Looking back.......

I have been gradually loading pictures to Facebook, and as I look at them and add captions it allows me to reflect on the trip and the places we saw. It was truly the trip of a lifetime for me. I got to see and do far more than I might have expected. It was non-stop and tiring, but I loved every minute of the trip.

My family background is very much mixed, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 German, 1/4 is a 50/50 mix of Welsh and English. The last 1/4 was in Virginia by the late 1600's, and as a result is a complete mix of English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Dutch....... So if there is a predominant strain, it would be some Celtic combination. Because of that, I looked forward greatly to seeing England, Wales and Scotland so that I could get some sense of where I came from. What I didn't anticipate was how strongly drawn I would feel to these places, and that there would be a feeling of 'homecoming'.

Unlike most travelers, I found that the food was familiar and enjoyable. I could eat fish and chips every day or two forever I think. Mushy vegetables bother me not at all. And London in particular has every ethnic choice imaginable. In Swansea, we found one of the best Thai restaurants I have encountered. The shortbread cookies in Scotland were great, especially the ones from the Elephant Cafe (in elephant shape of course). I almost stopped drinking coffee while I was there, I loved every cup of tea. I had a cold for a few days, and found the tea to be an incredibly comforting, reviving drink. I looked forward to my morning tea and toast, especially the days at the Pickwick in London. I found the people of London to be remarkably friendly and welcoming. Perhaps there was an element of reflecting back the joy that I was feeling, but everywhere I went I found people helpful and friendly.

As I watched some of the videos in the Cabinet War Rooms, I was particularly struck by the faces of the women who were speaking - they looked so like me and my Grandmother and my Aunt Shirlee...

I liked seeing all of the places I have read about for so many years. And I was amazed to find that most of them looked like I had imagined. So often when we visit a place we have read about and seen pictures of for years, we find that it looks different from what we expect. It is smaller, dirtier, the view is blocked by something that was cleverly concealed by the camera work. That just didn't happen in this case. And places that I did not have a preconceived vision of, like Covent Garden for example, turned out to be delightful in so many ways. I am now listening to a book called 'Her Fearful Symmetry' which is set in London, and am experiencing extreme pleasure for the London details that are embedded in the book.

I am so grateful to Gloria for creating this opportunity for me, to her and Krista for their patience in traveling with me as I took hundreds of pictures and dragged my too-big bag around train and tube stations, and to my husband for encouraging me to make the trip.

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.