Windsor Castle and Stonehenge

My family and I traveled to Windsor Castle, which is where the queen resides most weekends. She was actually there while we were there, but we didn't see her. It was a neat castle with a ton of history (as most things are in Europe, of course). King Henry VIII is buried there in the St. George's chapel, and the gardens are beautiful.

Then we went to Salisbury, which is the town near Stonehenge. We went to the Salisbury Cathedral, which was a beautiful, huge Cathedral. It has the highest spire in England. It also holds one of the only 4 remaining versions of the Magna Carta, and it's the best version that's still readable (if you can read Latin, that is). We walked around the town a little, which is really cute.

Then we took a bus out to Stonehenge. The land around Stonehenge is a national park, so there's nothing really around it. There were many burial mounds where they have excavated many objects that tell them about the area. There also are large trenches dug for miles around Stonehenge, which they believe date back earlier than the stone formations. The trenches could have been paths which the people walked on to get from the River Avon to Stonehenge. They don't really know what Stonehenge was used for, but there are many beliefs that it was a holy place of some sort, or a space to bury their loved ones.

For photos of these places, look here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2196927&id=30308465&l=4c572f439d

The first weekend with my family

In the first weekend, my family arrived and we finished packing up my things and toured several places. They came to see me in Brighton, and I showed them around. Dad was happy to be near the sea, Mom and Erin enjoyed the shopping. It was fun to feel like I was somewhat of a local and show them how to use the buses and where to shop. Then we went back to campus, where I showed my family my dorm room and finished packing. Then we left and traveled to London where our hotel room was.

In London, we went to see the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace, toured the Tower of London, went into St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, went to Abbey Road and found some Beatles shops, and did lots of souvenir shopping. We also walked around and just looked at the sights in London, since there are so many amazing things to see!

We then went to Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick Castle. I had been to both of these places earlier in my trip, so I was able to show my family around them and see some new things that I didn't get to see before. In Warwick Castle, the new things I was able to see were the birds of prey show and place where they keep the birds, the peacock garden, the mill and sections around the outside of the castle, and was able to walk around the grounds more. In Stratford, I showed my family how to get to Shakespeare's birthplace. We went inside and toured the Shakespeare center and the house, which was new for me. Then we walked through the town and found a few more houses related to Shakespeare (such as his daughter's house after she married her husband and Shakespeare's neighbor's house). Then we walked to Holy Trinity, the church where Shakespeare is buried. Unfortunately, there was a special service going on, so we didn't get to go inside. We then walked around the town a little more to see the sights and to get some dinner.

To see photos of this first weekend, click on this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2196832&id=30308465&l=6dc08dff6d

Home in Michigan again

My family and I arrived safely back in Michigan last Tuesday. After adjusting to the time change, catching up on sleep, and unpacking, we're all finally starting to get back on track at home. I have been working on uploading all of my pictures from our last week in the UK to the computer, and have finally finished! I'll write a few posts on what we did in each place and post the pictures for you to see.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support while I was in Europe. I hope you all were able to learn something new and enjoy the photos that I posted for you all during my trip, since those were my goals in sharing them with you.

Update from Scotland before I return home

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to post a quick update to let you all know that I am currently in Scotland! My family arrived safely, and we've toured tons of places in England, Wales, and Scotland. I will be updating about these in a few days when I have more time. Until then, I just thought I'd let you know that things are going well, and that Scotland is beautiful! I will have many photos to post of the past week, so make sure to check back in a few days to see them.

We will be flying back to Detroit on Tuesday. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone! However, I am definitely ready to come home again. It'll be great to have hot weather, my own car, my cat, my bed, toilets that are easy to flush, accents that I can easily understand, and other familiar luxuries that I have taken for granted. I love learning about new places and cultures, but it's always nice to come back to the place where I feel comfortable and at home. :) Please pray for a safe return trip for my family and I.

Last days in Brighton

Sadly, my time here at the University of Brighton and St. Dunstan's has officially come to an end. I have really enjoyed the experience, and have learned so much about myself, culture, relationships, communication, and more.

