When Life Gives You a Field of Flowers, Frolic Through It

Rolling hills of green grass speckled with spontaneous fields of wildflowers. The wind blows through the long grass, pushing emerald waves that make drowning in these seas seem more appealing. What to do with all this beauty? Frolic through it.

            This is my journey to the North! The adventure began with getting good seats on the coach where we would live for the next week. Amanda and I were seat buddies which essentially means we were the party row. We memorized some Justin Bieber, rocked out to some Disney, and freaked out while watching the romantic movie, North and South as a group.
            We took the coach to Preston, where we were able to tour the LDS Missionary Training Center there and take a walk around the temple as well, which was gorgeous.  We then got back on the bus and went up to Ambleside. This is the quaintest, cutest town in the Lake district. This is where William Wordsworth was inspired to write his great poems of nature. I was able to understand the meaning of the poems. We were given the opportunity to dine in his former residence of Dove Cottage, and the next day, we got to handle first edition copies of his poetry, of Frankenstein, his copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, his Paradise Lost, and many other priceless copies of literature.
             We then proceeded on the most underestimated hike of my life. It took four hours of climbing steep hills into what I thought were actually mountains. The views were amazing though! However, it made navigating the rough terrain more difficult and provided for more stumbling because I could not take my eyes off of how gorgeous the surrounding was. On the sides of the trails were sheep and horses and rams, just chilling a few feet away from us. Naturally, I wanted to pet a ram... it just looked so soft! So, I snuck up behind it without her noticing me. I was inches away when the thought occurs to me that I should take a picture of this moment for my blog. So I'm standing there right behind this ram while I'm fiddling with my camera. This grazing ram decided to look behind it at that moment. And it gave a big bah of a scream which was no match for my scream of terror and we both ran away from each other. I don't think I'll take up herding anytime soon.  Then we also hiked to a waterfall later that evening. It was beautiful, but I don't know if I've ever been so exhausted! But that didn't stop us from walking down to the Roman ruins later that evening and sitting by the lake where we were attacked by a demand duck. The next day we took another pretty hike around sheep and streams and magical beauty then set off on the road to Edinburgh! (We also stopped at a druid structure like Stonehenge, but cooler because you can climb on these rocks. It was also necessary that we joined hands in the middle to create a circle and did a chant... it just needed to happen.)
            Edinburgh (pronounced "Ed-n-bur-rah") was fantastic! We were there for two days. The first evening, we went on ANOTHER hike up a hill called Arthur's Seat which should be called Arthur's Throne because of its HIGHness! (I don't know if anyone else I thinks I'm funny but my mom and I think I am..). It was quite a little trek getting up there. I thought I was going to fall off the cliff a few times! May I just mention that I did not trip ONCE on any of these hikes! And yes, that is a huge achievement for me.
             After Edinburgh (where Kennedy and I decided that men in kilts are attractive), we went to York! This city was so cool! It's just this little Medieval city chillin' in some ancient walls. I loved wandering these streets and even found a fantastic vintage store where I had tons of fun dressing up! Amanda and I found this great little pub where we had one of the best dinners I have had here so far. And the people were so nice, which is sometimes hard to find in London. But soon enough, we were off again. We went to a place called Fountains Abbey. These are the rugged ruins of an old abbey that Henry VIII made into ruins. But it is gorgeous. My breath was taken away by this majestic structure surrounded by fields of flowers. After laying in the flowers, being completely content with everything about my life, it was time to run through it... and boy, did I frolic... Pure joy, I tell ya.
            But all good things must come to an end.. and they did when we got back on the bus to go home to London and realized that we had a history midterm in two days. It put a bit of a damper on things...
             I miss the sun shining on the grass and the soft sea of flowers. I have never seen so many beautiful things in such a small amount of time. Nature is truly beautiful, and it is mind-blowing to me. Watching the sun set on the lake was such an amazing experience that I will hold on to forever.
             Even though I miss this a lot, the Irish landscape that I drove through the following week helped to numb the pain. More to come in the next post!

The view from Dove Cottage

Grasmere beauty!

Lake District HIKE!

Ambleside 

Just crossing a cute river in Ambleside!

Castlerigg Stone Circle

Amanda and I know how to get our Chi on... 

With Trent and Jared in front of Edinburgh Castle!

The view from Arthur's Seat over Edinburgh

Gotta love the Scots!

York Minster! 

Fountains Abbey!