I can’t believe it’s almost the end of September…where has this past month gone? I will say that I am quite excited it is almost October! Halloween happens to be my second favorite holiday, and we are already talking about throwing a Halloween party in London! We have been on such a whirlwind tour of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England that I haven’t even noticed the weeks flying by, but now we are on our last week of travelling and hotel-hopping before finally settling in to London this Friday!! Needless to say, we are very excited to unpack our suitcases for more than 2 or 3 days at a time and have a dependable place to do laundry, rather than simply picking out the clothes that are “less dirty” than others when getting dressed every day. Overall, I think our group has done a commendable job remaining clean and (relatively) odor free. Although we have definitely enjoyed our travels, we are so thankful to finally be settling down! (I am sure many of you are reading this at home, thinking: “What a hard life…traveling around the British Isles, staying in different hotels in each city.”)

This past week started out in England’s beautiful Lake District, and I have to say that might have been my favorite 3 days of the trip thus far.  Small towns with quaint cafes and book shops, miles and miles of quintessential English countryside fields, lots of sheep and cows (as usual!), crystal clear lakes with rowboat rides, majestic mountain ranges….it was perfect. No wonder the 19^th century Romantic poets were inspired to write lines like Wordsworth’s famous “I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils” As a side note, it is worth pointing out that this countryside also helped give birth to Beatrix Potter’s world of Peter Rabbit. We spent a great deal of time talking about Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their fellow poets from the Romantic era who were inspired by the beauty of the Lake District to write about nature, emotion, and spirituality; several students gave their poetry recitations, and we visited Wordsworth’s home, Dove Cottage. 

The Romantic Movement itself is a remarkably interesting study! In many ways, the Romantic Movement’s fascination with nature was a reaction to the industrialization of the 19^th century. The industrial revolution not only contributed to the transformation of the world’s economic, political, and class structures but also instigated a literary rebellion. As Americans, we have our own Romantics. You can count among them Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. (Yes, they were indeed Transcendentalists, but Romanticism influenced Transcendentalism! Nonetheless, I digress…) Even up until his 70s, Wordsworth spent time exploring nature and climbing nearby Mount Hellvelyn to receive inspiration for his writing, so we had the unique opportunity to experience this daunting hike for ourselves last Tuesday.  Mount Hellvelyn is the second highest peak in England, so we knew it was going to be a long day of climbing, but we were not at all prepared for the experience that we actually had that day. (Some folks were in shorts, others in flip flops…)  It is impossible to put into words the majestic beauty of the landscape that we crossed; it was the closest I have ever felt to experiencing the Von Trapp family’s trek in the final scene of The Sound of Music, and the song “Climb Every Mountain” was stuck in my head the whole day.  As we were climbing up the mountain, we ran into various groups in full mountain climbing gear! As one person pointed out, we may have been a wee bit under packed. However, I wasn’t totally prepared for the bitingly cold wind that we found at the top of the mountain, and it was probably the closest I have ever been to losing complete feeling in my hands and feet.  The other four girls and I made the mistake of coming down the mountain ahead of the boys, desperately trying to escape the cold wind, but we ended up following the wrong path down and actually went over another treacherous mountain peak before ending up in a small town, an hour and a half later, only to find that we were on the completely opposite side of the mountain than the rest of our group (and the bus). You can imagine that we were rather concerned about our female friends! There wasn’t too much we could do other than wait for them to come down, but thankfully they made it down safely. So to top off our crazy day, we had to find a taxi to take us back to the hotel, but all in all it was quite an adventurous experience that I will never, ever forget!  It was a day of surreal beauty, and I kept thinking of all the Psalms that say “Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains.” We experienced God’s power and love displayed in his beautiful creation, and I am so thankful for that. 

I was sad to leave the Lake District, but our next stop was Edinburgh, Scotland, which turned out to be my favorite big city visit of the trip thus far! We stayed three nights at a less-than-stellar Travelodge with really stinky towels, but it was in a great location right along the Royal Mile, Edinburgh’s main road of shops and cathedrals and castles and monuments!! Our days were filled with visits to Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood House (where the Queen stays on her royal summer visits to Scotland), a tour of the Scottish National Parliament and sitting in on a live Parliament session, a ghost tour (which was far more entertaining than scary), and of course more hiking! This time we hiked up the small mountain called Arthur’s Seat which forms a majestic backdrop to the city and provides incredibly beautiful views of the city from the top! I have several observations to share with y’all about the Scottish Parliament and some of our hiking endeavors. First of all, I would like to tell y’all a little bit about the Parliament itself. As y’all well know, Scotland is officially a part of the United Kingdom, whose capitol is London. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is in Westminster in London. Westminster still sets major national policies for the UK. However, through a policy of devolution, the Scottish Parliament was reinstated in 1998 and is now able to handle some domestic affairs. It really is a wonderful idea, and it bears some similarities to state government in the United States. It is worth noting that some folks in Scotland actually want full independence from the United Kingdom. In fact, the Nationalist party actually has a majority in the Scottish Parliament at the moment. As for the Parliament building itself, it is rather unique. It is a highly modern style of architecture, and it is designed to look like a branch of a tree from above. While I think the building is doubtlessly interesting, I think I prefer classical style for our government buildings. I also have a final story for y’all about Arthur’s seat. The view from the top of Arthur’s Seat was absolutely phenomenal. I went up to the top with Juan, Miller, and Joey. Juan agreed to guide us since he had been the day before. On the way down, Juan assured us that he knew what he was doing. With full confidence in our friend, we followed him down Arthur’s Seat. As we began to descend, Juan mentioned that he thought we were going the wrong way…We ended up going down a rather steep side of Arthur’s Seat, totally off the path. After crab crawling down the slope, we finally made it down the path. Needless to say, I am not sure that we will trust Juan again as our Sherpa. Parliament and Arthur’s Seat aside, Edinburgh was an amazing city, and I truly enjoyed it!

    

We have one more blog post before you will receive news from London!

Yours Truly,

Thomas and Julie