England -- A More Detailed Response

Right now I'm at the Liverpool airport, paying for an alarmingly expensive internet connection, and it's about 17 hours until I leave Barcelona, again, but this time for Munich for my flight to Los Angeles. My trip to England was a smashing success. On the flight from Barcelona to Liverpool, I was thinking what a bad idea it was to go to England for my last week in Europe. I was on Easyjet, an annoying discount airline that feels like flying in a commercial (because the flight attendants are constantly trying to sell you stuff, not related to flying at all), and I was sitting next to this fat British guy, who was coming back from, presumably, a sex weekend in Barcelona, who spent most of his time either snoring or sneezing, except for the 10 minutes that it took him to wolf down his overly priced food. When we finally got to Liverpool, then I had to rent my car, and I was incredibly hungry, but decided to wait to get something on the road. There was a huge traffic jam about 15 minutes out of the airport because of road work, and there was a diversion, so I spent about 30 minutes in traffic or looking for the M6. Meanwhile, I was starving, and I ended up going to a fucking Burger King. Plus I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do in the Lake District. And I was missing Spain, but in a vague way. So the whole time, I was thinking, “what a mistake.” I finally got to my B & B, which was fine, not amazing, but fine, and I settled in.

Well, it ended up being a great trip. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do there. I had vaguely said that I would hike and go to literary sites, but I hadn't done much planning at all. What I forgot is how organized the English are (in contrast, I'm afraid, to the Spanish), and that there would be plenty of guidance. That night I found this restaurant that was incredibly good, called The Cook House, and it was the only good dinner I had in England, and it was nice that it was the first night. (I think the food got me sick, either that or the fat guy on the airplane or the huge change in weather, or perhaps all three). The next morning, Sunday, I walked to the tourist office in Windermere, but it didn’t open until 10, and it was 9:45, but right across the street was a sign for a walk that I had read about in my Frommer’s Guide, up Orrest Hill, and so I figured I’d do that. It set the tone for the entire trip, which was hiking, hiking, hiking. I wasn’t really prepared for this hike, but that was fine because it wasn’t very long. The whole thing took 45 minutes, but the views were great. (I'll be posting pictures [I took tons] later).

After, I went to the tourist office, and I bought this book of short walks in the Lake District. It was the best investment. It was a list of 20 walks from easy to moderate that could all be done in about 3 hours (although I always took more time). That day, however, I decided to spend in and around Lake Windermere, which is the longest lake in England. I walked down to Bowness, which was only 10 minutes from my hotel and right on the water. I had heard that there was a hike to a “fake” castle, and that you could get a ferry across. What I didn’t know was that the Lake District airshow was happening this weekend. The city was jammed with people! And, it just so happened, I was on the lake when the Red Tigers, the British Airforce show team, came to do their show. I think it’s incredibly funny that my first airshow, and my first airforce show team show, happened in England on Lake Windermere. They were really amazing for this kind of thing, and I have some great shots from the lake,

After, I walked to the castle, which was a lot farther than I thought, under the deafening roar of various airplanes. It was crazy. What was even more crazy was how far this castle was. It really wasn’t that far, but I realized something about hiking. At first, hiking seems interminable, until you get into a rhythm, which I wasn’t in yet on that Sunday. But the time I got to the castle, 2 hours later, I was completely bored, and hungry because I hadn’t brought food. There was a Slovakian couple who live in England, pushing a stroller(!) with a really cute baby to the castle, and they found out that there was another ferry that went to a different town, Ambleside, and so we all caught that ferry, where we could pick up another one to Bowness.

The castle, by the way, is fake because it was built in the 18th century, modeled on Windsor Castle, but much, much smaller. Beatrix Potter spent some time there.

In Ambleside, I ate some lunch finally, and then fell asleep on the ferry back to Bowness. I realized, at that point, that I needed to organize my days differently.

