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Published: March 19th 2008
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Looking Down the Waterfall
Lake District around Ullswater I spent the past weekend at a homestay in Penrith, Cumbria in Northern England. A homestay is essentially a stay (for as short as a few days to the entire semester) with a family, couple or individual who lives in the country. Penrith is a market town just outside of the Lake District National Park, which meant it had amazing scenery and was far less city-like than Edinburgh. Overall, I had a wonderful time and got to do a lot of amazing and different things.
Day 1: A New Experience--On the Train My homestay began late Friday afternoon as I caught the 4:51 pm train to Penrith. Although I have been on a train before, I don't remember it so boarding the train on Friday felt like a new experience for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the train ride. Once we were outside of Edinburgh,
the scenery was wonderful, as for most of the ride, there were green hills and a rural setting. I loved being able to watch it outside the window whenever I looked up from my reading.
After about an hour and a half ride, I arrived at the Penrith station and was
More Water
Lake District around Ullswater met by Linda, my homestay host. She turned out to be lots of fun and knew lots of places to go, as she had been hosting international students for more than 10 years. However, as her car was then in the garage (she picked up that evening), we also got to meet her neighbor, who had driven her to the station to meet me and Hannah, the other girl on the homestay. We spent some time at Linda's neighbor's and got to meet her daughter, Alex, and we all went to Linda's for dinner (or as she called it, "tea"). As tea was late (we didn't get into Penrith until 6:30 and then had to prepare the meal), the night was short and so my first day in Penrith came to an end.
Day 2: Two Days of Touring Crammed into One The Lake District: Ullswater Saturday began at 9:00 am, as we woke up and ate breakfast. As Linda had to tutor that morning, we met another one of her friends (Sarah) and joined Myra (Linda's neighbor from the previous day) and Alex on a trip to the Lake District. The Lake
Ullswater
Lake District District is an area in Cumbria with 16 lakes and several more tarns (other bodies of water). Sarah took us to Ullswater (one of the lakes) and this other place nearby, though I can't remember what it was called. We walked around for a while along the trail and got to see a waterfall and streams. Although it started to sprinkle, I had a lot of fun and again, the scenery was wonderful. We also went to Ullswater, which is the second largest lake at 7.5 miles long.
Hadrian's Wall After lunch, we rejoined Linda, who then drove Hannah and I up to Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian's Wall was a 73 mile wall built by the Romans in the early 100s AD to mark the extent of the Roman Empire and keep out the "barbarians." It, however, does not mark the border between modern-day Scotland and England. Built by Roman soldiers, the Wall originally included several "milecastles" to house soldiers as well as forts to allow traffic to pass through. We went to several locations along the wall, including the ruins of one of the forts and one of the wider sections of the remaining wall. We
Standing on Hadrian's Wall
Alisha and Hannah on Hadrian's Wall also saw a church that had been built long after the construction of Hadrian's Wall, which Linda told us had been constructed using the stones of Hadrian's Wall.
Hadrian's Wall The Scottish Border and Gretna Green As there was still a couple of hours of sunlight left, we opted to take a side trip to the English-Scottish border to see the first house of Scotland (or conversely, the last house of Scotland, as the sign so aptly pointed out). There, we snapped a few pictures, including one with the Welcome to Scotland sign (ironically enough, having been in Scotland for over two months, I have to go to England to see such a sign). We then proceeded to Gretna Green, where in centuries past (the 1600s or 1700s I think), young English couples would get married as the legal age was lower in Scotland than in England. Even today, it remains a popular place to get married with couples having to wait two years. Finally, we decided to go searching for Highland Cattle, my new favorite animal. Linda knew of a field where some were kept but when we drove up to the field, the cows
Border Hopping
Along the Scottish-English Border were all at the other end. Our keen eyes, however, spotted a road near the cattle and so we went on a quest to find this road. After finding several sheep (including cute lambs, and lots of dead ends), we found the road and the cattle. One of them was even standing just on the other side of the fence and didn't move when we came up to the fence to take its picture. Having been victorious in our search, we decided to head back to Penrith for dinner.
Clubbing After dinner (which was a joint effort with Hannah even teaching Linda a new recipe), Linda and Sarah took us to the Warehouse, a club in Penrith. There, we met some of Linda's former students and one of Sarah's friends, and danced the night away.
Day 3: The Hill and the Family Back to Ullswater On Sunday morning, we took another trek up to Ullswater, this time with Linda and up a hill in order to see Ullswater from above. As we were walking up the hill, we heard a shepherd calling his sheep to come down and eat.
Lake District
View from a Hill at the End of Ullswater For animals that aren't supposed to be very bright, they do know a food call when they hear one. The sheep gathered around him and we saw some of the slower ones come running down the hill. We then continued our climb up the hill, which got increasingly windier as we went up. However, we didn't go all the way up as it was getting too windy and everyone thought that I would blow away. Still, there was a nice view of Ullswater below.
Since we still had a little time left before we had to meet Linda's family for lunch, we decided to go to this small church (St. Martin's church) nearby. The sign inside said that there had been a church there for over 700 years, although parts of it had been rebuilt. The church (and its community) is so small that services aren't held there every week as the chaplain rotates around the other churches in the area. We, therefore, were able to go inside the church and walk around the outside, where we discovered a huge tree that had limbs going everywhere.
Lunch with the Family For lunch, we met up
Lake District
somewhere near Ullswater (I forget what the place was called) with Linda's sister and her husband, and brother and his wife and daughter. They were a fun group of people, and Hannah and I heard a lot of interesting stories about their lives and family. It was a nice break from activities and good to hear all about family things again.
A Little Do-It-Yourself To round off the day, we undertook some do-it-yourself projects around the house. Hannah, Linda and I worked to fix Linda's shower curtain rod. Then, while Hannah introduced Linda to Skype so that she could talk to her son who is away at college, I decided to see what was wrong with her TV, as she couldn't play videos or DVDs, which ended up being a wiring problem. Having completed these tasks, we prepared dinner and then played Scrabble for a while.
Day 4: A Gallery and Returning to Edinburgh Before heading back to Edinburgh, Linda and I took a trip to a small art gallery where Myra worked. After walking around there for a while, we had a small lunch and then I boarded the train back to Edinburgh, bringing my homestay adventure to an end.
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