Romanian Chels: January 2007

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Barnsley-England

So as most of you know, for the break I got to go to England for 2 weeks and see my bestest friend, Mary. I was so excited because I could go somewhere where everyone speaks English and I wouldn’t feel stupid not knowing the language, although I’d say that I did still speak a different language, or at least they did…

So here is my little journey across the beautiful, but windy and full of pigeons, UK.

I was at the airport in Bucharest and my flight was at 8:30am and I was so excited to get on the plane when they told everyone that there is a lot of fog in London and that the flight will be delayed 3 hours. So I wasn’t very happy, but at least I did have my laptop with me to help pass the time.

Finally I was on the plane and I couldn’t of been happier. You would think that since I had been on a 8 ½ hour flight 3 months earlier that 3 hours would go by fast but they didn’t. And it didn’t help that I had 2 little English kids right behind me crying and kicking the back of my seat. And you thought that North American kids couldn’t be more annoying that any other kids, but you thought wrong. Hearing the British accent come out of those little bodies, which makes it double as hard to understand them, once you hear it, you just want them to shut up. I was so tired and just wanted to sleep but all I could think about was kicking one of them... I do like kids, just not when I am tired.

Just chilling on top of the clouds…

If some of you can’t tell that is another plane. I don’t know if any of you have ever seen another plane in the air while you were also in a plane flying, it was really weird to see and a little scary.

Since there was still a lot of fog once we did arrive over London we had to fly around for an hour. All of the other planes had also been backed up and everyone had to wait their turn. There was a beautiful sunset and I have never seen the sun so big and beautiful since I was very high in the air, so that made the delay well worth it.

Here is some of London from the air.

Once I did get off the plane I had to go find the bus station and Heathrow is a big airport. I hate walking around in a airport because there are always so many people and you have such a hard time getting past them and most people are moving so slow… And I have never seen so many people walk by as I was just waiting in one spot awhile for my bus. It really is the busiest airport. I heard that 1 million people pass through there every week. Terrorists did pick a good spot to try and bomb. I’m just glad that I wasn’t there at that time. Being there I was a little scared though…

As soon as I got on the bus I was thinking, that’s weird, I’ve never seen a bus drive from the left side. And then we were on the other side of the road once we started to drive and then it all clicked… yeah I had forgotten and I am also a little slow. It’s so strange to be on the other side of the road and it felt very weird… It was still really foggy everywhere so it took even longer and it seemed like forever before I would get to see Mary!

This is me on the bus, excited to see Mary.

And then pretty bored looking out into my new country…

I finally got there and when Mary came I had never been so excited to see a friend before. We took the train back to her house and I couldn’t wait to see it.

Home Sweet Home

They have door slots instead of mailboxes, I want one!

First pic with Mary

She lives in this little City called Barnsley, nothing is really in Barnsley, but that didn't matter to me bc I was just happy to be in a different country and place.

This is a typical English house.

Inside Mary’s house…

The Front room… but to us, the living room.

I have never seen a washing machine in the kitchen before. With houses being so small, they have to put it somewhere.

They have crazy steep stairs everywhere and I totally got a workout.

I loved her bathroom, it was so nice!

Mary’s room

So English houses are a lot different than ours and they are all pretty small ( the regular houses anyway) unless you are rich. And bc so many of them are so old, it’s just the way that they use to make them. So many of them are all attached together it’s crazy bc all the houses are so narrow and you are right smack the closest that you could be to your neighbour. I swear that I could hear the neighbour’s TV almost clearly. Sure they were old people and probably deaf, but still….

So the day after we met Gran and Granddad. They are not Mary’s grandparents. They are the grandparents of the friend’s house that she is staying in. They are truly the cutest grandparents ever! And as soon as I met them they told me to call them Gran and Granddad. I liked that. We went and had lunch together and it was really nice. I was so excited about normal food.

So I got the Lamb meal and it was really good. The round thing on the left is Yorkshire pudding. That was a little weird for me but I liked it. It’s just flour and egg and after it’s baked you add gravy. This is very traditional in England and they have them quite a bit.

Me and Gran just playing… is she not the cutest!?

After, Granddad took us three lovely ladies out for ice cream and it was so good, it was like Creamsicle with a twist. Ahh I want more!

Granddad as he was driving. Didn’t I do a great job of getting a side profile?

Some church I think…

They have a lot of rolling hills and beautiful scenery.

Some really old bridge.

Granddad is a cute and useful old man who loves to Iron. I need to find me one like that since I don’t like to Iron.

We went to a church and it was so little and cute.

It held about 40 people, and that was at Christmas.

Some views in Barnsley

Yay! pigeons! Things birds are everywhere, I'm happy that I never got pooped on.

They had some crazy old buildings, 1859,I wonder what it was like back then...

A lot of their signs were different. I think that For Rent makes a lot more sense than For Let.

They had these give way/ yield signs almost everywhere, I don't remember seeing stop signs… And there are a abundant amount of traffic circles/ round abouts everywhere, I guess that they are easier for the English.

Courthouse

We went to the mall in the next city and it was pretty cool, but weird since I hadn’t been in one for over 4 months, I had missed shopping.

This was my favourite store of course and it had 3 levels. They had so much football stuff and I was in awe...I could have bought everything in it but the pound is expensive. 1 pound= $2.2 Can So I had to be careful and try to remember that I am actually paying more that double for everything… I hated that!

Poundland was pretty good because you could get some good stuff for 1 Pound, I think that it’s better than most of our dollar stores.