all, someone we've invested time in while here has been Jesus. So you know, there is a student fellowship here and it's so great. We meet once a week, talk, share testimonies, pray, and other great things. If any of you who are in it are reading this, I want to say how much I appreciate you guys. Community is so important, and you have provided it wonderfully. We're all on the same path, traveling to many of the same places, all far from home, and all struggling to get the swing of things here, so it's great to have people who want to keep close to Christ through it all. If you don't go to the fellowship, we meet Tuesdays at 8:45pm for awesomeness and Jesus. You can come and chill, yo.

Also, something that I've really been digging lately is procrastinating homework to read this one book that the lovely Susan Creech gave me called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It's so great. The author basically talks about his experiences with God, but he's so down to earth, so hilarious, and so humbling at the same time too. It's a great book, you should read it. It's less about the motions and mechanics of Christianity and more about just loving on Jesus and experiencing him. The real meat.

One other thing going on in my life that I haven't talked about with you guys are my classes! Which I love. I said earlier that I have Media Writing, World War II, and British Studies.

For Media Writing I have a wonderful visiting professor named Jeanie Adams-Smith from yours truly, WKU! She's a genius in the world of journalism; she worked at the Chicago Tribune for 10 years as their photo editor.

For World War II, I have one of the British professors: Dr. Bujak (Boo-jack). He is perhaps one of the funniest human beings I have ever met. And on top of all that, he's so intelligent and always willing to help. He's constantly telling us to come visit him in his office to chat about class and our papers. When class is over, I'm actually sad and want 5 more minutes. I love it so much already.

Third, British Studies is a little different. It's an interdisciplinary course, which means it's constructed in a different way and brings in different disciplines. However, overall it's a history course. It's a 6-hour class in which 4 professors teach different sections of British history and the entire Harlaxton population meets in the Long Gallery for lecture, which probably adds up to almost 200 people. After lecture, we head to seminar, which is basically where we reflect and discuss lecture. This has about 25 people, and my seminar leader is Professor Magennis (Muh-guenn-is). She's from Belfast, Northern Ireland and has such a wonderful accent, and she's so caring and funny too. I also happen to be in an Honors seminar, in which I meet with another professor (Dr. Green) along with 4 other students and we discuss topics we want to write about in our British Studies research papers.

Anyways, enough about daily life here. Let's get down to business. Not to defeat the Huns, though.

We traveled to Cambridge this weekend! Yeah, the one with the university. That's the one.

And it was adorable. And cold. Very cold. I lost the feeling in my toes a couple times. Or many times.

One interesting thing we did was visit an American WWII cemetery. This was a place where Americans soldiers from the war were buried if they were unable to make it across the Atlantic to Arlington, for instance. Also, there was a wall there commemorated to the missing.

 A marine gave us a tour of the cemetery and the wall, telling us stories about the individuals and perhaps how they died.

It was a great and humbling experience.

 After this, we headed to Cambridge, which was only 15 minutes away. Cambridge was so charming, and what you picture a small English town to look like. It was so chock-full of history and Britishness. 

 

First, we just traversed the town and walked around. We were later told by some locals some great places to shop and some great places to eat. We began walking, against the cold, fumbling with our cameras in our gloves to take pictures, to a little cafe called Fitzbillie's near Fitzwilliam Street. It was adorable and delicious. I had a tea and scone with jam and cream! I'm FINALLY English! I'm actually really digging scones now, it was great. And the cream tasted like it just came out of the cow.

 And I mean that in the best way.

After this, we did a bit of shopping in the market, which was really cool to see! Probably our favorite stop was TK Maxx, sound familiar?! It was pretty much a TJ Maxx but perhaps more organized. We found some great bargains; we walked home very happy ladies.

After this, we bravely decided to take a boat tour in that weather. Which turned out to be quite great despite the bitter cold. We haggled a bit and got the price from 16 pounds to 10! Thank you, thank you. Okay, Susan was the one who did it, so props to her ;)

The boat tour was so interesting and let us know a lot more about the town and university, especially the university. Did you know Prince Charles went there?

