Sorry all but this is going to be a long post! I just have too many exciting things to tell you about, and it is just impossible to condense, so lets get started!
Well you heard about my fun arrival day in England, don't worry the trip was exponentially better from there :]
London with Mom:
My mom, and two ladies from Boeing also working in Bristol, and I took the train into London, beautiful scenery I can't even describe it! We had a few problems getting to our hotel, which was outside of downtown London, because they are working on some of the tube lines. We spent like half and hour trying to figure out what to do and eventually we just walked a mile or so to the hotel, which was pretty nice if you ask me. Up to the rooms we went, freshed ourselves up and headed to downtown London. First stop.....Hard Rock Cafe :] We did a bit of shopping, mom got me a HRC London sweatshirt :] and then had a late lunch, very late lol like 3 pm late! After delicious food and music time we did the sights!
We saw the Welllington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament, walked along the Thames, then took a boat trip down the Thames to the London Bridge. The London Bridge is actually not impressive at all! Its only cool in the old nursery song. The really spectacular bridge in London is the Tower Bridge, that takes you to the Tower of London. The Tower Bridge is so beautiful at night, with the glow from the river walk lights it really looks grand :] After crossing the bridge we wandered around the Tower of London, which was closed, and found a...Starbucks :] Yay!!!!!! So we had a nice leisurely sit down and drank some coffee. After our yummi coffe we thought we would walk along the Thames back to Big Ben...boy did we underestimate that distance! After probably 45 minutes of walking mom and I decided we couldn't take anymore! So we told her friends that we were going to catch the underground and set off on our journey to the hotel. We ate some dinner at like 10:30 pm, i don't think I have ever eaten that late before and i'm not the biggest fan lol. The next day her friends caught an early train back to Bristol, but mom and I did some more exploring! I packed up all my stuff and we traveled into London to store my stuff at the hotel I would stay in that night and set off for the London Eye!
Oh the London Eye, how fantastic a ferris wheel :] It was amazing to see the city from hundreds meters up, the view of the river and Big Ben was spectacular. I think if I had the option I could just rent live in one of those capsules and go round and round all day and night. We found a cheap chinese buffet for lunch, I just can't seem to stay away from chinese food lol :] More wandering around the city and we found our way back to my hotel. Mom came with me to check into my hotel, and then we had to say our goodbyes. I didn't realize until she was ready to leave that I was a little homesick for the people I love, not so much the place but the people who are around me everyday. I realize now how hard it can be to be thousands of miles away from friends and family.
Class Study Tour in London:
Monday morning I met up with my core class at a place called Transport for London. We had our first academic visit there, which I enjoyed alot! We learned all about London's public transit and the congestion charge and low emission zone. I learned quite a bit and am excited to see if any american cities can take note and implement some of their ideas. After the visit we went to the hotel and to lunch, then the Tower of London. We had the rest of the night as free time, so 12 of us set off back to the hotel, we managed the underground but got lost trying to get to the hotel from the station, it took almost an extra hour lol. I've come to realize that we are pretty directionally challenged when dropped into a new place! We saw the theater production of The Lion King, which was pretty fantastic, the British accents were a little strange though lol. I feel like the rest of London was kind of a blur to me, I was just too excited waiting to get to Devon, I really needed to be in the country side!
Study Tour in Devon:
We left London from Paddington Station and a three hour train ride later we were in Totnes! The train trip was beautiful, we went past an estuary and I sat in awe as we rolled by. We arrived in Totnes and met Hal, who works for Transition Town Totnes as a tour guide and workshop leader. He took us to where we were going to stay, Sharpam Estate, which was probably the most beautiful place i've ever been :] Sharpam Estate was like a mansion, the building is extremely old and was bombed in WWI, so they had to fix some of the bricks on the front of the mansion. The mansion is on a hill top surrounded by rolling hills and overlooking the dart River. Picture a postcard of the england countryside...got it? Well this view was better than that! The estate has their own dairy farm, a vineyard, some sheep and a small wool mill. When we arrived I stood outside and had to make sure that it was real, could I really be that lucky? Oh yes!! We had dinner, which was completely vegetarian and mostly local and organic, I was in food heaven! After dinner we had an evening academic session with Hal, he is super funny! Now that the academic junk was out of the way, Hal took us to a local bar to see another part of the town. It was a cool little local place with local and organic beers. We all had a good time just relaxing and hanging out, we learned a lot about our teacher, she used to live in Devon many years ago.
