Well, everybody, this blog entry just might go down in history as the quickest post ever for me. So, Katy and I just returned from England last night and now, only one day later, I'm already blogging about it! Amazing, I know, but, I kind of feel like I have to since I'll be leaving for Sicily for the second half of my spring break early tomorrow morning and that will be a whole other entry in itself. So I wanted to write about our first trip before the memories and experiences from my second one could possibly cloud my memory of the first.
So, ENGLAND! Was, AMAZING! Katy and I both loved it so much!
Planning for the weekend was rather rushed and we booked our B&B literally the night before we flew out. We ended up staying at a little place called Chuckles Guesthouse. We tried and tried all day long to get a hold of them, but to no avail, until finally I tried one last time later in the afternoon. I was definitely not expecting anyone to answer, but I just happened to get someone, and it turned out that they just happened to have a twin room available for us for the next three nights, just like we wanted. It was so wonderful how it all worked out, and the owners, Nina and Glenn turned out to be the sweetest and nicest people ever. We just loved them.
So, on Saturday morning we took the train to Pisa where we were supposed to fly out and on into East Midlands, England. We had a mild scare after not getting off the train at the right stop, which resulted in a bit of running and mild panic at the though of possibly missing our flight, but thankfully we didn't. In fact, in the end, we even had enough time to find a McDonalds and a pizza place at the train station so we could buy some food and shove it down our throats before continuing our run all throughout the station to catch our little trolley train over to the Pisa Airport. Which, in looking back, we should have just avoided trying to find food, as it was greasily disgusting and certainly didn't sit very well in our bellies once we were off and running again. Oh well, I guess that's just another lesson learned.
So we caught our flight out of Pisa just fine. After I, of course, got stopped twice by the security. It seems like no matter where I'm going, I always get stopped... but there's an even better story about my being stopped in security later, so I'll share that later when I get to it.
We arrived in England at about 6 PM, having gone back an hour from Florence time, got our passports stamped, much to Katy's disapproval as her stamp was very faint and barely legible, and headed out to exchange our money to the UK pound and find the Skylink bus to Derby, where we would be staying for the weekend.
Here's a photo of me with my 20 pound note.
Katy and I both loved England from the get go. It was green and there were yellow daffodils everywhere and every one was just so nice! They spoke english and we could understand them, it was wonderful. They had the cutest little english accents, it was just so fun to listen to them speak. We were both truly happy that we had ended up in England for spring break.
Later that evening, upon arrival at our bed and breakfast, we were informed by Nina, one of the owners that there was a great little steak house called Emily's just a few streets away if we wanted to find some dinner. We both loved the idea and I was totally game to go to a place that shared my name. We were both pleased with our meal and afterwards headed back to our room to crash, as we were pretty worn our from our day of traveling.
Here's a picture of Emily's Steakhouse sign as well as a picture of our spread from the evening. The steaks were good, but what was the most amazing was the cheese and garlic baguette, SO delicious.
Sunday morning we woke up and headed downstairs to our first tasting of a Full English breakfast... wow! That's all I can say. It's so much food, but it was all so good. We started with either coffee or tea, then had a selection of cereals and fruits as well as fresh fruit juices. Katy and I both would have been entirely happy with just the cereal as were both eyeing the much desired name brands like Special K and Frosted Flakes. But we didn't need that because our hot English breakfast was just on it's way. This included: sausage, bacon, beans, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast - complete with delicious homemade jams. Needless to say, we were definitely well fueled for our day of exploring Derby.
With full bellies and no real plan for the day ahead of us we headed off to explore the town. Not long into our adventure did we come across the beautiful Derby Cathedral. It was about 10:35 at that time and as I was admiring the amazing building this sweet little old lady walked up to me and invited me to come in, informing me that mass started in about 10 minutes and that the music was beautiful. Katy and I were more than happy to go and attend, and were not disappointed. The cathedral was gorgeous and the music was even more beautiful. We happened to be in England on their mother's day as well, or as they called it Mums Day or Mothering Sunday, so at the end of the service we all got flowers to take with us.
Here's a photo of the Derby Cathedral, pretty impressive, huh?
