Jeremy and I got home from our trip to Europe a few days ago. I think we are all still a little bit jet lagged (especially Carter, he has been wanting to party every morning at 4) but it was worth it, we had such a great time. In the weeks leading up the trip, I was getting pretty nervous about how Carter would do on the flight and on the trip, but he did great. I think he was about as good as a five month old could be. We took a red eye flight to London on April 19th. When we got to the gate, we got a few stink eyes when people saw that we had a baby with us. As we were getting off the plane, a lot of those same people stopped us to tell us how good he was. A couple of people said, "Wow, there was a baby on this flight!?"
Here is Carter, ready to get on the plane! After we landed in London the next morning, we took a bus from the airport to Exeter, where my sister is studying at the university. Here is Carter, sleeping on the bus.
In Exeter, we met up with my family, picked up a few groceries and then drove about 45 minutes into the English countryside in Devon. Here is the cute little cottage that we stayed in
On Sunday, we went to church in Lydford. The church is beautiful, it was built in the 1300s. I think almost everyone in the congregation was over the age of 60, so Carter was kind of a novelty.
Next to the church is Lydford Castle, built in the 1100s. I guess this was used as a pretty terrible prison during the reign of Henry VIII.
After church, we went for a picnic at the the Mount Edgecumb Folly. It was a gorgeous view out to the ocean. "Follies" are structures that rich English people used to build on their property in the 18th century that were meant to look like Roman ruins. For all you Downton Abbey fans, if you notice, they have follies on the grounds at Downton...anyway...
I think one of the more terrifying experiences I have ever had in my life is driving on the roads through the hedgerows in Devon. You can't tell how bad it was from this picture, but this is a two lane road. It was
barely big enough for one car and you couldn't see around the bends in the road at all...and we were driving on the wrong side of the road. As we were driving, we saw a motorcyclist fly around a corner. He saw us, panicked, slammed on the breaks, and skidded onto our side of the road and into the front of our car. I saw him laying over the front of our car, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, I am going to have to give him CPR, I don't know how to take care of him, he doesn't have a uterus!" Luckily when we all jumped out of the car, he popped up and said "cheers" and was fine.
On Monday, Jeremy, my dad, Heather and I went on a guided hike on Dartmoor. Our guide showed us a bunch of stone circles that are thousands of years old. They know that they have something to do with the seasons, but that's about it. I thought the moor was a little bit creepy...and far too cold. My favorite part about it was the Dartmoor ponies. They just live wild out there. I kept trying to feed them an apple but they were not interested.
This is one of the stone circles that we saw. After the moor, Jeremy and my mom and Dad hiked Lydford gorge. Heather and I went the next day. The waterfall at the end was really beautiful.
My favorite thing was all the of lambs that we saw along the way, they were adorable!
On Tuesday, my dad, Heather, Jeremy and I drove to Tintagel, the legendary ruins of King Arthur's Castle. I think Tintagel was probably the most spectacular sight we saw on the whole trip. Jeremy and I took turns carrying Carter in the baby bjorn. As I was carrying him up those stairs, it brought back lots of memories of being pregnant.
I thought this was the most unusual, impractical place to build a castle, it is literally right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Jeremy also went down to the beach to explore "Merlin's Cave" which is a cave the runs underneath the castle. You can only get there at low tide.
After exploring the Castle, we had some authentic fish and chips in the village.
Most of the food we had in England was actually pretty good. The English just have an uncanny knack at making things sound really unappetizing. They call apple cider "cloudy apple juice" bacon, "back bacon." thick cream, "clotted cream," and sandwiches, "butties." Yum. Here is a cool sign that we saw outside of a restaurant in Exeter
The next day we took the train back to London. I'll post about London soon!
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