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Stained glass
The Annunciation, The Three Wise Men and the Calling of the Shepherds found in the Haworth Church. On Friday morning, the twelve of us piled into a van and car and headed to the Lake District for our last flat trip.We began the day by outlawing the words "last" and "final" as the day of our departure is fast approaching and none of us feels quite ready for that yet. Our first stop was 2 hours down the road in the little town of Haworth in West Yorkshire. It is here that the Bronte Parsonage is located, which has been turned into a museum of the Bronte sisters and their family. The church, which is literally out the back door, is where their father preached and where they are buried. I knew practically nothing about the Bronte's before going to the museum, so I learned about their brother who was an artist and also a bit of an alcoholic and opium addict. There were two other girls who died when Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were still quite young. There father was originally from Ireland and changed his name when he came to study in England. As children they made up imaginary lands and started writing when young in very tiny books - some of them were barely larger
than a 10p piece! The writing was so small; it would extremely hard to write that small, let alone read it. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne published under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, but Charlotte was the most published with 4 novels. All three died before they reached the age of forty, and were survived only by their father. Their house was not as dreary as I expected it to be, nor was the surrounding countryside. The town of Haworth was small, to be sure, and in their day they would have been effectively cut off from the outside world as the nearest train was 4 miles away, but they did leave to attend school and work as governesses for a short time. But from some of the scenes in Wuthering Heights and how I have always heard their lives described, I expected a much grimmer setting. After the museum, we climbed back into the vehicles and continued on to the Lake District. We were spending the next two nights in the small town of Ambleside on Lake Windermere. The YHA was huge! It accommodated our group, plus the group from St. Cloud State, plus a rugby club, and
Sir Galahad
On the banner it says: "If I lose myself, I save myself." other guests! After dumping our stuff, we went for a group dinner, which was amazing. I had trout from the Ullswater, another lake in the district. It was sooo good! As we are coming to the end of our time together and as this was our final flat trip, we were enjoying every minute that we could spend together. So, after a rather long dinner, we got dressed for an evening hike up to a view point above the lake. It did not matter to us that it was raining - and before we got too far it was pouring. But we made it up and back before it was pitch black. The view was hauntingly pretty as everything was covered in rain and low clouds. By the time we reached the YHA again we were all soaked. We changed and then meet down in the common room where we spent the rest of the evening playing charades using Pictionary cards. It was hilarious. The ten of us and Storm probably made way to much noise, but it was great. Some of the best ones were "porpoise", "Russia" and "patio".
Saturday morning found us driving about 15 minutes to Dove
St. George
Of course! Cottage which was the home of William Wordsworth for 9 years. The Wordsworth house had at one time been a pub called the Dove and Olive and still had the dark wood paneling and original stone floor. The fires that they had in the house were also burning coal! It was so cool!! Wordsworth's passport was on display and it didn't have a picture at all, just a description of what he looked like, but it really could have been describing almost anyone. It was here that he and his sister, Dorthy, lived and later his family and several friends of the family, before they moved to Rydal Mount in 1808. It is also thought that this is where he was inspired to write some of his best poetry, including
I wandered lonely as a cloud. After going through the house and museum, we drove on to his grave and the daffodil garden that was beside it. Before we knew it, we were circled up and folk dancing by the daffodils - amazing. After we had probably ruined several people's experience at Wordsworth's grave and confused many others, we drove back to Ambleside and then had the afternoon to hike.
It was wet. Kia, Katie, and I went to the remains of the Roman Fort of Galava. The most that was there was the floor of the grain storage building. This was a bit disappointing. Then we went into town and looked around. I then climbed up to a waterfall that wasn't too far away. It wasn't raining while I was at the waterfall, but I made it about halfway through town before it started to downpour on me. Once again I was soaked by the time I reached the hostel. This also ruined our plans to go canoing on the lake, so instead we had a lazy afternoon of reading and napping in the hostel common room before the ten of us headed back up to town for dinner. I have forgot to mention so far that this was the weekend of the warrior braids. Siri introduced this idea to us and then proceeded to braid our hair in crazy ways. I had a "zig-zag" while Carrie had "sidewinder" and Andrea had "courting braids". It added even more fun to the weekend and provided great entertainment on Sunday.
Sunday, then, before I get ahead of myself, started with service
at Wordsworth's church in Rydal Mount. The pastor was so nice and asked where we were from and what school we attended at home. When she learned that we were from the "Lutheran college near Minneapolis" she said, "Well, you'll all be wanting communion then!" and proceeded to count us. After the service, we drove up to the Ullswater for a steam boat ride. It was on this boat ride that suddenly stories involving the braids sprang to life. We were going to the New World, and we were out of control. Aside from that, the scenery was gorgeous and it even stayed pretty dry while we were on the boat - so different from our boat ride on the North Sea at the beginning of the year! After our boat ride, we went hiking up to another waterfall and then started the drive back to Nottingham.
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Curtis
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Dance, Dance Wherever You May BE
I love the pictures you have on here, but the ones of you guys dancing makes me laugh a lot. Once I saw them it reminded me of what you said above about ruining a lot of people's times and confusing other people.