England Overview

So, I told you all about Monday. The week went much smoother with our own clothes now available. Allison had to work Tuesday, so Daniel took us on a tour of the University of Nottingham (I included some pics of the main building in the last post) & the city of Nottingham. It's much bigger than Andrew & I were expecting.

Robin Hood statue in small park area outside of Nottingham Castle

supposedly the oldest pub in England, built into the caves below Nottingham Castle

entrance to Nottingham Castle

overhead view of park area where statue was

Nottingham Castle

views from castle walls

Inside the castle was a big exhibit of the Sherwood Foresters military uniforms through the years. This is a display of the mess silver used on battle sites. Who had to carry this in their packs?

This wheel was supposed to tell the history of Robin Hood & Nottingham, but it didn't work. I tried so hard to keep it spinning.

views of the city

Daniel grilled out beef & lamb kabobs for dinner that night. Yummy! Then they took us to meet some of their friends for quiz night at a local pub. The questions were insanely hard even with 10 people on one team!

Allison took me & Andrew to Sherwood Forest on Wednesday while Daniel met Jeremiah, Amy & Angela at the train station.
entrance to the forest

Major Oak

It's Robin Hood & Maid Marion!

All 7 of us went to a Spanish Tapas restaurant that night. Cousins can be so goofy. Then we had a big sleepover at Daniel & Allison's. Well, Daniel & Allison actually crashed at a friend's house up the street.

Thursday we ate a traditional English breakfast at a restaurant Allison & Daniel frequent. An English breakfast consists of tea or coffee, toast, one fried egg, Canadian bacon, sausage, 2 hashbrowns, and yes, baked beans. While we were eating, Micah drove into town & couldn't get in touch with us due to cell phone issues, so he climbed through a window at Allison & Daniel's house & waited on us till we got back. Then we all piled into cars to explore Derbyshire, the next county over. Our first stop was Bolsover Castle.

rafters above the dining hall

Allison had no idea Daniel snuck into her picture.

Isn't Derbyshire beautiful? I think my favorite part of the trip was seeing the English countryside.

ruined kitchen area

The castle had soooo many winding stairways.

More of Derbyshire. This is Monsal Dale. So beautiful. This is the area of England called the Peak District that is referenced in Pride & Prejudice. The precipice on which Keira Knightley is shown is in another area of this county.

Daniel grilled out yummy lamb & Scottish beef burgers & venison sausages that night, then Micah took Jeremiah, Amy & Angela to his house so they could continue the rest of their European tour.

Andrew & I packed up Friday morning to head back to London. We stopped at Beeston City Centre for one more coffee from Caffe Nero & exchanged some money. We took too long & ended up missing our train to London. We didn't have to wait too long for another train, but had to buy new tickets. Yikes!

We crashed at Jon & Jennifer's house that evening except for them taking us to a Turkish restaurant. Yummy! Izel really impressed us with how much Turkish she knows at 13.

Andrew & I walked on our own tour of the big London sites almost all day Saturday.

What's going on in front of Buckingham Palace? It was extremely crowded & this military band was playing.

Buckingham Palace

veterans memorial

King George & Queen Elizabeth memorial

Trafalgar Square

Sri Lankan protestors were doing a march around the city that day.

Big Ben

Westminister Abbey

The London Eye from Westminister Bridge

Piccadilly Circus

All the buildings are so old & beautiful. We thought we should be looking at important government buildings, but that's just the city.

All Souls' Church at Oxford Circus

Andrew has at least one book by this rector.

Hari Krishnas by the subway entrance
When we first walked by them they were playing music.

We worshiped at Met Tab on Sunday morning. Andrew wanted to show the professor who wrote the book he's reading that his book made it all the way to Spurgeon's church.

After church we fled to the tube station & hightailed it back to Jon & Jen's so they could take us to the airport. London is so huge! From this church it took us an hour to get back to Jen's & then it took over an hour for Jon to take us to the airport.

The flight back was uneventful until we got to Chicago & there was a message waiting on my phone that our transportation home from the Louisville airport had fallen through. Thankfully, one of our neighbors agreed to pick us up despite it being midnight when we landed.

We rested Monday & were so happy to see Christian when MeMa & Vickie brought him home. I'm not sure that he missed us much. He certainly lived it up with his grandparents & other relatives in GA.

And I realized as I was getting all these pictures organized that I don't have any of my family in London! I'm the worst photographer ever! I guess I was so tired every time I walked in Jen's door that I just dropped my bag & vegged. But we love you, Jon, Jen, Izel & Ayla!