Windermere- July 31

NOTE: I will add pictures later, this is just a temporary update on my North Trip! make sure to check them all out!

Hi everyone! It’s day two here in the Lake District and I am exhausted! This is the earliest I’ve been able to be in bed this whole trip and I love it! I just got done writing some postcards J

So we started out this morning getting breakfast here at our hostel! Our hostel is so nice I can’t get over it. I let myself try a bit of a traditional English breakfast with sausage, beans, and eggs. It was good! I also had a bit of bran cereal. After that we took the coach back to Dove Cottage. Today we had the amazing opportunity to actually handle manuscripts and letters from the Wordsworth Trust that are originals from William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge themselves! It was amazing! We basically spent the whole morning with the curator and it was just a very big deal. They filmed the whole thing and our professor was taking pictures like crazy. I wasn’t really looking forward to this but it ended up being so cool. Handling the letters and first drafts of Wordsworth’s poems made the whole scene really come to life. It was so cool because we have been studying him so much in my English literature class. Also all the stuff we did last night helped too. 

Halfway through our session we had a break for tea. But we didn’t have tea J haha we did have a little assortment of cake and cookies though! It was the cutest thing ever... they also had vimto, ribena, and water for us. They also had this homemade secret recipe seed cake and ginger bread. It was amazing. I hate gingerbread and I thought it was so good. They gave us a little souvenir menu that also included some of the things we had last night and it was cool because everything they serve us (except the vimto and ribena obviously) are old recipes they would have used back in the day. So after that we went back up and looked at some more documents. Then the curator wanted us to give little presentations! I guess he really really liked our group. They are redoing the ‘experience’ at Dove Cottage soon and wanted our feedback, so we split into groups and gave presentations on what we would like to see in the cottage, garden, and museum. They even filmed us! So we were feeling pretty special.

After this we went back to Ambleside/Windermere for free time and lunch. I saw some roadbikers on the way and DAD you would DIE if you biked here. I don’t think you could ever bike in Logan again after seeing this place. But Professor Christianson recommended this place called Apple Pie Café and it was amazing. I got an egg and cress filled roll. A lot of people got pastries and they all looked yummy! We then walked through town, stopped at the post office to get some stamps and in a random cute store that reminded me a ton of the Sportsman in downtown Logan. It’s so funny; literally every other shop here is a hiking store. I want to just hike nonstop! And I have to say again how beautiful it is here. I feel like I’m in the Swiss Alps. I love it. But also I have to say right at the middle of the town square there’s a church then a little green that has a mini golf course. It reminds me so much of the mini golfing up at Sweetwater up at Bear Lake. This place just makes me so homesick! But at the same time I never want to leave. Haha so it’s a rough life. But Chelsea and me headed back over to our hostel because we wanted to get out on the water somehow! We didn’t have a lot of time though. So we went to the canoe rental place run by the hostel and the guy said he was going to close early because the water was getting choppy so we were bummed. So we started heading back into town but then we saw some other girls in our group getting rowboats at the rental place next to us, so we went for that! The guy running it must’ve liked us because he gave us a boat for free! The other girls had to pay 5 pounds each! He told me not to tell though so keep it a secret for me okay ;) but it was so fun! We rowed around for like 30 minutes then had to head back to Ambleside to meet for our big hike!

The hike was beautiful! I won’t say too much because I have pictures, but pictures don’t do it justice. I have decided this place is like the Yellowstone of England! It just doesn’t have the big animals or the geothermal crap. I shouldn’t say crap because it’s cool crap. But you get my point. Anyways, There are sheep everywhere, which I love. I just want to be a sheep and chill here in England. That would be the life! We mostly followed this rock wall up a little mini mountain so it was pretty intense for a bit, but not as bad as the psycho hike we did in Cornwall. There were lots of beautiful streams and of course beautiful views of the lake. We also found this big cave thing! So that was sweet. Oh and we saw deer J also made me miss home. Dang deer! That took about three hours so we did some major work! We were all super ready for dinner so we came back into Ambleside and went to this Italian place! It was the first Italian food I’ve had the whole trip, which is surprising because it’s seriously everywhere. I got broccoli and blue cheese lasagna and it was pretty good! We were supposed to go on another mini hike to a waterfall but dinner took a long time and it started raining pretty hard, so we bailed. Then we walked back to our hostel in Windermere, which is like 15 minutes away. And now here I am!

I really wish we had more time here because I would love to see Beatrix Potter’s home and spend more time in Ambleside, hiking, and just enjoying the scenery and the lake. But mom said that we could come back so mom I am holding you to that by posting this publicly!

I am gonna start making a study guide for finals next week then I am going to bed!! Tomorrow we head to York and are spending the night. Yeahoo!