My last day at St. Dunstan's was difficult, since I will miss is there so much. I helped Syd type a letter, and he had me write a Post Script on the letter saying that it was typed by an "American girl" who is leaving after she's finished typing it. It was cute and weird to be typing about myself. I also read part of one of the stories he's written, and he had a character drive from New York City to Niagra Falls and back in the same day. I told him this wasn't really possible, since they're really far apart. He was really intrigued and was going to change it so that the characters took a helicopter there instead (it was hard not to laugh). Everyone was sad that I was leaving, and wished me well in the future. A few people want me to keep in touch. I'm going to stay in contact with the other intern, so that we can chat about social work as we continue through our careers. My supervisor gave me a nice card that is a photo of a painting that a St. Dunstaner made, and a postcard of St. Dunstan's. It was a very thoughtful gift.

I then went out to dinner with my American classmates for one last fish and chips meal as a group. It was fun to spend one last evening all together. We all pitched in and gave our professor and her husband a framed photo of us as a group. They loved it, and were really grateful that we were a great group.

Today I've been packing and cleaning my dorm room. Tomorrow morning my family will be coming to Brighton so I can show them around and they can help me carry my things. I will then be traveling around with them for the next week and a half. Hopefully I'll be able to update this here and there during this time, but if not, you'll know why.

For some more pictures of St. Dunstan's, go to the end of this album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190759&id=30308465&l=d715fec0e4

First few days of the last week

The past few days have been very eventful! I thought they even warrented a post.

First, I celebrated Henry's 113th birthday on Monday with the St. Dunstan's staff. The mayor of Brighton even came to give him flowers. He was aware of what was going on, helped (a little) to cut the cake, and said, "Thank you, God bless" into a microphone to everyone. He's a very sweet man. He was very tired after a long birthday weekend, since he travelled up to London to receive a birthday cake from a Royal Navy helicopter. Pretty exciting for him! Everyone is saying that he's a teenager again. I have a few pictures that are in the link below.

On the same day was the 93rd birthday of Syd, one of the St. Dunstaners that I have been working with. He needs help writing letters and a few books that he's authored, so I help him a few times a week with these tasks. He was very excited that the mayor was at St. Dunstan's on his birthday, and she came over to meet him and kissed him on the cheek. It was all he could talk about after that. :) He recently had his autobiography published, and gave me a signed copy of it! I'm excited to read it.

I also attended an afternoon tea at a local girl's private school, called Rodean. It's a very prestigious school that is right on the ocean, and it beautiful. It's for girls ages 11-18. It costs around 30,000 pounds per year to go there, which would equal about $45,000! The girls do community service at local agencies, and St. Dunstan's is one such place. Thus, my supervisor was invited to tea to thank all the charities who welcome the girls. I got to tag along and have a tour of the school. I felt like I should have brought my doll, since we drank out of fancy tea cups and ate little sandwiches and cakes. It was very girly and fun.

This evening we had a party for all of our supervisors and the professors at the University of Brighton who helped us on our trip. It was a fun little party with hors d'oeuvres. We each gave our supervisors a gift and thanked them for allowing us to be at the agencies. It was nice to meet everyone and chat about our experiences at our placements.

It definitely has been a busy week so far! Tomorrow is my last day at St. Dunstan's. I'm really going to miss it! I'll be taking pictures throughout the day so you can have an idea of what it looks like inside. For now, if you look at the end of this album, you can see the new photos that I've added from Henry and Syd's birthday party: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190759&id=30308465&l=d715fec0e4

Amsterdam, Holland and Brugge, Belgium

This weekend my friend Catherine and I travelled to Amsterdam and Brugge. Both were very beautiful, unique cities with a ton of facinating history! This was our last weekend excursion while we're here in England. We also had a new experience on the way over - our bus was running late, so they decided to take us in the tunnel to France instead of the Ferry that we usually take. It was much faster, and a fun experience. Everyone has to drive into a long open train, and the train takes you through the tunnel. The train is sectioned off in case one part has an emergency (such as a fire or something), so the whole train and tunnel doesn't collapse. The tunnel is actually built below the ground under the English Channel, so we couldn't see the water or anything.

We arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday morning and took a boat tour on some of the canals. The city basically is built around hundreds of canals and has over 1,000 bridges, which makes for a very picturesque boat ride! It was very pleasant to ride along and get an overview of the city. When we got off the boat, we took a walking tour through the city to the museum district. Many of the roads in the city are old and small, so cars cannot drive on them. Thus, almost everyone travels around on bicycles. They even have tiny roads along all the streets for bikes. We all almost were run over by bikes several times, since they like to rule the road! They ring their bells at you so you can jump out of the way in time. When our free time came along, Catherine and I went to the home where Anne Frank and her family hid during the Nazi invasion. I unfortunately was not allowed to take pictures inside, but it was really neat. It was larger than I thought it would be, though still quite small. Appparently Otto Frank (Anne's father and the only one to survive the concentration camps) wanted the home to remain unfurnished, as it was after the Nazis arrested the family and removed everything. They had models and photos of what it looked like from Otto's memory. We also saw her original diary in a display case. It was very sad.

We shopped at an outdoor flower and souvineer market, looked around the city, and I found a gorgeous old church to go to for mass. It was called St. Francis (but in Dutch). The mass was entirely in Dutch, but they were kind enough to print out the readings in English. I think it's interesting that I can say I've been to mass now in 4 different languages on this trip: Latin, French, German, and Dutch. I then went on a tour to an old working windmill, which was in a pretty location in the countryside. We also went to a cheese and clog (the wooden shoes) factory. They explained how they make their cheese, and we actually watched our tourguide (who also happened to be dressed up in actual traditional Dutch clothing from the 17th century) carve the first part of a wooden shoe. We could then try the shoes on (they're surprisingly comfortable) and taste the cheeses. I bought some delicious Gouda cheese, which is one of the most popular from Amsterdam. It looks like cheddar, but tastes different (it's hard to describe). Then the tour guides took us on a walking tour of the red light district of Amsterdam. This was the one part of the trip that I absolutely despised. I thought it would be just walking around the city lit up at night with a few girls walking around, but it was much more focused on the girls than was comfortable or enjoyable. I left this part of the tour early and went back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep.

The next day we went to Brugge, Belgium. It's a beautiful little medival city with horses and carriages, bikes, and lots of people walking around on the brick streets. It also has many canals, which made for many lovely pictures. I felt like I was going back in time when walking around. We tried a Belgian beer, which I actually liked because it was so sweet. It was basically like drinking raspberry juice with some beer in it.

I also found two stunning churches. The first one I went into was The Church of the Holy Blood. It was built with two stories, the lower for the poor and the upper level for the rich. It obviously is not used in this way anymore, but it was interesting to see the differences between the levels. The poor bottom level was all stone and was very plain, but it did have some amazing statues. The upper level was really beautifully painted and very elaborate. I was not allowed to take pictures in the upper level, however. They also have a vile of what they believe to be Christ's blood there. I was able to venerate it by touching the vile. The priest then gave me a photo of the reliquary which is holding the vile, so this is the only picture I have of the upper level of the church.

The other church was called Our Lady. It was a beautiful, huge church that has the highest spire in Belgium. Unfortunately, the outside was under construction, so my photo has scaffolding all over it. I was able to see the front and side sections of the church, but the back section required a small fee. We did not have time to pay and go to see the back half, which I made me sad. However, we did see an original Michaelangelo statue in the church, which is one of the few that exist outside of Italy.

After walking around the city, we drove to a chocolate factory. We did not get to see how they made the chocolate, but they gave us free samples and the opportunity to buy some. We then travelled back on the ferry from France into England.

For all of my pictures from the trip, here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2192962&id=30308465&l=ca2a4d2041

Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium

This weekend I took a tour of Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium. It was a really fun trip! I haven't laughed so much and so hard in a very long time. The three girls that went with me and I all just experienced a lot of funny situations and just had a ton of fun together. The sights were awesome too of course! I think this was definitely one of my ultimate favorite trips so far.

