Let me just start by saying, the English Countryside is absolutely gorgeous.

So, this past Friday I left really early in the morning to catch the Megabus from St. Pancras Station to York for my HOST stay. At first, I was confused when I got to the St. Pancras station because I didn’t know I had to take a train first. As it turns out, I had to take the train to a stop about 2 hours away and then switch to the Megabus. It was about a 2 hour ride on the train and then a 4 hour ride on the coach. As we were getting closer to York and further north, the sights around me became increasingly green and open. I was in such awe at all of the open green fields. With all of the rain they get here, things better be green!! About 2 minutes after I got there, Maggie (my host) showed up behind me! She was an older woman who has grown children; she lives in a quaint little market town of Kirkbymoorside. There was another girl, Quinyu, who was scheduled to stay at Maggie’s house too, so we headed to the train station to pick her up. Quinyu’s train was supposed to get in 15 minutes after mine, so we walked around looking for her. Maggie accidentally forgot Quinyu’s phone number at home and we couldn’t find her anywhere, so Maggie decided that we should sit down for tea as we wait. We waited until another train came in from Quinyu’s place of study, and then decided that we didn’t know what was happening and that we should just go back home. Funny thing is that as we were walking to the car, a girl rushed up to us and asked if we were the people from HOST! It was really good luck because we were about to leave. On our way to Kirkbymoorside, the sights were just breathtaking! We stopped once and Maggie let us get out of the car to take pictures. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

 

Maggie’s house was about an hour away. One thing I noticed while in a car with a woman that’s in her 70’s – people drive SO fast here! Maggie was speeding like an American teenager; however, it was quite obvious that’s the driving culture here for the most part. There were still people passing us even though I thought we were going so fast, especially on little countryside roads.

Maggie’s house was so cute! It was smaller and decorated with a ton of art; I later found out that she drew most of it. The house was pretty freezing; thankfully, there was a little gas fireplace in the living room. Maggie also has a cat named Cassie who greeted us as we found the way to our room.

By the time we were situated, it was already past 4pm so we had tea and Maggie prepared dinner. Since she was aware of my eating habits, she bought me soya milk and prepared animal-free meals (for the most part)! It was so kind of her to buy me my own milk and cater to my dietary lifestyle. For dinner that night, Maggie made stuffed tomatoes with rice and vegetables – it was so yummy! We all sat down in her kitchen with tea and dinner and chatted about our lives. Quinyu was very interesting to talk to; she has lived in China all her life so I was having so much fun asking her all types of questions. She’s never been to America, so she had quite a few questions herself! After dinner, we had more tea and some chocolate (Maggie had a dark chocolate bar). We talked around the fire and watched a bit of TV. I was going on about 4 hours of sleep, but I thought that Maggie would be going to bed early. Well boy oh boy was I wrong because we didn’t end up going to bed until almost midnight! I was so exhausted. The next morning, we woke up and got ready for the day. When we were all downstairs we sat down in the kitchen and had tea, oatmeal with fresh fruit, and talked for a while. Maggie is a very interesting woman herself and has done a lot of traveling. I always love meeting other people with a passion for traveling, especially when they know more about it then I do because then I get to ask them all about their experiences. After breakfast, we left the house and walked around the market town of Kirkbymoorside and the surrounding villages. 

I found out that a market town is a town that has a “market” and a few shops (one size smaller is a village). Kirkbymoorside is pretty much what I thought the English countryside would look like, except it’s about 94759873 times more gorgeous then I expected. As we were walking, we saw some sheep! There was also a lot of mud but it wasn’t rainy so I was happy.