The next day we had more academic sessions but we also did some walking and touring, which was great! We took a small tour of Totnes, saw some sustainability, or resilience as Hal calls it, in action. After that we went to a woman named Lou's house to learn about the Transition Streets project they do. Transition Streets is a program where neighborhoods get together to promote sustainability amongst their community. Its actually an intense program with a handbook and professional workshops. Lou is one of the leaders in the program, so she had a lot of interesting stuff to tell us! Next we saw some smaller projects in action, we went to this small farm which is run by a school program, and met with a guy who grows organic mushrooms in an old shipping container, a little strange I know but he was a funny guy! Last we took off up a hillside to see an old farm and this beautiful place called Dartington Hall. Now i have to admit I don't really remember why Dartington Hall is significant, because I was paying to much attention to the spectacular view I had and not enough to what Hal was saying....oops :]
After all the exploring and learning we headed for a local pub called Albert Einsteins to meet with some more employees of Transition Town Totnes so we could ask questions and what not. After that we had some free time, so of course we went exploring more, found an old church and walked along the wall for a bit before setting off to find some food. A group of 8 or so of us decided on an asian restaurant, which was delicious :] It was fun to just eat food and hang out, we did have a mishap with my friends dinner, she is vegan so she ordered vegetarian pad thai without any egg...all good and fine until her food comes out, she starts to eat it and it tastes funny. Another girl from our class had a bite of it and sure enough it was chicken pad thai, so we got a lady over to the table and said this pad thai has chicken, to which she responds "not chicken, vegetarian" and my friend holds up her fork and says "then whats this?" and then the woman was apologetic lol. Allison got some new food, but felt a little sick afterwards from eating that little bit of chicken. After dinner we met up with the big group again and headed back to the Albert Einstein Pub again to relax, we played some old music on the juke box and listened to the bar owner crack jokes for awhile. Hal came to pick us up in the bus and we headed back to Sharpham to get some well earned sleep :]
The next day was wonderful! We started off the morning with a short walk around Sharpham Estate and then set off to explore Dartmoor National Park. Man what I would do to live in Devon! Dartmoor was spectacular, awful in the actual meaning of the word, I was full of awe. Everywhere you looked there were hills and mountains and rocks and sheep and cows. I felt like I was in a movie, when the close up on people walking along some grass lands and then the camera zooms out and you see that they are walking on this vast hill top, that was basically what we were doing! We walked towards a cliff side and then stopped for a quick academic session, we learned about Gaia Theory, but more importantly we sat on these magnificent rocks and watched the river below us shimmer in the sunlight. I don't know if I've ever felt so invigorated, I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to look out over this amazing place, I couldn't have asked for anything better. We left Dartmoor and set off for Riverford Organic Farm, where we would be eating lunch, they have a field kitchen which is basically a restaurant that serves you the best organic and local food in the entire world, or at least thats what it seemed like to me :] I mean I love my grandma's cooking, but this was like grandma's home cooking on organic steroids! After we were stuffed full, and I mean that literally I think we were almost leaking pureed parsnips lol, Hal made us walk up a hill so we could see the whole farm. This task essentially turned into us walking up said hill and then literally collapsing in the grass because the sunshine was so fantastic and we were just so full!
We went back to Sharpham for another academic session, but this time we met outside on the bank of the river, it was probably the best "class" i've ever had to go to lol. We did some talking and then we had to have a solo assignment, we all had to take 20 minutes and go somewhere nearby to sit and sense nature and be silent, we were supposed to just slow down and really notice and feel where we were. Basically the best assignment ever :] I went walking along the river and took my time to notice what was around me, I listened to the birds sing and listened as my footsteps crunched on the soil, leaves and branches. Nothing had called to me yet so I just kept walking. Eventually I found a giant fallen tree that was in the river bed, it was low tide don't worry I didn't go swimming lol. So I climbed out on it and sat, I just sat there and watched the water flow and listen to the birds, I watched the birds swoop into the river and fight with the other birds, I felt the bark around me and looked at the old spider webs down the tree trunk. I closed my eyes and smelled the river water and felt the wind on my face and listed to the popping sound of the water and the sand. I think I could have sat there for hours, listening to the birds and feeling the wind around me, with that aroma of fresh water and trees. I honestly felt like Pocahontas when she sings Color of the Wind, I didn't hear any wolves crying to the moon but I felt alive and like I was a part of that place, I felt like the tree I was sitting on somehow could feel me too, it know that I was there taking in the feel and smell of the bark. I was a little sad to leave my tree when Hal called for us to come back, but I think it will remember that I was there, I know I can never forget my twenty minutes in that spot.
We shared our thoughts and then said goodbye to one of the facilitators that was helping Hal, Inez, because she had to go home to her son. We had an hour of free time before dinner so Allison and I went walking along the river bank, it was nice to see another part of the river. Then we headed for the house, but got distracted on the way up by the most adorable sheep! We went inside the pen with them and spent some quality time with their fluffy little selves. When we went to leave, they ran after us, it was so cute :] Then as we walked on towards the house we had a conversation with them through "baaaaaaaaahhhhhs". Literally! I would "baaaahhhh" and they would respond to me and that went on until we reached the front door of the house. I can communicate with sheep, yes!! We went inside for dinner and met the owner Sharpham Estate, he told us a bit of the history and asked if we were enjoying ourselves, there was a resounding "YES!" to that questions :] We had our last night session, and went upstairs to start packing up our stuff, we had to leave the next morning at 8:45 :[[
All good things must come to an end, it sucks! We got ready to leave and you could feel the heartbreak that was happening to everyone in my class, we really didn't want to leave. You could see it in our faces and hear it in our voices, we couldn't part with this place happily. But we had to, Denmark was beckoning. Hall took us to the train station, it was also hard to leave him! But we left him with a parting gift, we taught him the word "crunchy" meaning like very hippie and environmentalisty, yeah i know thats not a word! He used that word like a thousand times over our three days with him lol. We waved goodbye to him and spent the next four and half hours on the train back to London. We got to airport and had a few hours to roam, I discovered that if you buy things from the stores after you've been through security the 3 oz. liquid rule doesn't apply! So I had a little party in the pharmacy :] In Denmark everything is expensive, and they don't have any american brands of anything! So I stocked up on some more shampoo, conditioner, floss, toothpaste and chapstick :]]]] And I got all that stuff for cheaper that what it would cost me to just get the shampoo and conditioner in Denmark. Score for Alyssa! We got on the plane and said our final farewells to England. A few hours later we were back in Copenhagen, back to familiar places and people, and back to not understanding the language! I caught the metro, then the train and then the bus and then a bit of walking and I was home again, greeted by a leaping hug from Benedicte, she missed me :]
So now I'm back in Copenhagen, but watch out Totnes I'll be back, I promise you that :]
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