 It's such a beautiful university, with ages and ages of history to it. People such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton studied there too. We sat beside two lovely Chinese individuals, and I regret to inform that I cannot remember their names because they sounded like on-yong or something like that. I'm pretty close I think. But anyways, they were really sweet! We shared blankets. Here's a few pictures from the tour:

After this, we headed home and watched Love Actually and got something to eat. We really have adapted to British culture, haven't we?

This morning, we went to the wonderful Harlaxton village church. It was an Anglican service, which was very cool because I'd never attended one of those before. It was actually very reminiscent of a Roman Catholic mass! Afterwards, the locals offered us tea, coffee, and biscuits ("biscuits" is British lingo for "cookies"). They were so welcoming and gracious.

Phew! So sorry. That's a lot for you to have read, isn't it? I apologize, there's just so much going on here!

If you'd like to Skype me, just let me know on Facebook. I love it, and I love seeing and talking to folks back home! Seriously, don't hesitate. Hope you're doing well in the States, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Shelley

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

Before we left for London on Thursday, Dr. Kingsley, the principal here at Harlaxton, gave us some anecdotes on his experience of the city. At the end, he read us this quote by Samuel Johnson, which I found to be beautiful and true.

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

 Never before in my life have I been in such a lively city such as London. They say that New York is the city that never sleeps, but the same goes for this one.

We arrived Thursday night and proceeded to a couple of pubs just to see what urban ones looked like, and they were great! Very friendly people with a fun atmosphere, and especially good food.

Next morning, we could never have foreshadowed the aches and pains that would plague our feet. Literally, we walked all day, and it was the type of day that you fall asleep the second your head hits the pillow. However, in no way whatsoever did that detract from how awesome the day was in itself. Friday we saw everything. Leicester Square. Trafalgar Square. Buckingham Palace. Piccadilly Circus. Big Ben. Houses of Parliament. The outside of Westminster. Call boxes. Shopping on Oxford Street at night (I got a skirt at H&M for 4 pounds!). The whole enchilada. And it was wonderful. For dinner, we had a cute little Italian place. For lunch, God's gift to mankind: Pret-a-Manger.

Next day, we woke up and had an itinerary in our heads of how we wanted to spend our second day in London. Naturally, the entirety of it didn't come to fruition, but that's okay because we had some wonderful experiences in spite of this.

First, we ventured to the British Museum. Which is a famous ancient and medieval history museum that has FREE admission due to its sponsorship by the British government. So thanks for that, Britain. Good chap. According to our charming and witty British Studies professors, it's just a collection of the booty brought back when Britain was practicing imperialism and conquering countries left and right. Which is a pretty accurate representation of it in my opinion.

But anyways.

The museum was phenomenal. It had the Rosetta Stone. THE ROSETTA STONE. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Not that I don't want to tell you about it, it's just the fact that it's so important that I can't fit it all here. And I wouldn't tell you adequately. Even Wikipedia would do a better job than I. Plus, it had statues from the Parthenon. So much cool stuff.

Then, duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhh. We had our first tube experience. Or as it's called in the US, the subway. It was hard to get used to, but once we got the hang of it, we were addicted. An entire day's pass for it was only 8 pounds! So worth it.

British Museum

Then, we ventured to Westminster Abbey which was perhaps my favorite part of the weekend. So wonderful. If you ever go to London, take the tour of Westminster. It was phenomenal to go inside. All the big stuff happens there.

Sadly, after this, we didn't make it to the Tower of London in time, so that was a shame! But instead, we saw the Globe Theatre and the Millennium Bridge, so not a bad trade. If you don't know, the Millennium Bridge was dedicated in 2000 and was a famous scene in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. No biggie.

Afterwards, we chilled for the rest of the night! It was great! London was so cold this time of year, so we got some much needed heat in the hotel.

The next day, we headed back. But stopped by Hampton Court Palace: Henry VIII's vacation home. So beautiful and grand. Lovely conclusion to the weekend! We went through a maze there and said that the first person to reach the Tri-Wizard cup would get a free lunch. I won, but no free lunch. Rats.

