Phase 2: Wales, Liverpool, and Bradford

Hello, loves! Sorry it's taken me so long to do another post. I don't really have any excuse other than I'm lazy and was overwhelmed by all the pictures I have to go through. But, I'm doing it now, and will try to keep staying on top of it. :) So, unfortunately, we had to leave Ireland, and I was really sad about it. But, that being said, going to Wales was pretty darn exciting. :)

This picture was taken on the Stena Ferry that we took from Dublin to the port in Holyhead (pronounced  holly head), Wales. It was by far the biggest boat I have ever been on. It had seven decks and a restaurant and a movie theater and everything. It was kind of trippy. On smaller ferries I have taken, I've usually been up on deck enjoying the sea breeze and mist. But this boat just felt like a tipsy building. We couldn't see out of the windows because it was night time while we were on it. It was really weird feeling. I don't think many of us were really sea sick, but we got a little loopy and disoriented, especially when we tried to walk. I think we were probably acting kind of drunk. :)

It felt good to get on dry land again, which was good because we had to walk pretty far with our luggage from the port to our hotel.  We only got to spend one night in Wales, but I couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. It was about as green as Ireland, but it had a completely different feel to it. My favorite part of that day was while we were on the bus. We were all watching the scenery from the windows of our coach, and we randomly all started singing Hymns. It was really cool, because I guess Wales is widely known for its music. Brother Waddell said the exact same thing happened last year.

This picture isn't of anything special, it's just very Welsh. I would LOVE to live in that house.

 This is a pic of Conwy (con-way) Castle, which is really the only thing we visited on our day in Wales. I LOVED it! I found that these types of places were my favorite thing to visit. Each castle we went to had its own personality. It was fun to imagine what life would have been like in its glory days.

 After our brief stint in Wales, we crossed over into England! The first place we visited was Liverpool. I was super excited when we got there. I was really happy to finally see the homeland. It really did kind of feel like I was actually returning home. I have so many ancestors who were English, and some that had left from Liverpool to emigrate to America. It was a really cool feeling.

This was the first thing we saw getting off the coach in Liverpool.  It's some weird vehicle that drives on land but can also float on water. Brother Waddell described it as "a strange amphibious duck." It made me miss Taralyn.

I've always had a weird fascination with these zig-zag lines on British streets. I was excited to see some in person, so I had to take a picture of them. :)

The people who owned this ship tried to convince me and my friend Kaity to join their crew. Hmmmm... tempting. 

This shirt reminded me of my brother, Steve. He's started calling me T-Maxx, so I think I'm going to start calling him this. :P

 That night we drove to Bradford, where we stayed for a couple of nights. The next morning we headed over to Skipton, a town in the Bradford area. I saw signs like this all over the place:

The name Craven, which is Grandma Boyer's maiden name, was all over the place in Skipton. Craven Arcade, Craven Museum, Craven Bowling Alley, Craven Swimming Pool, etc., etc. I was really really excited, because I knew we were close to Clayton, where my Great Grandpa Gerald Craven grew up. While we were there we went to Skipton Castle, which was pretty amazing, but more on that in a minute. I asked one of the castle's curators why the name of Craven was all over town, and he told me some really interesting stuff. I guess Skipton and the surrounding area was overrun by Cravens way back in the day. When William the Conqueror conquered this area of England, Yorkshire county had three prominent family names in different areas of the district. The Nordsmen, or those to the North, were the Cravens, so he named the entire area Craven Dale. Those are my ancestors, people! I just thought that was really cool. :)

Back to Skipton Castle, it was pretty amazing. It's the most well-preserved castle in all of England. And it was 100% different from Conwy. My favorite part of the castle was the courtyard in the center, which contained this tree...

...planted in 1692. It was really beautiful. I also enjoyed these trash cans that were all around the grounds:

 And this massively huge archway in the castle wall. That's me hugging a thousand-year-old pillar. :)

 It truly was a beautiful place. I love picturing the stories that took place there, whether they be truth or the stuff I make up in my head. :) Later that day, we went to the town of Haworth, where the Bronte sisters, Emily, Anne, and Charlotte, lived. If you've read anything Bronte, you know that their works are pretty dark and depressing, and in a lot of cases, just creepy. The entire city of Haworth pretty much feels like that. Back when the Bronte family lived there, the water supply was basically poison. Thousands of people died within a few years of each other. The cemetery at the Bronte Parsonage (pictured below) was so full of people who died during this epidemic that before long they had to start cramming people in wherever they'd fit. Some of the headstones are inches away from eachother, and the flat headstones are crammed in so tightly that some of the ledges overlap. It is incredibly sad, but, being my mother's daughter, I could not believe how beautiful it was. I have grown to love the works of the Bronte sisters, so it was cool to see what made their stories. It gave me deeper insight into the minds and their writings.

The home of the Bronte family.

The Bronte Parsonage

In Haworth, we also got a chance to hike up the Moors, which are of huge significance in Wuthering Heights, so I was pretty excited about it. They were exactly as I pictured them, and they were amazing.

 They also had a pretty amazing view. You could see all of Haworth from up there. Besides the crazy wind, it was kinda perfect.

My token phone booth pic for my visit to England. All the booths in London looked like crap, so I settled for this cute one in Haworth. :)

Since dinner took so long in Haworth, we didn't have time to do anything else in the Bradford area. We were leaving the next morning for York and Stratford-Upon-Avon. I was pretty bummed out about it, because Brother Waddell had promised a stop in Clayton, the town were my Craven ancestors lived, just for me. But it didn't work out, because it would have taken too much time. I was really sad. But, evidently Bro. W felt really bad about it. When we got back to our hotel he offered to pay for a cab to take me there with a friend. I can't tell you how amazing it was. I not only got to see a little of Clayton, but I got to go to Holt's Lane and see the house where Sam and Annie Craven raised their family, including my grandpa Gerald.

