a brief summary of Taylor's adventures

I've been very blessed this week to have my sweet friend, Taylor, here to visit and explore England with me :) She was supposed to leave Friday night & fly in on Saturday morning, but unfortunately there were some maintenance problems with the plane that took her from Birmingham to Atlanta and there were also some thunderstorms in Atlanta, which resulted in her missing the flight from Atlanta to Manchester that night. Thankfully, her aunt lives in Atlanta and was able to pick her up and keep her for the night and she left the next evening at the same time her original flight was supposed to leave. My dad and I went to pick her up at the airport Sunday morning and she definitely impressed me by saying she wanted to go to church with us (our church service doesn't start until 11) even though it meant running in to our house, taking a quick shower, and being ready to go in about half an hour. And she only nodded off in church once or twice ;) haha

I showed her around Stafford's town centre on Sunday afternoon and Monday, when I also took her to eat brunch at the Soup Kitchen, a really cute and very English cafe style restaurant downtown. Throughout the week, we went to a small outlet mall called Trentham Gardens (there are also gardens there but we have yet to go to them), drove to Shrewsbury, rode the train to Birmingham, drove to Stratford-upon-Avon, and visited Shugborough Estates and Stafford Castle. Taylor was able to find a really cute teapot at Trentham Gardens with little red poppies on it. I may be visiting her dorm for teatime next semester :) haha. 

I was SO glad she was able to visit and am looking forward to these last 10 days I have here with my family before I return to the states myself. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer! :)

Grace and Peace.

it's SO cold! maybe if it were July...oh wait...

We left around 10 am on Friday for Scotland. As I think I mentioned, my dad rented a nine passenger Mercedes van for us to use while my grandparents and aunts are here, so that’s what we’re riding around in. We drove for around two and a half/three hours, then stopped in Gretna Green for lunch. This was my first experience trying to read a Scottish menu and it was…interesting to say the least. I played it safe and just ate fish and chips (fries). My ability to be adventurous with food has some limitations. :)

While in Gretna Green, we got to see a guy playing the bagpipes for a wedding, which was pretty neat. I also enjoyed seeing all the “Bruce clan” gifts in the souvenir shops there. After we left Gretna Green, it only took around an hour and a half for us to get to our hotel in Stirling. We’re staying in Stirling while we’re here because it’s the most centrally located to all the places we want to visit while we’re here. The hotel is absolutely beautiful from the outside – huge and sitting on the top of a bluff overlooking Stirling’s town centre and breathtaking landscape views. Unfortunately, the room I’m staying in with my parents and brother only has a bed and pull-out couch, even though my Mom thought she got the biggest room available. Although Trey and I could technically fit on the pull-out couch, it is extremely small. Barely what I would call a full-size bed. So, we had a twin bed rolled in for Trey. Needless to say, our room is quite a sight with all these beds. Oh, and our view is of the backside of the hotel so no beautiful views for us (sad day) but my aunts and grandparents have good views in their rooms so we ate least get to see those :)

We planned on eating dinner in the hotel but did not plan on there being a wedding reception taking place, so the waiters were kind enough to bring us food in a suite that’s probably just for relaxing or meetings or something. I ate a toasted ham and cheese type of sandwich* and potato chips, which is probably the closest thing to American food I’ve had outside of my parent’s house while I’ve been in the UK. Listening to our server’s Scottish accent was definitely a treat. :) *I say “type of sandwich” because there were some extra Scottish type sauces or garnishes in it that I didn’t recognize, but it tasted good anyway.

On Saturday, we ate breakfast in the hotel and then drove over to Stirling Castle for the day. When my parents came to Scotland a few years ago, they went to this castle and everything was about Robert the Bruce, but now they hardly have anything about him. It’s all about King James V and other people that are more recent. It was still cool to learn about our ancestry and the castle itself was spectacular. We made several pictures with the Robert the Bruce statue in front of the castle :) The ticket into the castle includes a guided tour, which we took pretty quickly after getting there, and then we just so happened to hear a parade going on way down below the castle so we were able to hear some of that and get pictures. We ate lunch at a little café on the castle grounds and then walked through some of the historical museums that have been added since my parents have been here. We ate dinner at a restaurant in Stirling called Papa Joe's. We actually ended up eating there twice during our trip because the food was so good :) I had steak fajitas and they were fantastic--not quite like they would taste in America, but close enough :)

On Sunday, we did a little family devotion in the hotel and then headed to St. Andrew's for the day. We didn't actually play golf on the Old Golf Course, but we did take pictures on the 18th hole :) We toured the British Golf Museum and walked on the beach where Chariots of Fire was filmed. Pretty cool, huh? :) I'll just go ahead and add right now that the weather in Scotland was FREEZING. and I mean November or February in Alabama "cold". It was almost always raining and the wind on top of the mid 50 degree weather made for a such a cold trip that you had to wonder whether or not it was really July. So being on the beach in this weather was pretty weird. 

