I spent this past weekend in The Cotswolds-a range of hills in the heart of England where my friend Laura grew up in her hometown of Cheltnham.
Thursday evening we took the train down through the countryside. Every mile was gorgeous. I love being able to ride the train. It goes through the most beautiful parts of the country...off the motorway...and you don't have to worry about driving or navigating or anything. That's something so great about England, and Europe in general I believe.
I loved arriving at Laura's family's home that evening and just spending the night sitting around the living room watching tv, chatting, and watching her siblings play video games. Oh, and drinking tea. Because let's be honest, this is England. Laura's family is lovely, and it's just always so nice to be in a home with a family after being so far from my own for so long.
Friday the whole family went to Warwick Castle. Just a little building put up by William the Conquerer in, oh you know, 1068. No big deal or anything. We spent the entire day-there was so much to see there! Including a jousting competition, dungeons, and exhibits about life in the castle during its various eras. I love that English families spend days out at castles learning about their country's rich history. It's just so...different. And nice.
That evening on the way home from the castle, Laura's parents decided to stop off in Statford-Upon-Avon, because they figured that as an American, I'd want to see Shakespeare's town. YES!!! I had wanted to go there during my time here, and didn't think I was going to be able to make it. It was such a perfect surprise to have a lovely dinner in Stratford and visit Anne Hathaway's cottage (where Shakespeare lived over half his life) in the last few minutes of daylight.
Saturday Laura and I spent the late morning and afternoon taking old-fashioned steam trains through the Cotswolds. It is such a beautiful part of the country! We had fun feeling like we'd stepped back in time on the trains and at the stations, and chatting with a couple of sweet old men who enjoyed sharing their passion for steam train trivia with us.
We got off the trains at a station in another town than Cheltnham, and then spent the evening hiking eight miles through the hills back to Cheltnham. We reached the highest point in the Cotswolds around 8:30pm just when the sun was beginning to set and it was beautiful!
Exhausted and very hungry girls, we had dinner (huge hamburgers...God bless that American influence) at the local pub where Laura worked during high school and spent the night chatting and Laura catching up with her old coworkers and regular customers.
Sunday morning we slept in. And we needed it. Laura's bedroom is on the top floor of her cozy house and had a perfect view of those beautiful hills from the windows that we kept open all night every night. Everyone does that here...there's no A/C most places in the summer, and there aren't the bugs we have back home, so they just sleep with the windows completely open. It's really nice.
We went to the late service at Laura's parents' church that morning. It was interesting because their Anglican church actually reminded me of many of the Baptist churches back home. I love finding out all these differences between church in the two countries! The Church of England is extremely broadly varied, and I'm still enjoying getting a taste for all its breadth, and depth. I quite like the Church of England.
After church, Laura and her younger brother, Daniel, gave me a walking tour of Cheltnham. It was lovely because Cheltnham is much like Chester in charm and panache, but the buildings are from a different era so it was also very different. Twelve-year-old Daniel had just studied Cheltnham history in school so he was able to tell us many interesting things about the town's history as we ambled through. My favorite part was the town park. It was absolutley adorable and perfectly picturesque, especially with the band playing in the park with families stretched out on blankets all around eating icecream and basking in the "warm" weather.
Daniel reminded me a lot of my own brother. Although they couldn't be more different personality-wise and with Daniel speaking in a posh southern English accent and all there's no way you would mistake them, but he looked like a younger version of Will! It was the skinny limbs, shaggy sand-colored hair, big brown eyes, and jaunty front teeth. Being around other people's families always makes me miss my family more, but being around another little brother especially made me miss Will.
We ended our lovely weekend that afternoon with a traditional English sunday roast with Laura's family and grandparents. After that, we had a quick cup of tea, threw our things back together in our bags, and rushed to the train station to make it on the train back to Chester.
It was a perfect weekend. Probably will be one of the best of my entire six months here. And more than anything, I'm just so blessed to have a sweet English friend like Laura who is so incredibly kind and generous to share her home with me.
Thanks, girl :)
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