Today I got to experience the English countryside for the first time. It felt so refreshing to get out of the city.
We first went to the white cliffs of Dover. The seaside was beautiful, cold, but beautiful. The cliffs were really pretty, although smaller than I imagined. The castle is right on the on top of the cliffs. It looks pretty small from the beach but once you get up there you realize the magnitude of the castle. The view was nice but it would have been breathtaking had it been a clear day. Because it was kind of blustery it was hard to see France….but we could faintly see it across the water. Sadly we didn’t have enough time to tour the underground wartime tunnels but I wish we had! Maybe someday in many, many, many years I’ll go back.
Our other stop of the day was in Canterbury. We first saw the remains of St. Augustine’s Abbey and then headed over to the Canterbury Cathedral. This is the site where Christianity first came to England way back when. It is also the site where in 1170 the Archbishop Sir Thomas Becket was murdered. The cathedral was stunning. My favorite part of the cathedral was walking up the two sets of stairs on both sides. One set of stairs wasn’t worn down at all because originally only monks were allowed to walk up. The other set of stairs were designated for the pilgrims who came to Canterbury. These were worn down so much that they are basically sloped forward. They reminded me of our Spring City stairs. My second favorite thing was the Evensong that we attended there. In the beginning when the main guy (don't know his title) started the program he specifically welcome the Brigham Young University students from Utah. Although after that I didn’t understand most of what they were saying or singing, it was cool to just be there. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a ton of pictures there but I need to get other peoples camera cards to upload some.
After a long day it’s nice to be “home.” I finished a good day off by going to Nando’s with Emma, Christi, Cami, and Aylea and then coming home to take an ice-cold shower because the hot water needs fixing. Besides the cold shower, the only bad thing that happened to me today was that I burned my tongue on my soup at lunch. But other than that, it was an absolutely glorious day to be alive!
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| Stained glass in the Cathedral |
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| White Cliffs of Dover |
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| remnants of St. Augustine's Abbey |
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| Roman lighthouse at Dover Castle |
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| Our "stern" looks |
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| Canterbury Cathedral |
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