Today (Wednesday) was a bittersweet day. We had to say goodbye to Laura and Daniel who were awesome tour guides and great hosts. We proceeded on to the next leg of our trip. The morning was super relaxing – packing and a visit to the grocery store was all that was needed. Laura drove us to the train station and we got off without any issues. The 2 hour train to the St. Pancras train station in London was pretty uneventful. We arrived around 3:30 and then the real fun began! We had to quickly figure out the Underground and get to our hotel just on the outskirts of the city of London.

We had a 6 o’clock dinner reservation so we had to get ready in record time. We caught a cab to take us to dinner and the driver had no idea where we needed to go. Our restaurant was literally across from Her Majesty’s Theatre. How can you be a cab driver in London and not know where Her Majesty’s Theatre is?! Well, we eventually got to the restaurant 5 minutes past our reservation – not too bad for using the Google maps in Richie’s phone in a place we have never been! We had a delicious Indian dinner and headed across to the street to see The Phantom of the Opera (Link)!!!!!

What a ridiculously amazing show. Believe it or not, I don’t think I have the words to describe the experience! Even though it was a musical, Richie loved it! It truly was a once in a lifetime experience to see a show on The West End and our quick visit to London could not have started off on a better note 😉

Tomorrow is a busy one – lots to do and see in London.

Tuesday, our last full day in Nottingham was one of the most exciting. We woke up early and drove up to Derbyshire to hike the dales. (A shire is similar to a county in the US). We chose a short eight mile hike with a treat at the end, a visit to the Chatsworth House. We could have driven to the house, but the hike added so much more to the experience. What’s unique about Derbyshire is that, while the land is owned by sheep farmers, it’s completely open to the public to walk through.

We started off in a little town called Bakewell around noon. The trail took us through a golf course and into some woods. At the edge of the woods, we were met with hills upon hills of perfectly trimmed green grass and hundreds upon hundreds of grazing sheep. It amazes me that the grass is so perfectly kept just by the grazing sheep (picture).

After traveling through the hills, we come across our final hill and see our destination, the Chatsworth House (picture). We stopped off at the nearby village and visited the grave of John F. Kennedy’s sister, Kathleen (picture), who died in a plane crash during World War II. She was married to a local. We arrived at the house around 2:30pm and stopped for lunch in the gardens (picture). I can’t help but think that our hiking and lunch experience was probably very similar to what life was like in the 18th century (minus the bottled water). We toured the grounds and returned to Bakewell around 6:30pm. We finally arrived back home around 8pm with sore feet but such great memories.

We finished the evening with an Indian dinner while watching a football match. We fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

We had a little bit of a late start today…maybe the time change is affecting us a wee bit more than we thought initially 🙂 We took a double-decker bus into Nottingham to experience the history and the legends. We walked around the center of Nottingham for a little bit and then headed to see a sweet piece of Nottingham history. We took a tour of Nottingham Castle (picture)– way too much history there to write about here, but super fascinating stuff!! The grounds were absolutely phenomenal and the intricacy of the architecture is breathtaking. We walked around the museum inside and then toured the cave known as Mortimer’s Hole (historical reference). The tour guide was probably the most animated guy in all of England. He was dripping with history and you could tell he loved his job. The caves were phenomenal. Initially used as a route to carry supplies from the river by donkeys, they played an important role in the history of the castle- check them out (picture)! The tour was probably our favorite part of the day!

After the cave tour, we had lunch in the “Ye Olde Road to Jerusalem” pub – the oldest inn in England and where Richard the Lionheart would have a beer with his men before heading to The Crusades. The pub is dug into the rock beneath the castle and it wasn’t until modern times that a roof and walls were built in the front of the pub to turn it into a “proper” pub. Having lunch in an old cave was definitely a once in a lifetime experience! Also in the pub was an old “Pregnancy Chair”. Legend has it that if you sit in the chair, you soon become pregnant. Rich wonders if it works for men as well. Sexist Brits! Apparently Anna can’t read proper English as she actually sat in the chair prior to reading the entire sign (picture).

