We had a great visit over in England, even though our trip seemed fairly short. Throughout the entire time that we were there, we really just took it easy. We didn't really do too much, but we definitely ate some delicious food, witnessed a beautiful wedding and had a great time with friends and family.
First Part of the Trip:
There were many firsts on this trip. It was Andrew's first time up to the northeast of England and it was my first time to drive in the U.K.
Here was our rental car.
Needless to say, driving on the other side of the road was an experience. Before arriving I had read part of the highway code and learned how to master a roundabout (thanks Dad!), but I still had a few near death experiences. I felt sorry for Andrew, since he was in the passenger seat. I never had trouble figuring out what side of the road to drive on...other than trying to get out of the parking lot, but I had trouble figuring out the width of my car. I had no accidents though. Getting to and from the airport was the toughest part of driving over there for me, but my Aunt and Uncle let us follow them to the hotel and my cousin and Uncle let us follow them back to the airport (thanks Auntie Maureen, Uncle Peter and Paul), which we were very grateful for. Once we got to South Shields, I was fine. I think I would drive over in the U.K. again, but I would try to see if the public transportation system would be able to get us around. I have to admit though, the freedom of having a car was definitely nice.
Here are some pictures from the trip.
Colman's Fish and Chips
This is where we ate lunch on Friday. They have the best fish and chips in England! No joke....they have won numerous national awards. Even Andrew thought they served the best fish and chips he has ever eaten. As you can imagine, our lunch was delicious.
After lunch on Friday, we headed up to my Auntie Maureen's and Uncle Peter's house to meet Chalkie. Isn't he a cutie!?!?
While we were over in England, there were spring flowers EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so many daffodils before in my life. Everywhere that you turned, there were daffodils. There were yellow ones, white ones, white ones with orange centers...you name it! I was in heaven.
Also, while we were in my hometown, I showed Andrew my old primary school, St. Bedes.
On Friday night, we had a lovely meal with Judith and Alan. We forgot to take pictures at dinner, but here are some pictures from the wedding on Saturday.
Alan and Judith
Judith, me and Andrew
Then, on the Saturday night, we ate dinner with my Auntie Maureen, Uncle Peter, Paul, Janet and Sam. It was delicious! Afterwards, we went back to Paul, Janet and Sam's house for chocolate cake and Sam and Andrew battled it out on the Wii.
Auntie Maureen, Uncle Peter, me, Andrew and Sam
Janet, Sam and Paul
We had fog everyday that we were in South Shields, but the morning that we left, it was beautiful. Here is the view of the North Sea from our hotel window. I love being by the sea!
Second Part of the Trip:
On Sunday afternoon, we headed down to London to spend some time with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins that live in Southern England and to prepare for our trip home. We had already seen all of the tourist sights, so we just took it easy while we were there by going back to two of our favorite places, Harrods and Covent Gardens. By the time we checked into the hotel, etc. we didn't have much time in London, other than to catch some dinner, but we spent most of the day in the city on Monday.
For lunch on Monday, we ate at the Pizzeria in one of the Food Halls in Harrods. The food was pretty good, but it was really expensive. The experience was neat though. Here are some pictures from the pizza bar.
Look at the beautiful glass work.
After lunch, we spent most of the afternoon taking an in depth look at some of the floors in Harrods. One of our finds was the Chocolate Bar.
So, we stopped for dessert. I had the a delicious milk chocolate milkshake and Andrew had an amazing dark chocolate hot chocolate. It was literally like melted chocolate. Yum.
All of the items at the Chocolate Bar are made with real chocolate. Check it out.
Then, Andrew found his dream kitchen.
And his dream video gaming chair, which was 15,000 pounds. Unfortunately, Andrew can keep dreaming on the chair and the kitchen :).
Before we left to head to Covent Gardens for dinner with my Aunt, Uncle and two of my cousins, we picked up some cupcakes from the Harrods bakery.
Isn't the packaging cute??
This ended up being our late night snack. We picked a chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting, a vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting and an oreo cupcake. The vanilla one was our favorite!
or dinner, we met up with my Uncle Jerry, Aunt Cath and my cousins, Joanne and Jenny in Covent Gardnes. We had a really nice time visiting with them and had a lovely meal. Here is a picture of my Aunt Cath, Jenny, Uncle Jerry and Joanne.
This wrapped up our trip to England. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for our flight the next day. Overall, the trip was a lot of fun and Andrew and I can't wait for our next trip over there.
-N