The next day, Monday, I decided to try an “Easy” walk from my book, so I went to a very popular walk around a lake, called Tarn Hows. It only took an hour, so I realized the Easy walks might be too easy, although it was fun. There were a lot of young children on this walk. So I drove to Hawkshead, to look around and buy some food, and then went to do a “Moderate” walk around another tarn, which I guess is a lake in the mountains. Again, I wasn’t completely prepared because I had never had to follow an ordinance map, or tried to follow directions on a hike: "Follow the path through brambles until you see a gate. Pass through and bear left through rocky paths. . .) This hike took me up a nice hill to the tarn, and once I got there, it was great, but I got lost going around the lake and got stuck in some bogs. I panicked a bit, not being used to being in the woods alone, but eventually I found my way. It was fun, but it took me about 2 hours. I drove to Coniston, which is supposed to have John Ruskin connotations. But since I don't really know who Ruskin is anyway, and since I was tired, I decided to have ice cream instead. And then I drove home.

Driving, by the way, is a hoot. Besides the whole other side of the road, the roads are soooo narrow. The first day, I was freaking out the whole time, and I kept on clipping the left side of the road because I kept on swerving left thinking that I was going over the center. By Wednesday, however, I had become a pro, and I drove on this windy streets as if it’s completely normal. Just in time for me to leave and go back to the “normal” US way.

The next day, I drove up to Rydal (a town and a lake) for a hike. It was supposed to take me 2 hours, but it took 3. It starts by going to the river that connects Rydal Lake with Grasmere lake, and I have a nice picture from Grasmere. I was walking behind some pensioners, the woman of which told me she was testing out a new hip. hahaha. I love how in England all this relatively elderly people hike, and really, I saw some people in their 70s or 80s, walking with canes, but in the country. After that you walk back to Rydal, around the lake, and then up to Rydal Mount, which has the last house that William Wordsworth lived in. I thought about going in, but the weather was too beautiful to be indoors. Then you walk in this secluded hill until you get to a nice waterfall. It was great fun. After the hike, I drove to Dove Cottage in Grasmere, which is another place that Wordsworth lived. Again, it was too beautiful to go indoors, so I decided not to go in, but I went before going to the airport.

After that, I drove to Keswick, which is the town in the north district that’s supposed to be less touristy than Windermere, and I was supposed to go on a hike there. Keswick is NOT less touristy. In fact, there were more tourists there. But it was a cute town, and I had fish and chips as “takeaway” and ate in a park. I fell asleep in that park, and then walked back to town, and went to that really expensive internet café. By that point, I was exhausted, and decided to not do that last hike, which I probably could have done, but that’s okay.

The next day, I was completely seasoned with hiking, so I had a mammoth 5 hour hike near Ullswater that took me halfway up a mountain. I decided not to go up the whole thing because I didn’t realize that the hike was the first part of that (my book hadn’t mentioned it), but also because the weather really turned on Wednesday. Amazingly, Sunday through Tuesday was perfectly sunny, with a few puffy clouds and a temperature around 20 C, which is about 68 F. It's amazing because this area of England gets the most rain in the entire country, and it had been raining nonstop the month before. But it was perfect. By Wednesday, the weather had become more normal, threats of rain and lots of clouds. Anyway, after 5 hours, I thought 2 more hours would have been too much. After, I went to this pub and had a beer and soup, and then drove to another small town for coffee and internet. The original plan had been to go to Carlisle to see Hadrian’s Wall, but it was already so late, that I went to Penrith to see castle ruins. But it was pouring by the time I got there, so after a short look, I went back to the B & B.

Today, I went to Dove Cottage before driving to the airport. It's really in a lovely site that, before cars, would have been completely idyllic. Wordsworth and his sister, and later his wife, live there for about 9 years, which coincided with Wordworth's most productive period. The cottage was SMALL, and at one point it housed 6 adults and 3 children. Coleridge, Scott, and other luminaries spent time there. There's also a really interesting museum that had lots of documents, including a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to her brother informing him that his daughter had died. It was heartbreaking, but also amazing that we have a permanent record of his being informed. Now with email and phones, there will hardly be any record of really important events in people's lives. Then I had a nice lunch and drove to Liverpool.

This ended up being a great idea for a trip because basically allowed me to relax and do something, walking through the Lake District, that I have been hearing about since I was in university. For those English teachers out there, I recommend it highly.

I'll post some pictures this week, and then that might be it for awhile, although I was thinking that I might post my impressions of the US after spending 6 months out. But definitely come October, I'll be posting again.