First Thoughts

I haven't thought that I would be someone who would blog, and I am not sure that I really have anything to say that would interest anyone. But I am getting ready for a trip to the UK and thought that this might be a good way to keep people up to date on the trip, and also a good way for me to put down thoughts while they are fresh in my mind and remember the trip later.

This is an exciting trip for me for several reasons. Of course first and foremost because I will be visiting my daughter who is studying in London, and I am looking forward to seeing her and the places where she is staying, studying and visiting.

But another reason it is exciting is that I have never actually been out of the USA. Well, technically that is not true, I spent a week in Toronto many years ago, and we took a family vacation that incorporated a stay in Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. But that would be it.

I am looking forward to the history, having always lived in the US, where 'old' mostly means the late 1800's. Of course there are older places even here, but they are less common and I have not yet been to many of them.

And I am greatly looking forward to seeing the place where parts of my family came from. My heritage is quite a mix, with one grandfather born in Germany, one Grandmother born in the US of parents born in Ireland, another Grandmother born in the US of a mother from Glamorganshire in Wales and a father from England (place unknown to me). My other grandfather came from a family that has been in Virginia since the late 1600's and includes English, Welsh, Scotch-Irish and Dutch among others. On this trip we will be visiting Swansea, Wales which lies in Glamorgan. We will travel on the train through Glamorgan to get to Swansea, and will be able to at least imagine my great grandmother having lived there.

I will be leaving on 10/23, and I will be returning on 11/4. We plan to see London, Bath, Stonehenge and Avebury, Swansea and Edinburgh. It will be a lot of traveling and will give us a chance to see various parts of the UK while traveling on BritRail. There are so many things to see, I know there won't be time to see them all.