Fun fact: this chapter was originally titled "Beginning to Think I Fancy England" but it literally took me a week to write this chapter during which time I decided that I really really liked England, hence the title you see now.

Thanks for stopping by this chapter of the slightly neglected book of craziness written soon to be of a newly established  "world traveler."

Those of you who keep up with my random board messages already know this, BUT if you don't: basically, I spent this past week (actually ten days) in England!

It was an absolutely amazing experience and I love the country so, so, so much. Though I can't possibly write out every thing that happened while I was there, I thought I would share at least some parts of my time in England.

So my purpose of going to England was going to a school in Middlesbrough (previously voted the worst place to live in England) to speak in the religious education classes there--however, we flew out Friday night and got there on Saturday (wouldn't recommend overnight flights but it wasn't awful), and even in England they don't do school on the weekends, so we had some time to look around a bit which was really fun. 

BUT the real excitement started first thing Monday morning when we got to go to the school. We showed up at eight and sat in the assembly hall, waiting for the students to arrive. It was kind of eerie but honestly really cool how assembly started, because there was this classical music playing over the speakers as students walked in in complete silence and then sat down not making any noise, lest they face serious consequence. (honestly, I was a little terrified myself, even though I was a guest and couldn't be punished) (it felt very magical and Harry Potter-ish honestly)

Part way through Assembly, we were introduced as "the American guests" and thus began one (actually really fun) nightmare of the week, as the next thing announced was: "and the Americans brought jolly ranchers!"

Which, I mean, YES, we did bring jolly ranchers because we knew they liked them before hand, but—BRITISH KIDS ARE LITERALLY OBSESSED WITH JOLLY RANCHERS NO JOKE because apparently they aren't sold in England and you have to buy them off of Amazon, so EVERY DAY that week, I would be walking through the hall and I was asked at least thirty times (again, every day) if I "have any jolly ranchers" ( pronounced: j-O-ll-Y  r-A-nch-ERs) which typically I didn't because I didn't carry my bag with me—

But seriously, if you ever want to make friends with someone in England: bring jolly ranchers. (and I think the best part of the jolly ranchers was the fact that some of the kids begging us for jolly ranchers had never actually tried one, they'd just heard from older students that they were the best)

So after Assembly we started going to classes, which was really my favorite part. England is a bit different than America in that they actually have Religious Education (RE) classes and those were the classes that we were visiting. Our purpose there was basically to be Christians that they could talk to and get to know and ask questions to.

More or less, every day we went into 3-4 RE classes and introduced ourselves, talking a bit about America what church in the US is like, and our experience with it, and then we divided students into groups and sat down and just talked with them and got to know them.

It may surprise you as it surprised me, but the population of Christians in the UK is actually very small at this point. Approximately 1 out of 10 people there are Christians (very different than the US) making it a post-Christian country (which is the way the US is heading at this point). That fact is one of the biggest reasons I went on this trip because it makes me so sad to know that so many people don't know about God's saving grace like I do.

Continuing from there, my discussions with the students were really really interesting. At first, most of them wanted to talk about politics (which, like, ???????) but eventually we could really get talking about the differences between America and England (and about this food they have called parmo which I tried which was really good), and then finally they would start talking to me about the more spiritual side of things, which is what I was really there to do and it was something I really, really enjoyed, even if some of the questions were hard to answer on the spot.

Some of my best experiences came from when I was hanging out with the Year 7 to Year 8 kids (Grade 6 and Grade 7) who were really open and fun to hang out with. After one class, one of the little girls came up to me (she was literally so sweet) and just asked, "Are you always so happy?" which I mean--

In case you were curious, I gave her a jolly rancher the last day because I managed to come by a handful in my pocket.

I also got to hang out with some Year 12 girls (also called sixth form I think?) and they were really cool to talk to and one of them was a HUGE fangirl and I shared quite a few fandoms with her so that was really cool. *cue Stranger Things theme*

The last day there was quite sad, though, as I had somehow amassed a little following of girls (and a couple boys) throughout the week, and they were asking me to sit with them at lunch and didn't want me to leave because I was "the first American" they'd met that week, so I got a bit teary eyed walking out of the school that day, knowing that I would probably never see those students again--but also hoping I and the rest of the team had somehow made a difference in their life.

Oh! and during recess (or break or whatever it was they were calling it) we taught them to play Little Sally Walker, which (if you know what the game is) was absolutely hilarious.

One night, we were walking between where we were staying and McDonalds when some students on the other side of the street just yelled "Are you some of the Americans?" and upon receiving confirmation yelled again, "do you have any jolly ranchers!?"

But continuing, we weren't only in the school all week (though I honestly would not have minded). Two notable places we went were Whitby Abbey and York (the minster there and the city.

W H I T BY

Whitby was absolutely amazing. And I don't mean that in a casual "oh how nice" way—I mean it was gorgeous.

First we drove by the North Sea, and being a history geek, I found that rather enjoyable, and we then continued on to the actual city of Whitby.

We had to walk a ways between where we parked and where we were going to be in Whitby, which gave us a chance to see more of the nicer areas of England, with all the lovely little shops and such.

Oh! And I tried fish and chips, also great.

10/10 would recommend, but watch out for bones.

When we got to Whitby Abbey, I just—WOW. I can't even describe it so I'll just show a couple pictures I took. (photography skills)

A beautiful sunset....

The Abbey...

And more sunset...

In LOVE.

And the last day we were there was spent in

Y O R K

where the first thing that we did was walk the Roman Wall. Not sure what it's official name was, but that's what we called it.

It was really cool to walk even if it was raining and absolutely freezing, as we actually got to see where the Roman Road met the wall (again, love that history).

The main "attraction" in York, for us at least, was the York Minster, which: WOW. Again, pictures are the only way for me to show even a glimpse of how beautiful it is.

#aesthetic

While we were inside having s prayer time (as church groups are allowed entry for that which was very nice of the staff there) an organist was there playing the most beautiful yet haunting song I have ever heard and I loved it.

Also in York was York Castle also known as Clifford's Tower (highly recommend looking up its history) which I do believe was my favorite place we visited. One of the coolest things about it was the fact that we were able to climb up on the walls and actually look over a large part of York and see how beautiful it was.

I have a lot more pictures but many of them feature me actually in them, so to spare us all from that and to try to conserve my picture number limit that I'm rapidly nearing, I'll opt to leave those out.

As a side note, I sang Castle on the Hill basically the whole time I was in York Castle and a while after that.

AND finally, the nerdiest part of the trip was our visit to the Shambles, which was actually the inspiration for Diagon Alley from Harry Potter.

I fangirled so hard and had to work to keep it on the inside so as not to freak people out and give Americans a bad name (you're welcome).

Again, a picture for your enjoyment (I really worked on my photography skills while I was there, and the present cover photo for this book was actually shot by me and depicts Diagon Alley).

At this point, Diagon Alley is basically a bunch of shops, some of them totally random and some of them kind of making sense, such as:

And I think that pretty much sumps up the trip!

Was our train delayed an hour and a half? Yes. Did we not get to our hotel Friday night until 2am? Also yes. Upon arrival, did we find out that they had only reserved 3 of the 6 rooms we had asked for? Again, YES.

But the whole experience was more than I had ever dreamed and I absolutely loved every minute of it and am so blessed to have been able to go there and hopefully make a difference in those students' lives for years to come.

If I could do it again, I would in a heartbeat. I "like like" England, which the students used the word "fancy" for and I wouldn't have spent my spring break any other way.