Week 6: The North Trip pt.1

Sunday-Tuesday

27-29 October

At 5:30 am we got on a bus headed to Northern England. Our first stop was Liverpool. What a cool looking place! We first stopped at a Maritime Museum and saw a remodel of the Titanic (kind of boring). But the real reason we went to Liverpool (at least the reason I went) was to go to The Beatles Museum. I only had time for one half of the museum before our group was leaving, but I really enjoyed the stuff I got to see. I would go back to Liverpool-it has a really interesting vibe that we didn't get to experience enough. We also went to an art gallery in Liverpool, but I didn't like it so I don't have pictures.

Cool looking buildings in a cool looking city.

The original Fab Four.

Recreation of The Cavern, a place The Beatle frequented.

Some of the worst wax figures I've ever seen.

Entering psychedelia. Last semester I took a humanities class and during our music unit we talked a lot about the different phases of The Beatles' career. This was one of the weirdest ones. 

John Lennon asking everyone to "Imagine".

Our next stop was the Preston LDS Temple. I think it's my new favorite temple of all time! It is so pretty and calm. The Preston MTC is there too which is pretty cool. The gates to the temple were closed but they opened them especially for us. 

Bunch of LDS kids trying to take Temple pics. It took a pretty long while.

Such a pretty temple! I wish I could have gotten closer pictures of all the details.

This is the front view.

Fall was definitely in the air.

We ended our day at one of the nicest hotels we've stayed at (and it was a real hotel and not a hostel-HOORAY), and went for a late-night stroll around historic sites in Preston. I'm still not quite sure why we did that, because it was pitch black and there were some extremely sketchy characters who followed us around for blocks and kept interrupting our tour guide because they wanted to talk about the devil. Needless to say we were all pretty scared. I wish I could've done the walk in the daylight because we passed by really pretty places. One park has a Japanese garden dedicated to the LDS influence in Preston and is right next to the River Ribble.

There's a river in this picture somewhere.

I can't actually read this but it has something to do with church history.

On Tuesday we headed out to the Lake District. We had to separate into groups for a special activity and my group got to go on a hike. That was probably one of my top 5 favorite things I've done. Northern England is one of the prettiest places I've ever seen. Even though the walk was long, rainy, ruined my electronics, and consisted of a 45 minute uphill hike on a busy road to town the middle part was way worth it.

At the beginning of the walk.

The halfway point.

The end view.

 There was even a rainbow!

After the hike my group got to go to the Wordsworth Trust/Jerwood Center which is a place that has a lot of original Wordsworth manuscripts and other old literary documents. We read Wordsworth for class and I wasn't really interested in him, so I thought I wouldn't like the center, but it was so cool! Even just looking at old letters and newspapers from the 1800s was cool, but actually holding the first edition of something like Frankenstein was pretty awesome. We were in this secure room with millions of dollars worth of old books, and cameras watching our every move. It was a little intense and I was scared I would ruin something, but we made it out with no accidents. Except that our Professor accidentally left 3 of his kids behind while we were on the bus to our hostel...

We learned how to fold letters like 19th century poets. This was actually a copy of a love letter between Wordsworth and his wife that changed the way historians viewed Wordsworth's personal life. Who knew? Besides folding, I learned people should write more letters. Love letters specifically. 

This was a letter from one of Wordsworth's friends. There were several books with letters from different people and we had to guess who wrote what based on the style of the letters. This writer was an opium addict, and as a result his penmanship was more "scrawly and sloppy".

This was written by Wordsworth's daughter. She was 8 and wanted to practice her penmanship. 

This was the room we were in. I felt special because my English professor hand picked our group to go with him. I don't really know why, but I'm glad I went with someone who knew a lot about Wordsworth so I didn't have to answer any questions. The man in the center worked at the center. He was so nice.

That is a first edition of Frankenstein. That's not my hand, but I held it and have a picture of me holding it (I just can't find it right now). Pretty cool. There were some people who took the whole experience very seriously. I wish I could write more about it, but I don't know if people will end up reading this.

The man who helped us at the center was really nice and funny, and he gave us treats which included world famous gingerbread made in the Lake District. I had people go to the store to buy me more it was that good!

After the center we got to go eat a traditional 1800s style meal put on for us by the Wordsworth Trust people. The description "traditional 1800s dinner" made me really nervous, but it was actually really normal and delicious! I really miss homemade, non-proccessed food so I was grateful for that meal. 

Meat and rice thing, mashed carrots, potatoes. We had key lime pudding for dessert that was amazing.

After dinner we went to Dove Cottage which is where Wordsworth lived. They did the tour by candlelight which added to the ambience. The whole Wordsworth activities were a pleasant surprise. We were really lucky we got to do them, because not a lot of students do. The night afterwards was a letdown because we were in another hostel, but I got over it because we got to stay right on the lake!