On Monday, we went to Edinburgh. We toured Edinburgh Castle and walked down the Royal Mile. For those of you who don't know, the basic set up of the Royal Mile is Edinburgh Castle sits on top of a hill and you make your way downhill on the Royal Mile until you reach Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland. The Royal Mile is made up of tons of shops and cafes. I got a Bruce clan pattern scarf in one of the shops there :) We went off a side street at some point to go to The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling started writing her ideas for Harry Potter. Going to the birthplace of Harry Potter was definitely a thrilling experience :)

On Tuesday, we drove back to Stafford. We stopped a little over halfway for lunch at Burger King (so maybe we miss American food a lot, okay?). 

Overall, it was definitely a fun trip to "the motherland" :)

My grandparents and aunts will be here through Saturday, when we take them to the airport at the same time we pick up my dear friend Taylor, who will be spending a week with us. 

Keep checking for updates on the adventures I take Taylor on! :)

Grace and Peace.

ironic 4th of July & Shakespeare adventures

I'm going to try to just do a quick post to catch everyone up before we leave for Scotland, but knowing me, it'll either end up longer than I planned or I'll ramble or both, so bear with me.

My dad's parents and two of his sisters got here last Saturday and we mostly did things around Stafford up until yesterday when we went to London for the 4th. Yes, I know, ironic. We took a slow train from Stafford to London around 8:30 in the morning at got to London in time for lunch. We originally planned to go eat at a restaurant called The Texas Embassy, which was going to be great for my Mexican food deprived family, but it was closed. As in out of business closed. Although we were really sad (especially my brother), my aunt suggested The Hard Rock Cafe. I didn't realize this until yesterday but The Hard Rock Cafe in London is the original, so it's pretty cool to say I've been to the original now :) I actually had nachos so I was able to get my "Mexican food" meal and we got to see some of the outfits that John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney wore (plus a ton of other antiques in the restaurant, the things that belonged to The Beatles being my favorite by far) so I looooved getting to go there. After lunch, we caught our bus for The Big Bus tour, the same tour we did with my mom's parents. We rode through Trafalgar Square and several other landmarks before getting off at Tower Bridge to take the river cruise. On the river cruise, we got to see Tower Bridge open! This only happens twice a day so I was pretty pumped to get to see that. After the cruise, we got off to take pictures in front of Big Ben and then caught another bus for our tour. We rode to Buckingham Palace and got off there to take pictures, went over to Harrod's for a little while, then took the tube to the train station to go back home.

Side note: I know at some point during the day, at the train station or tube station, someone saw Trey in his Auburn jacket and gave us a "War Eagle." I love my Auburn family. All In, All Over the World.

We took the fast train home and got back around 10:30 last night. I must have been exhausted because I slept from around 11:30 last night to noon this morning... ha.ha.

Today, we drove to Stratford-upon-Avon to see where Shakespeare lived. We got there around 2 this afternoon and went through a tour of Shakespeare's birthplace. It's funny to me because the town has set his house up as a museum in the middle of their town centre, which makes it look like his house was randomly in the middle of all these shops and restaurants. At least they didn't tear down the house...

They have a little tour set up before you go in the house so you can learn a little about Shakespeare's early life and career. I enjoyed getting a refresher on his biography since I don't really remember everything I've learned about him (sorry Mrs. Corona...). After going through the tour, you walk outside to this garden area outside the house and then you can walk through his house to see what the furniture was like and learn some more interesting facts. One of the things I enjoyed the most was watching the actors who performed Shakespeare's plays in the courtyard behind the house. They would act out a few scenes and then let the bystanders tell them which play they wanted to see. I was amazed at how quickly they could switch from one role to the next.

After we went through the house, we went to a couple of shops in the town centre, including a cute little Christmas shop where my family got a Christmas ornament and a precious Peter Rabbit store. Around 4:30, we all got a little snack. I had an apple tart and tea (I. am. SO. British.) and everyone else had ice cream or a piece of cake and coffee. After our snack, we went to the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried. We literally got there just in time because they closed the doors right after we left. whoops... :) The stained glass windows in the church were absolutely beautiful. It was a very neat experience to be in the church Shakespeare attended, was baptized, and buried. One of the goose bump, once-in-a-lifetime things.

We drove back home around 6, brought home fish & chips for dinner, and ate while finishing the first Harry Potter movie that we watched half of a few days ago. All in all, a quite lovely day :)

We leave for Scotland in the morning and come back on Tuesday, so I'll post all about that soon. :)

Grace and Peace.