Just so y’all know, we have safely made it to London! It is an amazing city, and I have no doubt that we have many adventures in store. Before we tell y’all all about London though, we wanted to give y’all a quick update about the final days of our traveling tour. In the final days of our tour, we visited York, Cambridge, and Bath. All three were really enjoyable! At the end of the tour we also said goodbye to our trusty bus driver, Seamus….he sometimes struggled with directions and finding bus parking lots and knowing the most direct way to get anywhere (as in, we spent lots of time driving in circles) but all in all, he got us where we needed to go safely and we were thankful for that!
York is a wonderfully charming English city. My favorite part of York was York Minster, a phenomenal Cathedral. We went to Evensong in York, and the service was moving. Although it is a bit more formal than my typical Southern Baptist style of worship, it was nonetheless praiseworthy. The situation of the Anglican Church is interesting. Church attendance continues to fall in the highly rigid, formal services, but attendance is flourishing in the ‘Low” church. I had a wonderful experience at a “Low” Church in London, but I think I will save that for our next post. York was definitely one of my favorite cities we’ve visited so far, AND it was the place where I celebrated my 20th birthday!!!! Last Monday I entered my third decade of life, and what better way to celebrate than by exploring a beautiful, historic English city!! It was a wonderful birthday for many reasons, but some of the highlights included: seeing my family on skype in the first few minutes of my birthday (they sang Happy Birthday to me at midnight!!), waking up to amazingly warm weather (it felt like fall, my favorite season, for the first time this whole trip!!), the surprise box of Special K that Olivia gave me at breakfast (it’s the little things in life…), wearing a HUGE pin that said “birthday girl” all day and receiving lots of birthday greetings from random York-ians, and being surprised by Windy and Katherine with a delicious cookie cake at dinner!!! A wonderful day and a wonderful city! J
Although our stay in Cambridge was relatively brief, the city was spectacular. I personally think I prefer Cambridge to Oxford. Cambridge is far more picturesque, and it has the feel of a university town. A few of the guys went punting together. (Think English version of a gondola). Olivia, Hannah, Brian and I also went punting together and it was SO MUCH FUN! (Well, Brian did most of the punting and we did most of the relaxing, but we all did try out our punting skills throughout the ride and it was so fun…I would definitely consider going to school in Cambridge just to become a professional punter!)
Bath was a surprisingly beautiful city. The obvious tourist attraction in the city is the Roman Bath, which is well preserved. Our visit was both informative and enjoyable. I spent almost a whole day in Bath reading in various parks. I bought Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and it was a rather interesting read! (I know I am a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon, but it was enjoyable. It was a little scandalous and did not offer the most glowing endorsement of southern society… ) I also spent most of the day soaking up the 80-degree weather (yes, that’s correct, 80 degrees) in the park, people-watching and such; then later that night we went to the Bath Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Bath Abbey (Allison you would be so proud of me!), and it was wonderful!!!
Well, it’s about time to go explore some more of this crazy big city, but be getting excited. Our first update on life in London….coming soon to a blog post near you.
Yours Truly,
Thomas and Julie
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