THE GREAT TRIP cont. #2

Thursday, September 17

We did make it! I need to say here and now that Jaremy is an excellent driver and the GPS does work most of the time and has been a great thing to have. It is just more fun to tell about the more adventuresome times. Anyway back to Jaremy, he is an excellent driver. He whips in and out of those round a bouts like he belongs here. He is as good a maniac as the rest of them. You can’t be timid that’s for sure. I also forgot to say yesterday that we bought the third H.I.V.E. book while we were at the mall. Jaremy has already started reading it and he says that it is good.
This morning after a very fine breakfast we left Stoke-on-Trent and headed for Nottingham. On the way we stopped at Chatsworth House. What an amazing place! The grounds are incredible! The house is so ornate and heavy but it is so much fun to see. We did another audio-tour guide here. It is really fun hearing about the history of places. This is the mansion they used for “Pemberley” in “Pride and Prejudice”, (the new one). While we were there we saw these older people sitting out on a bench with 3 Cavalier spaniels, all blenheims. They were so cute we had to stop and pet them and chat with their owners. We told them about Daisy and Ivie and Gabbie back at home. They were very nice people.
The Duke of Derbyshire who owns the Chatsworth House, (one of the dukes actually, back a ways) had portraits of his favorite dogs in the house and guess what they were? Two blenheims! How do you like that? We had a great time there but the drive on to Nottingham was a bit hairy. They have these very narrow, winding roads with trees leaning together overhead, (very pretty) and other cars and trucks zooming past going the other way. They don’t slow down at all and you have to get out of the way or else!
So we did make it to Nottingham! This bed and breakfast is very fancy and pretty old. The owners are from Scotland and the lady said that the house was built in 1834. It is called “The Greenwood Lodge” and is late Regency early Victorian in architecture and décor, lots of frilly stuff, you know. The house does have a bit of a creepy feeling to it. Chrissy said she especially felt it in the bathroom so while she was having her shower she was singing hymns to herself.
We did our laundry at a laundry place down the street, and then went to a pub called “The Grosvenor” for dinner. Chrissy and I had a cheese and tomato sandwich and Jaremy had a club sandwich. They were pretty good but we just wished that there had been a little more tomato on our cheese and tomato sandwiches.
We have been on holiday a whole week and can’t help wondering how everything is back home. Tomorrow we will tour around here and then leave England from the London Gatwick Airport and head for Denmark.
Hey, my mom was right about washcloths. This is the first place they have been provided. Good thing we brought our own as she suggested!

TYPICAL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
(That we have got most everywhere)

Choice of dry cereal with milk.
Orange and some other kind of juice
Toast with butter and jelly patties
Hash browns
Eggs
Bacon
Sausages, (Jaremy said these have not improved since he was here before)
Tinned cooked tomatoes, sometimes fresh tomatoes
Baked beans
Yogurt, (they had plain and strawberry in our London hotel that were in big earthenware jars and the strawberry was so creamy! Wow!

When we were at the pub I was noticing that with most of the entrees they serve peas, (canned I think).
Tonight the lady at our bed and breakfast brought us up a thermos of fresh milk. She seemed worried that we didn’t want coffee or tea. Every room we have been in has had cups and saucers, (china) and spoons, (silver) and teapots with biscuits, (cookies), which we haven’t used except we have ate the cookies. The lady kept saying the milk was fresh and she seemed so eager for us to drink it. Milk at night makes Chrissy and I sick and Jaremy quite abhors milk, but we don’t want to make her feel bad. I think we might dump it down the sink.. But, isn’t that sweet of her?

Later

Well, I did end up drinking a little bit of the milk so I could say that I had and then I dumped the rest down the drain.