First we started out driving all of Friday night to Cologne. When we arrived in the morning, we walked along the Rhein River to the Dome Cathedral, which is a really old, breathtaking gothic Catholic church. They started to build it in the 1200's and finished in the early 1800's, so that just goes to show how much detail they put into it. During World War II, when all the opposing countries bombed Germany to death, they purposely respected and avoided the Cathedral. Five bombs did accidentally land on the Cathedral, but not one of them went off. I think Someone upstairs was watching out for it! I went into the Cathedral and all the way up into the highest point in the bell tower. I could see all of Cologne from the top! I have lots of pictures of this for you to see! We also went into the Lindt Swiss Chocolate factory and had free samples (who could turn down free chocolate??).

I went to mass at the Cathedral on Saturday afternoon. It was Pentecost, so I was able to witness Confirmation in Germany! I couldn't understand a word of it because it was all in German, but it was amazing to realize that the same Holy Spirit in the same Church is here in Germany, in another language, and everyone was the same faith! It's pretty awesome being Catholic. :) The Cathedral was so huge and open that about half way through the mass, all the music and the sound from the microphones built up and started to ring around the church. It kept circling around for the rest of mass, so it was difficult to hear the Bishop. I've never heard something so amazing, since it was too old for sound-proofing.

After mass I went out to a German pub with my travelmates. I tasted the German beer, but I'm not a fan of beer so I thought it was gross. ;) I did, however, enjoy a delicious glass of German Riesling white wine. We found a pub that was playing polka music, so I was very excited! They didn't have any space to dance, or I would have. They had some creepy fake mannequins playing the accordion and the tuba, so it was technically live music, but the people weren't real. There were a few older ladies who were really excited and were clapping and cheering for the mannequins. It was quite funny. (I can tell I've been in England for awhile, since I just used the word "quite").

On the tram on the way back to our hotel in Cologne, we had a hilarious and wierd experience. We got on the correct number tram that we were supposed to take, and were riding it for a few minutes when it stopped and opened its doors in the middle of an open field. We thought it was odd, and waited for people to get on. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and suddenly and older man appeared in the doorway and started talking to us in German. We said we only spoke English, and he just kept saying the same thing over again in German. We thought he was a confused older man trying to get onto the train until he started whistling and pointing out of the tram. This is when we realized that he was the driver and he was kicking us out of the tram into the field! We had no idea what he was saying, but he kept pointing back to the station we had just passed. We walked back to it and laughed at the wierd experience. We waiting for another train and then tried pronouncing the stops in German while riding it. The German people sitting next to us were laughing at us and told is in English that we weren't very good at German. It was fun.

The next morning we drove to Brussels, Belgium. There we stopped to see the Atomium Monument, which is a giant iron structure that resembles the Iron Crystal molecule. It has restaurants inside and is a big tourist attraction. There were some people at the base of the monument square dancing in traditional Belgian skirts. It looked like a ton of fun! After we took pictures of it all, we drove to the city center. We walked around a market area, the Cathedral (St. Michael the Archangel and St. Gudula), and lots of neat shops. We also walked to the Grand Place, which is a beautiful old square that is surrounded by detailed buildings on all four sides. In the center of the square were artists painting the scenery and selling their work, and a jazz festival that was setting up. We found an AMAZING Belgian waffle place that we rushed to for our lunch. The waffle was covered in a sweet glaze, then topped with strawberries, whipped cream, and drizzled with chocolate! It was a heavenly treat. We walked around the area more and went into the Cathedral, which is absolutely gorgeous! There was a section inside that you had to pay a Euro to go inside, so I did. They had tons of old chalises, monstrances, reliquaries, priest vestments, a high altar, and paintings that were hundreds of years old! They even had a relic of the true cross. I was very impressed! After this, we drove to the Parliament building, which is the seat of the European Union, for pictures.

It was a very long, packed weekend, but definitely worth it! I can't wait to go back to these countries sometime in the near future and see more! :)

Here are my pictures for you:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2191765&id=30308465&l=451cac4722