In all, London was bigger than I ever imagined. Giving it two day's worth of traveling is unfair to it. It's perhaps the most international city in the world, with so many influences from the globe, but it also has a certain charm to it that has maintained throughout Britain's history.

Definitely a must-see when you stop in Europe.


Cheers (Brits say this when you do a kind gesture for them or something of the like),
Shell

Venturing a Little into Good 'ole England

Well hello again! I'm terribly sorry my last blog post was so short and vague. I wrote it totally jetlagged and that might have something to do with its length.

BUT ANYWAYS.

I'm actually headed to church here in a few minutes and had a couple of minutes to share a few pictures with you guys, so I thought why not!

Here be my first flight...

 As you can see from my last post, I finally made it to the manor. When we got there, we had a brief orientation from the principal, Dr. Kingsley, who is so stinkin' sweet. Then we went a bit exploring in the manor and outside. We thought this thing below looked like a mockingjay symbol.

 This place is so beautiful! I live here, I live here, I live here. Pinch me pinch me pinch me.

 The next day, we had what's called convocation. At this, (this was so cool) a guy named Billy came out playing the bag pipes! They used this for the procession of faculty. Betcha you haven't had bag pipes at an American school assembly. Didn't think so.

After this, we were able to switch our classes. My schedule is officially Honors British Studies, World War II, and Media Writing. Pretty excited!

And after this came my favorite part of the day. We went to Grantham! AH. It was so awesome. I was surprised at how big it was. I expected a little ghost town with cobblestone streets but this place was definitely an actual town. There were shopping centers (centres, are how they're spelled here, I think?) and plenty of cute restaurants.

We got some necessities at an AMAZING place called "Pound Land" (think Dollar Store). It's really cool to be in a store and the people talking beside you have British accents. THE KIDS. OH MY GOSH THE CHILDREN. They're beside you and are like "Mum, can I have a bit of candy?" Must adopt them. I sometimes have kidnapping thoughts. Okay, that was a joke. Maybe. And by the way here, they never call them "Mom" here! It's always "Mum."

After this, Susan and I had some chai lattes from Costa. Costa is apparently like the British Starbucks. They definitely have Starbucks here, but they REALLY love Costa. And it's adorable. The lady at the register helped me to figure out how many pounds and pence I owed here. I was so confused.

Susan was such a spiritual encouragement today! Thanks girl. She da bawmb.



Bought a towel today. Na na na na na na na na! Sheets of egyptian cotton!


Please tell me you understood that.

 Here's the view from my room! I'm in the carriage house!

Well, I definitely have more, (we had a "high table dinner" last night at the manor, then headed to a little pub) but I need to get to church! We're going to a place called New Life this morning, which I've heard good things about. Get ready for more!

Love always,
Shelley

Hello there, dear reader.

Welp, first and foremost, I'd like to welcome you to this blog which I have created in order to document my travels across the United Kingdom and Europe over the next four months. Thank you for reading it, and I hope that whenever you do read it, you take something away from it. Just like I will take something away from each of my adventures while here at Harlaxton.

Speaking of that blessed, blessed place. Let's discuss it for a moment, shall we? To give you an idea, it looks a bit like this:

This place is hugeandbeautifulandconfusing all at the same time. It's like a huge labyrinth, which isn't a bad thing because when you get lost you find other things and you get to see other beautiful things in the manor that you hadn't seen before. I arrived here at about 2pm on January 4th, after a slightly stressful flight where I had about a 2 and a half hour delay, but all ended well anyway.

After we arrived, we were given our room assignments and a short briefing. Then we were treated to lunch and allowed to roam the manor. And roaming the manor took a VERY long time because this thing is huge. After, we had dinner, and then our British Studies (this is an interdisciplinary course taught by the manor) professors gave us an overview of what we'll be doing in the coming week. My professor is Irish, and she's really cool!

After this, a lot of people headed down to the manor's little bistro, which was fun just to hang.

 However, underneath all this, I want to outline what my true purpose here at Harlaxton is, which is Jesus. I hope that as my time goes on here that I show him more and more and I draw on his strength more each day. I'm definitely anticipating him to change my heart in this new experience, and I simply can't wait for it.

Love always,
Shelley