This is the first view I got of Holt's Lane. I got so excited that I literally leaped out of the taxi. I LOVE that it still looks so old. 

That is the door of the house where Gerald grew up. :)

The British Literary Pilgrimage!!! Phase 1: SLC - Ireland

I hope you all are ready for some picture overload! Because all of these are only a fraction of the pictures I have from the first 4 days. Sorry it's taken me so long to get started on blogging all of my crazy adventures. I have a lot of pictures to get through! 

Anyway, my grand adventure commenced on May the 2nd, 2011. And Oh, was it grand! We had a little bit of a rocky start, though. We all arrived at the airport at 6:30 AM ready to get on a plane, but were disappointed to find out that our flight to Dallas was cancelled, which meant we would miss our connecting flight to Chicago, which meant we would miss that flight to Dublin. We waited on the floor of the SLC airport for 6 hours before we even heard anything! Finally, American Airlines started figuring stuff out, but it meant splitting us all into three groups. Some would be able to get to Ireland on time. Another group would be sent to New York City, where they would spend the night before flying out to Dublin, the last, and largest, group would spend the night in Salt Lake, then fly to Chicago and then to Dublin the next day. Guess what group I was in...

This is what happens when your stuck in a queue line for 6 hours- you start going a little crazy.

Yep. Salt Lake City. I was pretty bummed out about it- I'm not gonna lie. But, it actually turned out to be a really beautiful day, and I had a lot of fun! Plus, I got a chance to get to know these girls a little better:

 That's Brooke, Chelsea, Haley, Emily, me, and Liz (from left to right). They are all pretty amazing girls. We started off our afternoon in SLC at the Gateway mall, which honestly isn't the greatest if you're trying to save all your money for Europe. But it was still pretty fun and we managed to entertain ourselves, as you can see. :)

Like I said before, it really was a beautiful day. It was warm, the sun was shining, and the flowers and trees on Temple Square were in full bloom. It had been a long time since I could visit Temple Square just for the sake of visiting Temple Square, and I must say it was rather refreshing after the stressful morning we had all experienced. Plus, I finally got a chance to go to the roof of the Conference Center, which I have always wanted to do. It was worth the wait. :) I didn't think to get any pics of that though.

The next day we finally got to get out of Utah! This is in the Chicago O'Hare Airport during our 6 hour layover. That airport is massive, and has a lot to do, but by the time our flight left we were all pretty ready to get to IRELAND!!!

 Ireland is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. It was so green! Except in the places covered with rock. The picture above is an example. All the gray stuff on the hill is rock. It looks way cooler in person, but you get the idea.

 This is Corcomroe Abbey, our first stop once we finally made it to Ireland. This is the moment when the trip actually felt real, and when I realized how fantastic it was going to be. It was in ruins, and had graves everywhere, the entire inside is covered with headstones. It was absolutely beautiful

The first picture of me taken in a foreign land. :)

The whole group at Corcomroe. All the slabs of rock in front of us are graves.

After we left the Abbey we headed to the Cliffs of Moher, aka the Cliffs of Insanity!!!! I'm pretty proud of this picture because I think it actually captures how breathtaking and stunning Ireland actually is. Oh man, I LOVED it here! It was rain and a little foggy, but I think it just made the Cliffs even more amazing. They're huge, and they're beautiful. In fact, they're in the running to be on of the new 7 Wonders of the World. You should all go vote for them. :)

Kaity Lewis (she was pretty much my best friend through the whole tour. I love her!) and I in front of the Cliffs. As you can see, we got pretty wet.

Some of my other good buds on the trip: Juan (yes his name really is Juan), Becca, Kaity, me, and Sara (the leprechaun).

Another cool place we saw in Ireland was this really cool rock thing. :) I can't remember what it was called, but it's an ancient burial ground. A lot of people are buried there.

These rocks cover the ground everywhere around the stone structure. Everywhere. They're called grikes.

My token Chaco pic for the trip. Every adventure needs one!

 The next day we got on a ferry and went to the Isle of Inishmore, on of the three Aran Islands of the coast of Ireland. This was easily one of my favorite parts about the whole trip.

Me, Becca, Emily, attractive Irishman, Kaity, and Chelsea on the Ferry.

This pic pretty much sums up how I felt the entire time I was in Ireland.

On Inishmore, we took the most amazing bike ride EVER! We started at one end of the island, biked about 3 miles along the coast, then hiked about a mile up a hill to the cliffs of Dun Aengus. 

A small taste of some of the scenery on my bike ride.

A rocky beach along the way. It was full of sweet tide pools. The rocks were like staggered steps all the way down to the water.

I don't know why I love this picture so much, but I do. It reminds me of the amazingness of Ireland I guess. This was taken at Dun Aengus, and I was kind of overwhelmed with how beautiful everything was.

That's me lying on the edge of a cliff. No biggie. It was so cool! This was at Dun Aenghus, and below us there was a sheer drop. There was nothing below me, and the wind was blowing like crazy. It kind of felt like I was flying. 

On our way back from Dun Aengus to our ferry, we rode through sheets of rain. It was very wet, but between that, the gorgeous sky, and the beautiful ocean to my left, it was kind of like a dream. That day was pretty perfect.

On our last day in Ireland :( we spent our time exploring Dublin. We started at Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells and the most extraordinary library I have ever seen. After that we just shopped around the city. Dublin is pretty great. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it. My favorite part of the city was its parks. The picture below was taken at the most beautiful park I have ever seen. The rock wall behind us is a fountain with a big gorgeous pond. It was pretty great.

That night we left Ireland, and my heart broke a little. It felt a little like home. But, the rest of my trip was pretty incredible too. :) Coming up: Wales!