Preston & Liverpool England

Daniel has some sweet photography skills.

At the MTC in Preston, where my brother Cole was standing just a few months earlier.

You know it's going to be a good weekend when you wake up and your husband says, "let's go on a trip today." We got ready as quickly as we could and made the 2 hour drive south to Preston. The drive was absolutely incredible. Green rolling hills and stone walls as far as you could see, sheep everywhere, and little cottages dotting the fields. When we arrived in Preston we found a random restaurant that was on our sat nav, and it turned out to be the cutest and most quaint Italian restaurant I have ever seen. It was in the upstairs of a small penthouse, and no bigger than a large living room. Hanging lights everywhere, cute wooden tables and chairs, and delicious pizza and prawns. It was a success. We stayed the night in a hotel, and I TOOK A SHOWER! You have no idea how sick I am of taking baths all the time, so staying at this hotel that night was a big deal. I forgot how wonderful showers really are.  The next morning we did a session in the beautiful Preston temple, and felt so refreshed afterwards. It is amazing how we can be so far away from home and family, but feel so close to them when we are in the temple. It's a little bit of heaven. The MTC (missionary training center) is right next to the temple, so we got to go see where my little brother was just a few short months ago! (he is now in London serving as a missionary). We then drove a little more south to Liverpool, which is the coolest city. We kept saying it reminded us of a lot of the big cities we have been to in the states rolled into one. It had a good mix of DC, Philly, Rochester NY, and Pittsburgh. We ate lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria, which was quite possibly the best Brazilian place we have ever eaten at. The pao de queijo was the best I have had. I ate way too much of it. Daniel was in heaven, and speaking Portuguese to the waiter every time he brought us meat. We left that place too full of rice and beans, too much meat, guarana, and of course the pao de queijo. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Afterwards, we tried to get into a Liverpool FC game, but it was all sold out! We were so bummed, but it was amazing to just be surrounded by so many football fans, and see how football is really a religion over here. We decided we still wanted to see a game, so we found another team a few miles away called Bolton FC, so we were able to get tickets to that and have our first professional English football experience! It was WILD. People here are SO into the game, and it was just amazing. Bolton is just in the championship league, which is the second best league here, but still a better level than the MLS in the states! We want to go to a premier match SO BAD. We are trying to decide when and what team we should go see first. After the match we drove back to Durham, completely satisfied with our temple trip weekend. I'm SO grateful we have a temple that is only 2 hours away! 

A Scotland Road Trip

On Tuesday afternoon I squeezed in a car with three soccer players (husband included) and took a little road trip to Scotland. Ray who is from England, was kind enough to drive Daniel, Matt, and I and show us around a little. Our first stop was in Bamburgh England, a quaint little town located at the base of the beautiful Bamburgh Castle, overlooking the North Sea. We ate at a cozy pub-The Castle Inn for dinner (just the first dinner of the night...these guys can eat!), where I ate the most delicious steak sandwich, chips (fries) and onion rings of my life. I don't know how long it has been since I have had red meat! The sandwich reminded me of Geno's cheese steaks in Philly. Comfort food at it's finest. We arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland (pronounced Edin bur uh)  at about 7pm at our bed and breakfast where Daniel had made reservations. It was the cutest little place, but the owner told us there was a confusion with hotels.com where we booked the room, and there was actually no vacancy... we almost panicked, but he sent us across the street to another bed and breakfast and told us we could find rooms there. A cute middle eastern family owned it, and they gave us a nice room with one double bed and two twin beds for £60-when normally it is £100! So it actually turned out to be a good thing. The beds were hard as a rock, but everything was super clean, so that's all that matters right? We dropped off our stuff, then went out to see the city of Endinburgh, and ate our second dinner! Well, the boys did, and I just ate gelato. We ate at an italian restaurant called Zizi's. After sampling all the guys' food, I wished I had ordered something other than gelato. It was dang good. I just found out that there is a Zizi's in Durham...I know what our next date night is going to be!

We walked around for a while and marveled at the lit up cathedrals and castles, before heading back to our room and crashing for the night. It was an adventure for sure trying to sleep with snoring guys in the room. The next morning we ate a little breakfast curtesy of the bed and breakfast-toast and stale cheerios. Ray was kind enough to make us all smoothies before we went out to tour the city though, so it was all good. It was amazing to see the city in the daylight! It was like a whole new world. There was something magical about being in this city in fall. Every building was so medieval and gothic, it just felt perfect for Halloween. We went into the beautiful Museum of Edinburgh, then walked around some more. I loved the accents, the castles, the kilts, the plaid everything, and the cute shops. Edinburgh did us good. After exploring for the day we headed to Sterling, Scotland where the football match was. The boys played so so good but we lost unfortunately. I was freezing the entire game, but loved being outside in the crisp Scotland air. We drove the 2.5 hours back to Durham, and went to bed, totally exhausted, yet totally exhilarated from the amazing things we saw. Not to mention our sore abs from all the laughing we did...these 3 guys together was like one constant comedy show! I feel so blessed that we live so close to such amazing things! I can't wait to go back to Scotland...Glasgow is next on our list!

Sunderland

First proper English fish n chips. We had no idea how good or BIG this slab of fish would be. Slathered in vinegar and salt!

 

On Saturday we decided to take a spontaneous drive north east to Sunderland. We had no map, no gps, and no plan for the day. We just got in our car and drove. We drove about 15 miles and stopped when we saw the beautiful Roker Beach. We spent a good few hours walking on the sand, collecting sea glass and funny looking seashells.. We found a hole in the wall fish n chips joint, so we decided to give it a try. THE BEST I tell you. They pretty much slapped a whole fish in each one of our boxes, and piled on the chips (fries). Just when we thought our bodies couldn't take anymore food, we ordered ice cream cones and walked off our lunch along the boardwalk.

We drove along the coast for a few more miles, found the coolest lighthouse, and walked along the edge of the cliffs next to the ocean. I've never seen anything like it before. We drove north some more and saw the ruins of an old abbey in South Shields, then drove inland to Newcastle. Newcastle is a pretty big city, and Saturday night was the wrong night to drive around! We just wanted to see the Newcastle FC stadium up close, but on our way there we got a little lost and ended up in a bus and taxi only-zone. Our little car was sandwiched between huge double decker buses, and we were sitting their anxiously hoping nobody would notice we weren't a taxi, haha. But we made it out with no problem, and drove the 15 miles back home to Durham.  It was such a fun and refreshing day. I can't wait to see what else England/Europe has in store for us.