Home Stay Weekend!

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Home stay weekend is a big part of the Butler "experience" here in the UK and Ireland according to Ruth, Cathy, and Katherine, the three women who run my program who are kinda like everyone's young chic mothers. As I mentioned before I got my assignment the second or third day I was here and my family seemed like they would be the exact opposite of everything I had written down on my description sheet. I realize I don't know exactly what I wrote down on that fateful day back at UConn sometime last fall but I never said anything about being religious or liking children, two major aspects of my English family's life. As the day came closer (last Friday) I got more nervous but felt reassured as everyone else in my program was basically as scared as I was. I figured I'd be alright, smile a lot, eat all the food they give me, and since I'm a pro at these family stays it'd be good enough. Other people had never been out of the US before so staying with some strange family would be a little odd. It was just bad because somehow word had spread about my out of the ordinary family and as the day came I got more and more questions that all seemed to be like, "so you have that family?"

Friday rolled around and the time came for all 20 or so of us in my apartment building to walk the half hour to our pick up location. After the worst walk ever we got there a little late and shuffled onto the busses. I remember the last time I drove with Europeans was back in Spain and we got in multiple accidents. Before then it was on a motorcycle this someone's day who literally drove about 100 miles an hour. I should have known that the bus ride to Shap, the area we were all staying, wouldn't be fun. It was kind of like two+ hours of torture as the bus driver whipped through Scotland where no road is straight for longer than .6 seconds. And the hills weren't fun either. We stopped in some little place because of some laws where the driver had to take a break. A bunch of us were starving at this point (we left Edinburgh at 5:30 and I had no time to eat before) so we told the bus driver we'd be back. He looked a little angry and said he was leaving in 15 minutes even if we weren't back so we hurried off. We got some deep fried Scottish goodies and about 10 minutes after left the bus we hurried back to find the driver scowling at us. He growled that he wouldn't let any food on the bus so we better eat fast. Good thing our food was so hot we couldn't eat it! We stood outside the bus for another 10 minutes or so and the bus driver seemed really really mad that we hadn't left yet so those that didn't smuggle the food on the bus threw it away and we hurried on to England.

Upon arriving in this town called Penrith, the largest town in the county of Cumbria, England we all hurried off the bus in a confused mass and grabbed our bags that the bus driver had tossed on the pavement. We had no way of knowing who our families were and they didn't know us either. Well lucky for me, my family wasn't there! Just kidding... kind of. My original family wasn't, and neither was my replacement family. But my alternative replacement family was there to take all 5 of us Americans into their home! Apparently what had happened was my original family had decided not to host anyone but never bothered to tell me (apparently it's up to them and not the program to let us know this). Then my replacement family's car had broken down 50 miles outside of the city and they had no way of getting back to town that weekend. So the Wrights had lovingly took in 5 confused American students, me, Liz (who would have been with me and the bad car family), Ryan, Ryan (the family affectionately called them big Ryan and little Ryan as one was about 6 foot five and the other is about my height), and Jacob. We drove to the Wright's house in the town of Shap about 10 minutes away to find the most amazing house ever. It's 302 years old this year and is three stories and used to be an old pub. It was really cold but it had all these little doors and the walls were all shaped funnily. When we got there Jacky, the mom had a really good casserole ready and we met their son, Paul who is a crazy 9 year old kid. They've hosted students for 25 years and have a guy from Ecuador there now, Christian. We stayed up and talked for a while then went to bed.