We met up with Daniel and headed to Wollaton Hall and Park (picture). This part of Nottingham used to be an estate owned by the Middletons. It is now a tourist spot, a golf course and home to many, many deer who are free to roam wherever they please…including the putting green. For those of you who have seen the newest Batman movie, this estate was used in the film as Bruce Wayne’s home!

We headed back home after Wollaton Hall but took a detour through the Victorian part of Nottingham, walking through the old lace district (now a modern shopping center) and stopping for a cappuccino along the way. There is so much history, it’s hard to keep track of it all!!

Sunday was our first full morning in the UK and we seemed to be adjust to the time difference better than I (Rich) had expected. After a much needed night of sleep we watched Mark play in his U19 football league. Afterwards we went out to our first pub where I had the Sunday roast (photo), a traditional English Sunday meal. Anna went with the Burger and “Chips”, traditionally an American meal. As you can see, Anna is really diving in to the culture here. The food was great and fueled our walk by the Trent river. It amazes me how much people walk here. There’s much more walking than back in the states and when not walking, many people choose public transportation which is much nicer and much cleaner than back in the US.

We toured the University of Nottingham and took pictures of the grounds and buildings. The campus is beautiful and contains a lot of green space and walking grounds. We walked around the pond and saw a couple of the Queens subjects (picture). Interesting fact: The queen owns the right to all the swans in England.

After dinner at my aunt and uncles we attended church, came back home and finished the day by watching Match of the Day, a televised recap of all of the important football matches.

View our photos

We arrived at the airport and went through security without a hassle. We had two hours to wait for our flight which ended up being longer due to delays with our plane in Philadelphia. While waiting, we hear TSA announce over the loudspeaker “Would Vera Bradley please come back to the TSA checkpoint and claim your bag. VERA BRADLEY, please come back to the TSA checkpoint and claim your bag.” Um, hey guy announcer, that’s a famous handbag designer, probably not a passenger. Maybe Mr. Hanes’ left his belongings at the TSA checkpoint too. We may have been the only two laughing out loud in Terminal B during this announcement.

Despite the delays, we were finally able to board the plane and get “comfortable.” As comfortable as you can get in those puddle jumpers. I (Anna) was seated next to a Vietnam war vet who asked if I was traveling with my husband. He started to say “I don’t mind…” And I thought he would finish with …”switching with him” but instead said “I don’t mind sitting next to the prettiest girl on the plane.” Seriously, cute little old man? Could this trip get any better after that? Oh yes, yes it can.

About 10 minutes into waiting, we hear there is a maintenance issue and it will only be a few minutes. Well, 10 minutes later, we are exiting the plane and the flight has been cancelled. They recommended we try to get a flight to Boston and then to London instead. We get in the line for Boston and hope and pray there are seats left. “There are only two seats left from Boston to London” says the guy behind the counter. Phew. But then came this…”You two are lucky, the only two seats left are in first class.” hhhhWHAT?!? Could this be happening? We joked before the trip that it would be amazing if we could somehow manage to get into business or first class, but knew it was near impossible. Apparently a maintenance issue turned out to be the beginning of a luxury plane ride to London!

First class on British Airways was ridiculous. They offered us five star meals (which despite our sleepiness, we both partook of at 11 at night), pajamas, sleep masks and turn-down service. Yup, you read that right. They literally made the bed of the person sitting beside me. The seats reclined into beds for sleeping. And each seat has it’s own compartment to separate the passengers and create privacy. We each slept for several hours and arrived safely in London around 10 am. You know you have a great extended family when within 5 minutes of landing, they buy you a mocha latte. Mmm, yes please.

We had brunch with the family and then attended our first British football game. It was a blast! Watch the video on our flickr page! We walked through the town of West Bridgford on the way home. A cappuccino and homemade oatmeal chocolate cookies with peanut M&M’s (Made by Sonja) are an excellent way to cap off a football game, wouldn’t you say? We finished the night with fajitas and catching up around the dinner table. We passed out around 11 from exhaustion and didn’t move a muscle until morning.

Sunday started off with going to Mark’s football game around 10:00. We have just gotten back from that and are headed to experience our first British pub in a few minutes!!

Stay Tuned! Cheers 🙂