Northern England Day 1: An Long-Expected Journey

And we’re off! I’m here in the Calgary airport waiting for Riley to get here and then we’ll all board the flight to Heathrow. It’s still hard to believe we’re actually going. This is real!

The last few days have been between hectic and panic-inducing. This isn’t the first long trip I’ve taken after joining the working world, but it’s the first that covered some serious deadlines so I was scrambling to finish everything before skedaddling yesterday. But I think I got everything done, or at least enough to not worry too much while I’m gone. I’m just starting to really relax and get excited. Whew!

Aaaaaand after a quick flight with an utter failure to fall asleep (couldn’t find a single position that wasn’t painful to either my back or my neck), we’ve landed! Wooooo! Just checked in at the hotel and now we’re waiting to go visit the British Museum. We’re in a youth hostel near the British Museum, and it’s a nice little place!

Nice little café and bar

We dropped our bags off in the lockers and ran to the British Museum to catch what we could before it closed at 5:30. We got about an hour in there, but it was worth it! We swung through the Parthenon, marveled at the Assyrian stone sculptures (I reaffirmed my desire to learn how to write in cuneiform), and perused a lot of Greek amphorae. The detail was amazing, and they were surprisingly decorative for just using three or four colors.

Carvings from a temple to Apollo that depict a battle between the Greek Lapiths and a bunch of drunk centaurs

Ashurbanipal killing a lion with a sword through the heart

Oh the amphorae!

We unfortunately had to boogie after that (we saw the mummies and some ancient Europe before we were herded out) but it was still really neat to be in that amazing building again. I could die happy there.

After the Museum, we found dinner in a nice little pub/restaurant that was full at the bar but silent in the dining room upstairs, and enjoyed a pleasant meal with some properly English perry cider. And then we began our hunt for wifi (it’s really spotty at the hostel). I’m finishing this at the nearby Starbucks which is closing in about five minutes. After this, our goal is to stay up until 10pm (I’ll be happy if my eyes are open after 9:30), and then we’ll be rolling up to York in the morning! Can’t wait to see everyone and start the trip going in earnest!