We walked in a really big circle and eventually got back to Maggie’s house. After our walk, we went back to Maggie’s house for some lunch; she made salad and bread and we had tea again. After we ate lunch and chatted a bit more, we went in the car and drove to a village that was on the way to the moors. It was an adorable little village that had a stream running through it and cute little strips of shops. There were glass makers, stained-glass makers, pottery makers, candle makers, and chocolate makers. After we walked around the village and the town for a bit, we left there and headed to the moors. From what Maggie told me, the moors is an area of land that isn’t good for anything other than feeding sheep because the soil is so poor. Farmers put dye on their sheep and then let them wander in the moors. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the landscape was – we stopped two times on the way to get out of the car and take pictures. There were a ton of sheep roaming all around the grasslands grazing and walking around; so,me and Quinyu went to take pictures of the sheep. We ran over to the fence and 3 of the sheep looked at us and made a sheep-ish noise. All of a sudden the whole field of sheep was walking towards us!!

It was really funny (and kind of scary)! When we got to the moors, we went on a nature preserve walk. It was a mile and a half walk through the moors with a caf� at the end called the Daffy Caffy. The landscape was so so pretty and I couldn’t help myself from just standing and staring. The walk was gorgeous – I wish a camera could have done the landscape justice, but it’s impossible. Everything was just so pretty. 

We all had a really good talk and we arrived at the caf�. It was really cute and apparently Maggie knew the man who owned it and his family. One really cool thing is that the caf� was the house of this family (they have 4 young children)! We had some tea and then headed back to Maggie’s house. We had some more tea and ate beans, potatoes, carrots, and squash with coconut and mushrooms for dinner! It was so yummy. Maggie asked us to write in her book that all her students write in. I wrote her a nice little message and told her to keep in touch. We put the TV on and looked for interesting shows when we came upon traveling programs on the Dave channel. Luckily, we went to bed around 11pm Saturday night.

When we woke up, we had cereal for breakfast and got ready to leave. We left Maggie’s house around 10:30am and stopped on the way at a castle to see the grounds. We saw a peacock with its tail open and then we continued on the journey back to York. When we got there, Maggie decided she wanted to walk half of the walls surrounding the original city of York.

 

It was actually really beautiful and I’m glad we got to go. After we walked the walls, we were just walking around the streets. We went to the York minster (church) and the Shambles, which is the oldest street in York.

After walking around for a bit, we stopped for lunch. Maggie packed us sandwiches and we sat in the sun and ate. At this point, we decided that it’d be a good move to head back to the car. On the way to the station, we stopped again to take pictures at a lake.

We got to the station, figured out where Quinyu’s train was getting her, and then had tea. Quinyu left and then Maggie took me to the bus stop. I waited there for about 20 minutes until the bus came. I was on a bus to Leeds for an hour and then I got off at the Leeds coach station to transfer to another bus. I got on the bus and was on it for about 4 hours (or so). It was a lovely feeling when I finally got home; I love traveling but I love London so much. Monday, I had to take a trip to the grocery store and then write 2 papers that were due Tuesday. Nothing like procrastination in another country! About halfway through, I took a break when for dinner. While I was trying to get out the pans I needed, there was one on the stove (that was turned off)! I touched the bottom of the pot for some reason and ended up burning the CRAP out of my. Obviously my mom never taught me to not touch hot objects. It was really painful but I think I will refrain from procrastinating papers from now on!!

Wednesday morning, I was in such a wonderful mood! It was sunny and pretty in London. We had our last trip for historic London class and it was at the British Museum. It was actually a great museum – we had a tour guide that was an archeologist from Greece! I definitely want to go back there. 

I decided to walk home and I took the route so that I would go through all the parks nearby; I went past Green Park, Hyde Park and I walked through Kensington Gardens. The gardens were gorgeous – I can’t believe I’m living here. I walked through a Rose garden and the flowers were blooming and they smelled so wonderful. Spring in London = WONDERFUL<3

I found an amazing vegan (homemade) bakery that does “pop-up” stands all over. I went to one of the stands today and I bought some. They are the most amazing cupcakes ever.

 Tomorrow I’m headed to Stonehenge and then a concert on Sunday so I’ll be blogging all about that next! 

Location: Kirkbymoorside, England