Saturday, September 19

I skipped yesterday because I never got a good chance to write. So, now to continue.
We left Nottingham Friday morning after a rather uneasy night. We were all ready to get up and leave. After a very nice breakfast, (see typical English breakfast) we headed for the London Gatwick Airport.
First we stopped at Robin Hood’s castle. It was a castle that had been used by William the conqueror, back in the late 1000’s, one of the oldest castles in England. We bought more gifts here for Joseph, Sam and Micah. I hope they will like them. I don’t know if Chelsea is going to be over joyed about them though.
Then we stopped in Leicester and got lost for a while, (more arguing with the GPS). I got out and picked a flower for Karen while Jaremy and the GPS were settling things, as I could see we were not likely to make it to any shops. I thought that maybe I could make it into a bookmark like I have done before. After much driving we made it to the airport where we turned in our car. “Good-by little Peugeot! It’s been nice, but I am glad we are going our separate ways, not too much worse for the wear!” We were going to try and find the temple but we were all ready to give up the car even though we were 5 hours early for our flight.
So we were at the airport and we walked around, and bought another bag and I knitted and Chrissy did a word game and Jaremy fell asleep and I made a couple of origami butterflies, and then I helped Chrissy with her word game and then Jaremy started snoring so I had to poke him, (not really). Then finally we got to go through security and get our boarding passes. Then we went shopping, (only Chrissy bought stuff), and then we had dinner and then we were off to Denmark!

Later

We got to the Billund Airport at about 11:15 P.M. Our hotel was right by the airport but a shuttle bus took us there anyway. Then when we got to the hotel there were no hotel people there to help us of course. Everything was closed. There was one guy there who said he had been trying to get in for the last half hour. He was Chinese and was very nice. He told us all about how to work the machine on the outside wall (kind of like an ATM) to put our information in. They had packets with names on them taped to the wall so we found ours and started all the process. Jaremy put in all this information (including his passport number, for Heaven’s sake). We were standing there with all our luggage and we were so tired and it was cold and Jaremy was having to dig through things to pull out his passport and then the machine popped up “Reservation cannot be confirmed.” That’s when the Chinese guy started laughing (I think he was a bit hysterical). He was saying, “Yes, yes, that is what happened to me!” He was pretty upset that there was no one there to help us, as we were. He said in China there would have been someone there 24 hours! Well after a bit we noticed this room number card in our packet and decided to stick that into a slot by the door. There were no instructions so we had to guess at things. The light went on but the door did not open. So we tried it again and THE DOOR OPENED! We all ran inside before the door could close again. We were in! So we finally got to our room, which was very clean, modern and simple and got to sleep. But, the poor Chinese guy did not have a room card and the last we saw he was having to sleep on a chair in the entrance lobby! But, at least he got in.
The next morning Jaremy got our rental car (oh no, not again) and we were off for Aalborg. This time we were on the right side of the road. The driving was a lot less stressful and the countryside was beautiful. There were lots of rolling green and gold fields, dotted with buildings that had red tile roofs. The sky was blue with a few puffy white clouds, very idyllic.
We got to Aalborg in about 2 hours and first off went past Chrissy’s kolliguem where she lived for 4 months, 3 years ago. Then we went to a grocery store so we could load up on chocolate to take home and also to buy some toothpaste. Then we went shopping at Chrissy’s favorite stores.
At 3:15 we met Barbra at the McDonald’s (yes there is a McDonald’s in Aalborg and a Burger King too). Barbra looked so cute and she hugged us all. We went to lunch at an outdoor café and then Barbra took us all around Aalborg. It is a beautiful city. We went down to the river and all over. It was so much fun. I think we spent about 2 hours together. When we were walking back to our car I had to turn around and stare back at the city we were leaving so I could put it in my mind. It was so lovely. Will we ever be able to go back there? You know, there really is a lot to love in this world. Barbra walked back with us to our car and then we said good-by. We all hugged and she told us to tell the big family hello! As we came around the parking lot to go out, she was standing there waiting to wave to us one more time. It was sad. Then she was off to get on her bus and we were off to our hotel. I am so glad we got to see Barbra.