Once we were out of church, we decided to use the rest of our day to continue wandering around the town and check of some of the shopping scene as well. We found a large mall in the area and shopped around there for a bit. It felt nice to be somewhere where we felt a little closer to home just because of our surroundings. We ate miniature shepherds pies for lunch at the food court upstairs, and then later had milkshakes from this amazing shop called Shake It, where you could choose almost any candy you could imagine and have it blended into your milkshake, so cool. Here's a photo of this amazing place. I loved how colorful it was!
The mall closed at 4:30, so Katy and I spend the rest of the afternoon and a bit into the evening walking around Derby Park and all along the river. The weather wasn't the nicest, but it was still so beautiful with all the green and the trees and the flowers. It's spring time in England so all of the trees are just budding and there was ivy crawling all over the place. It was so beautiful and peaceful. A great get away from Florence for sure. Here are some photos of the beautiful English country side scenery.
Katy and I finished our stroll through the park and then headed back to our room with the best of intentions of finding Fish and Chips for supper. However, the only good fish and chips place that we were told about was closed so we ended up at this Australian Bar/Restaurant type place called the Walkabout. Katy got a Kangaroo burger, called the "Roo Burger" on the menu. Here's a photo of what a kangaroo burger looks like, in case anyone was wondering. It was a little tough and dry and tasted a bit like venison, but with some sauce, not too bad.
Monday morning came a bit earlier, but with the same deliciously large breakfast, and soon after Katy and I found ourselves on a large bus headed for the Peak District, which would take us to see more of the English country side. The bus driver offered us a good deal on a wayfare ticket for the whole day if pretended to be a child under the age of 16 and Katy was the adult. I choose 15, and thankfully I made it though the rest of the day without any questions from the other drivers. I can't believe that at the young age of 20 I'm already lying about my age! It was fun to get out of Derby and see some other little towns. We went to Buxton where we found some great little chocolate shops, a wonderful old bookstore that was at least 4 stories tall and then tried to eat some disgusting fish and chips for lunch. Our next stop was a little town called Bakewell, which was super cute and my favorite of all the towns we saw that day. Finally, our last stop of the day was in Matlock, where we walked around a lovely little park and took some more photos. Well, Katy took photos, my cameras battery had died and me bringing my Italian charger didn't do me any good in England where they have yet another style of plug ins. Oh well, I still got some great shots on the other days.
Later that night, once Katy and I got back into Derby, we went out to a pub for dinner. We went to a place called Ye Old Dolphin Pub, which is supposedly the oldest pub in Derby. It was actually really cute inside, if you're allowed to call a pub cute... and we really enjoyed the food and ale.
We flew out on Tuesday morning after having our last delicious hot english breakfast, and stopping at the mall again for Katy to pick up some earrings and grabbing some smoothies from a little smoothie shop. If it sounds like we ate our way through England, then you're right, we pretty much did. But it was just so nice to not be surrounded by pasta and pizza everywhere we turned. However, I do think that we both ate more meat in the three days that we were in England than we probably have in the almost two months that we've been in Italy.
Our flight back to Pisa was rather uneventful except for my being pulled aside at security once again... So, here's the story that I promised. We were going through the line and this time I made sure that I took my shoes and sweatshirt off to begin with, in hopes that nothing would go wrong, yeah, right. Still didn't work. I still beeped, and so then this lady had to "pat me down"... I guess they call it. It was bad. Let's just say she was very thorough. She was thorough enough to feel around all my body and even pat about my bum well enough to ask me to take out the business cards I had in my back pocket! But wait, it gets better. I had left my laptop in my backpack for the screening, because that was what I had done in Pisa, no problems there... here it was a little different story. Another lady pulled my bad and I aside where she proceeded to take out every single thing in my purse and bag and rub it with her little swatch of cloth to test for bugs or drugs or whatever it is they test for. So, out went everything. She flipped though my checkbook, agenda, bible, opened every possible case I had, pulled everything out of my bag, my p.j.'s, and oops, there goes the underwear! It was great, let me tell you. Good thing I'm not one to get too embarrassed at stuff life this, and thankfully too we had come early enough to have enough time to deal with all of these little set backs. Makes me a little nervous for the flight to Sicily tomorrow. Maybe I should just wear a sign that says, "I'm going to set off the alarm regardless, so just check me now" Oh well, it just adds to the memories I suppose.
So, as I've said before Katy and I both absolutely loved England, it was fun to ride around on the wrong side of the road and be able to listen to and understand all the sweet English people speaking in their adorable accents. I think we were both really happy and pleased with our time spent in another country!
