...Because I didn't catch any diseases from the youth hostel! (if you saw the place, you'd realize what a monumental feat that is)

Query of the Week: What do the Bronte sisters, Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth, The Venerable Bede, and Elizabeth Gaskell have in common?

Answer: For one, they are all famous. Segundo, all were great writers...Et trois, unbeknownst to them, all were paid homage by a group of BYU students last week.

Friday night, we returned from our trip up North.  I really enjoyed it!  It was nice to take a break from school and enjoy the Autumn scenery.  (I know you can't really sympathize with me considering what I recognize as school, you view as an extended holiday.)

Days 42-46:  Due to the fact that A. the week's details are blurred into one, and B. I have neither the desire nor the patience to record every happening, all y'alls will just have to make due with an annotated Itinerary. To see pics check out my mobileme!

Monday

5:45 Breakfast (KILL ME!)

7:00 Leave Centre 

10:30 Arrive at Chatsworth (Much colder than expected!  Hence I bought a scarf at the gift shop and a comfort food cookbook)

11-13:00 Visit Chatsworth house and gardens

14:30 Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth-->Visit parsonage, church and the moor (Guess what we watched on the way there??? North and South!  Can the day get any better?  I submit to you that it cannot. The Bronte sisters lived during that era and would have experienced the industrial revolution like in North and South.   Driving into town you could still see the blackened stone on houses, and old mills.  Easy to see why people would have liked to escape to the moors—above the muck of the city.)

18:30 Dinner and check in at York Youth Hostel (Nastiest place of my life!  The food was yucky too. School lunch doesn't even hold a candle)

Tuesday

8:00 Breakfast ( Not as bad as dinner...)

10:00 Guided Tour of York Minster (We walked along the river on our way to the minster—very pretty!)

Afternoon and evening to explore York ( Our day included: Yorkshire Museum, York Castle museum (it has nothing to do with a castle BTW—had 60s/Beatles paraphernalia and a recreation of a Victorian street), Jorvik Centre (Viking museum), City Walls, Shopping and a Ghost tour that night!)

18:00 Dinner at Hostel

Wednesday

8:00 Breakfast 

9:00 Leave for Durham

11:00 Guided tour of Durham Cathedral ( Charming college town!  Cathedral was pretty boring---Seen waaaay too many)

12:00 Lunch in Durham

13:30 Bede’s World ( Surprisingly enjoyable.  Included a museum about his life, some midevial farm animals, and a really old church.  FYI: Bede's a pretty important dude...it is due to him that we have records of early English history.  He also made major contributions to science.  Oh and he's a venerable--that's almost a saint. He was born towards the latter end of the 7th century)

15:00 Hadrian’s Wall (Old Scottish border.  I made everyone stand on the wall and do the wave so we could film it….)/ Roman fort

19:00 Arrive at Ambleside Youth Hostel (100% less disgusting than the previous rat hole.  Nice lake view.)

Thursday

8:00 Breakfast at hostel

8:30 Begin hike to Dove Cottage (B est part of the entire trip!  Two hours wandering/hiking through the peak district.  Being a 'field trip' we had to relate it to school so we had a “Wordsworth moment” which involved reading his poems while gazing upon nature...)

10:30 Dove Cottage and Wordsworth Museum (Skipped the museum.  We went and got some delicious soup at a restaurant.  The house was coolish though.  It used to be a pub.)
14:00 Coach ride, ferry boat ride, then hike to Hill Top Farm (The home of Beatrix Potter...did you know you can see Hilltop's interior in many of her book illustrations? They had her books in each room open to the page where that particular room could be seen)

19:00 Dinner at Hostel

Friday

7:30 Breakfast

8:30 Leave for Preston (It was dumping rain!)

9:30 Tour LDS sites in Preston, Chorley and some other cute town that I can't remember the name of.

Way home: Stop in Liverpool for quick (like 25 minutes) visit to docks and emigration museum

Trip was great!  I loved it! Now I'm back to the school routine and I'm having a hard time adjusting!

Xoxo!