Back in England: Nottingham, Chatsworth House, and London

I took a trip to England from May 14-20.

On Wednesday, I got to the East Midlands Airport where Kathie and her nice friends came and picked me up! We had a chill evening, catching up, and Kathie made a delicious lasagna! 

On Thursday, we explored more of Nottingham. Kathie showed me her university (The University of Nottingham). It’s a very green campus.

Clocktower at Nottingham!

So much green!

Then, we headed off to Wollaton Park which is pretty close to the university. There, we had a picnic lunch and got to look out on the lake. We didn’t pick the best bench to sit on for lunch though… it was under a tree and had some old bird poo stains (that should have been a warning sign)… so unfortunately a little bird pooped on me…well luckily it was only a little that got on me… and someone told me that it’s good luck (right?) lol. 

Wollaton Park

After lunch, we headed up to Wollaton Hall, which is where some of the scenes for Batman: The Dark Knight Rises were filmed! This place is gorgeous! It’s a natural history museum as well know which is pretty cool!

Wollaton Hall

In the evening, we went out to dinner at Las Iguanas with some of Kathie’s classmates. They were so nice and we had a really awesome dinner together! I had a spicy chicken enchilada, and it was so good! Then, we went out for some drinks. Overall, it was a wonderful girls’ night and I am glad that I got to be there for it!

Kathie and I

We slept in Friday, and then had a delicious brunch of biscuits, eggs, and bacon! Kathie had brought back some bisquick from the US, so we made real biscuits! Mmmmmmm, they were so good!!! 

In the afternoon, we went shopping! I checked out some shops like Accessorize, Primark, Top Shop, Oasis, among others. I ended up with two new tops and some earrings. At Top Shop, we probably had the strangest experience… we were looking through the clothes, and then, this lady starts to insist that Kathie buy this romper that Kathie didn’t even like… The lady continues to try to persuade her to buy it for a good five minutes… and we didn’t really know how to escape the situation. She was saying how good it would look on Kathie, and how her parents would like it, and that she would buy it herself if only it was her size, and she was asking me what I thought…Eventually, we escaped, and put the romper back in another section of the store, far away from that lady, and then we got outta there! Now that I think about it, the situation must have looked weird to the other people in the store, haha. 

After shopping, we went to see the castle of Nottingham, and Robin Hood (he’s from here)! We also saw the oldest pub in England called: ye olde trip to jerusalem. It is built into the stone which is pretty cool!

Robin Hood!

So old but cool.

After that visit, we headed to Thea Caffea for some cream tea! I was so excited to have proper tea with scones and clotted cream and jam! mmmm! 

deliciousness! :)

Love the quote on the wall!

On Saturday, Kathie and I took the train to Sheffield to meet up with Clare, who’s a friend of mine that I met in France. She was also an English teaching assistant this past year. 

Before Clare and her dad came to get us, Kathie and I enjoyed the beautiful weather outside of the Sheffield station. We were chatting and then, this strange guy that sat down near us even though there was tons of free space…. So, at first, we didn’t really think much of it, and continued to talk to each other. Then, he started trying to talk to us. He asked me to take a photo for him, and that was fine. But, he used that as an excuse to talk to us but, we weren’t really in the mood to chat and we were meeting up with Clare any minute… Usually I am really sociable and I can talk with anyone, but he just gave me a strange vibe… Luckily, he left to take a train somewhere (I think?), and Clare arrived pretty soon after.

We stopped by Clare’s house before heading for Chatsworth: a fancy house with a lot of history and cool gardens surrounding it! At Clare’s, I tried Elder Flower, which was really good! I am not sure exactly how to describe the taste of this drink but it was refreshing.

We had a nice drive down to Chatsworth where we played a cow spotting game. Then outside of the view of the house, we went to a little village were the servants of the house lived. In the village there is a graveyard, and Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy (sister of John F. Kennedy) is buried there. 

Kathleen Kennedy's Grave

First, we toured the house. We learned quite a lot of facts about the place! In one room, there was an old fashioned make up set which is quite valuable. The guide in that room told us that back in the day, people took so long getting ready, that they would keep sweets in the little cases (that looked like they were for makeup) and they would eat sweets while putting on their make-up. They would drink hot chocolate during the make-up process as well! Hmmm sounds like traditions we need to bring back :). There was also another room with a fancy bed with little tassels on it that were restored by volunteers! There are a thousand tassels on the bed canopy and each one took anywhere from 2-4 hours to make! There was also another room with two narwal tusks in it. Another fun fact: this house was in the movie: Pride and Prejudice!

pretty staircase

bed with a thousand little tassels that were redone recently!

The library-my favorite room!

After the informative visit, we went outside and has a picnic lunch in the garden. Then, we just laid there for a while and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Next we got some ice cream, and went around exploring the different parts of the gardens! There were some really nice flowers around as well! We even went through a maze, although it took us a bit longer to get through than we expected…haha.

Chatsworth House

Kathie, Clare, and I

Bluebell flowers- sign of spring in England!

Then, we took a break and sat down near the lake in front of the house. They also had some interesting sculptures around the grounds.

neat umbrella

Then we took a walk back to the village, and on the way, we saw a lot of sheep.

sheep!

We rewarded ourselves with a nice cool drink at the village! I had elder flower again, and it was nice!

Then, we rode back to the station, where Kathie and I decided to sit outside near the fountain again before catching our train back to Nottingham. You will not guess who walked by and sat next to us a few minutes after we got there…. the strange guy from the morning!! It was so weird.. he tried talking to us more, but luckily we had a train to catch. We left for the train a bit early, and once it got there, I found my seat (we got seats assigned to us when we bought them online) and Kathie sat next to me. So, first thing I do is turn to look at the people sitting across the aisle from us, and guess who is sitting there??!! That same strange guy from this morning and evening! What are the odds that he was going to take the same train as us and given an assigned seat right across from us… For a few seconds, I thought he might be following us or something, but I am pretty sure it was just all a very strange coincidence… Luckily, we had a change in Derby, and he stayed on the train. 

Once we got back, Kathie cooked up a delicious dinner (side note: sweet potato and hummus is quite good together).

Sunday morning, I took a coach to London. It was hard to leave Kathie, because we had such a good time together! I arrived in London in the afternoon, to the Victoria Coach Station, then friendly english people gave me directions to the tube. Unfortunately, some of the lines were not running, so I ended up taking two overground trains to get to Ollie’s place. I got there eventually, and Ollie and I spent the afternoon at Richmond park with some of his Uni friends. I tried Pimms (fancy english summer drink with Pimms, lemonade, mint, strawberries...) there for the first time, and it was so yummy!! :).

Richmond

On Monday, Ollie, Sara (another UGA exchange student), and I spent the day exploring London! We started off in the Camden Market, then lunch on some green near the London Eye, went by Big Ben, got a pic by my favorite phone booth in London, went to the science museum, chilled at Hyde Park, saw Peter Pan statue, cooled off at the Diana Memorial Fountain, and made toad in the hole. 

I couldn’t believe how nice the weather was during my entire stay!

Crazy Camden Market

Signs of Chick-fil-a in London!

London Eye!

Back in my phone booth, and is that sunshine? ;)

Sara and I cooling off at the Diana Memorial Fountain

On Tuesday, I took a plane back to Lyon!

It was so nice to see some more of England and to catch up with friends! Thanks to Kathie, her awesome friends, Clare and her parents, Ollie, and Sara for making my stay in England so nice! :) And thank goodness the weather was as great as it was :). 

Back in France but not for long, 

Magdalena