The next day Liz and I got up and had breakfast with Paul before the five Americans, Christian, Paul, and Alan, the dad went out on some adventures! We met up with other families and went into the Lake District which is the national park that's in Cumbria. The Park was established pretty recently so there are roads and houses that go through it but you can't build anything new on the land. We went to this place in the fells where there were trails and stairs all over and waterfalls and wonderful views. After hiking around for a bit we pilled back in the car (luckily it's a giant land rover) and drove off to a stone circle on top of this giant hill. It was like a mini Stonehenge and seemed completely like a normal thing to all the British people. The landscape was breath taking despite it sleeting and being freezing. We quickly got back in the car and went to Keswick for lunch. I finally had fish and chips! It was okay. We filled this little restaurant and the parents paid for everyone! It was really nice. We walked around a little out door market as it stopped raining and saw a million dogs before leaving. Our car decided to go see more sights so we headed off to another village. It just so happens that William Wordsworth lived there! So we saw his grave and got the most amazing gingerbread I've ever had. Alan warned us that it was addictive and he was right. We saw a really beautiful church and then went to see some Roman ruins! They were awesome. This place was a roman grain storage/port and there were even grain left there when it was discovered! The area was fenced off so the sheep couldn't eat it but there were stairs to scale the fence which Paul of course fell down. Since it was dark and Paul said he couldn't walk we left and went home to get some dinner. Of course we had to scale a mountain in the car so Alan could show us some castle in the dark and it was another horrible ride we finally made it. That night we watched this show called Most Haunted which is this British show about ghost hunters in castles. The show was about a castle we were going to see the next day and it was really entertaining. After that it was kinda late but we decided to see the pubs in the area. As Christian as our guide we set out and the first one was closed. The next one looked weird but the last one was closed as well so we went to the strange one. When we got there it wasn't that everyone stopped what they were doing, they kept talking but stared at us. It was a little awkward but the people were friendly and wanted to know where we were from. The bartender insisted that Liz buy food from her but she refused. The guys got this local ale that was really really tasty. After a while everyone stumbled out and some people shouted at us to have a good night and one girl said bye and then ran away screaming "I TALKED TO THE AMERICANS!" After everyone left the bartender came over and gave us a present... a pickled egg. We all shared it and it was delicious. After a while we left as it was really weird that we were the only ones there even though it was a Saturday night.

The next morning we got up and walked a mile and a half through sheep fields to the Shap Abby. Paul (on his little scooter) took us all there and it was really pretty! The walk was really far and cold but there were so many sheep and the country is beautiful. We tried to pet a sheep but his friend sheep got angry and growled whenever he got too close to us. The abbey itself was huge! It seemed to be no big deal as it was at the end of some dirt road in the middle of no where but it was a huge 14th century abbey. Since it took us 45 minutes to walk there (there was a giant hill) we couldn't stay too long but it was really worth it. We went back to the house and had lunch. Alan and Jacky gave each of us a book about the Lake District and they loved the gifts we gave them! Afterwards we packed our bags and headed out to the haunted castle before getting the bus back. As we got to the castle it turned out to be more like a fortified house and the army had used it as a weapons tester during the world wars. Apparently they had used it to test a machine that would temporarily blind people. So there were supposed to be ghosts there from long ago and soldiers. There was also a cafe and stores there too! As we were walking around a car drove up and asked if we needed help. It turns out it was the guy from the TV show! He told us about the show and how it was real and that now he was scared of his shop (he owned a little shop there and had helped out the TV people). He told us to come back and ask for him and he'd give us a free haunted night tour. We walked around for a while afterwards and it was pretty creepy. There was a recording of guy asking for donations at the gate because someone was trying to restore the area but it's so badly ruined that it's difficult. Especially with the army bunkers and things. We left after a while to catch the bus and our family told us that they wanted to visit us all in Edinburgh. They do RVing and wanted to see all their students again from the semester and they told us we could come back any time. I was really lucky to get a great family to stay with. Others ended up not being so lucky. Some people didn't get food and others just sat around.

So we went back to Edinburgh after some sad goodbyes but very happy with the weekend. But no, that's not where it ends. After a few hours of more horrible driving (the same grumpy driver was back) we got into the city and we were supposed to be dropped off at the dorms, where we got picked up. It came to our attention after a few minutes that the driver was going the wrong way. Big Ryan went up and asked very politely if the driver knew where to drop us off at the dorms. The driver said almost as if he didn't care that he had no idea where he was going. So we gave him directions and everyone was really angry when we got off the bus and then had to walk forever back to the apartment. My flat mate and I got dominoes on the way back home and I'm sure we looked ridiculous walking around town with luggage and a pizza.

Well that's the story of my weekend in England, I hope you all enjoyed it! There will be another update after my weekend full of visitors!

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Photos

HIGHLAND COWS
I was so excited we saw these, despite the fact that they're from the Highlands and we were in England.

Paul and Ruins
This is Paul the little boy in the family. He's sitting next to a sign that says no climbing on the walls but he wouldn't come down until we took his picture.

Comments

[Chris]

Great Weekend
Hi Melissa, sounds like a great weekend. Glad everything worked out so well with your very cool family. Thanks for the updates!