Lymm

Okay. Now this is a little late but I wanted to tell you about  my little trip to the small village of Lymm. =D
We went there some time ago to celebrate our friend Katy's birthday early. For all the germans reading this: Yes, here in England it is perfectly normal to celebrate a birthday in advance. Here it does not bring bad luck or anything ;-D

Anyway... on to the story =D

Our trip started at the Preston train station. (Where else? XD) I have to say... I like the train station. There is so much life in there it is just nice to see. There are also real english phone booths in front of it! What a real english one is you ask? well this one:

Arriving at the train station early ( I can be on time too ;-P) I looked around in there but because I was too lazy I didn't take any pictures. My bad =) 

After I found my friends we got our ticktes and went to our platform and waited for our train. It is quite funny XD whenever I think platform I associate platform 9 3/4 XD I really have to go there one time =D

While waiting we goofed around a bit and the I saw the sign for our train XD It actually said London on it! 

I was just a little bit tempted to skip Lymm and just stay on the train to see how far I would be able to go XD

After arriving in Warrington Katy's mother picked us up to give us a lift to Lymm. That was so nice of her =D

I really like Lymm. It is a beautiful old village that has just this touch of mystery =D Perfect combination for me =D

There are actual floating home boats on the river through the village. I was imediately reminded of "The Golden Compass" or "Northern Lights" as the book is called here in the UK. I just love those boats =D

Isn't it beautiful? =D

Hanging out that evening with my friends was awesome =D We ate at the best Italien restaurant ever (Seriously... only the ones in Italy itself are better XD), joked around a lot und finished the great evening with a short SingStar contest and the movie Love acutally... I had not watched the movie beforehand I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. It's not just a mushy love story but actually a sweet movie about love (not just romantic but family-wise too!)

To summ the evening up I have some pictures from the restaurant XD

The last picture is actually drawn by me XD Aren't I the perfect artist? XD LOL

After retirering and talking waaay too long with Hanna (seriously... we're talking 3 am here) we were woken up by Katy way too early XD (in my opinion). But she gave us toast and tea as a peace offering .. well food... so I had to forgive her XD

On sunday we just walked around the village and the beautiful village and the dam of near the village. We were really lucky with the weather XD Here are some impressions from there:

 This is the Lymm Cross. It has a pretty interesting story as nobody knows where it comes from or what it's purpose is. I actually took nearly 50 pictures from every angle and I want to try to find out some more information about this thing. It even has cryptic messages on three sides.
They are: Think of the last. We are a shadow. Save time.
Each above one sundial respectively. On the fourth side is a plaque talking about the restoration in 1897. I don't know if there was a sundial or anything else on that side before the new plaque was added. Another thing I have to find out XD
All in all quite a mystery and I intend to solve at least some part of it XD That's what I love England for: Mysteries at every corner (and sometimes a good ghost story too XD).

England. Flowers anywhere XD Even on the top of a window where nobody can reach XD

The swans in the last two pictures were a beautiful family that followed us whenever we were at the river :3 They were sooooo cute! =D

In the end we went back to Katy's and from there to the train station. But not before seeing something that just made the whole weekend a whole lot more awesome: PIRATES!!! XD

I just love these people for doing that XD

Oh! Another great thing that happend once we got back to Preston. I got something for free XD

Hanna, Ashley and I went to the city and visited the Lush store there. I actually just wanted to go home but ended up tagging along to this store XD The others were given advise about the different products there while I just walked around the store looking at things (I love Lush stores. Always so much to explore! )

In the end Ashley and Hanna asked for some testers and I just stood behind them creepyly XD I just wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone XD

But the saleswoman was soo nice *__* She actually gave us a full package of this one product Aqua Marina which they couldn't sell anymore but which was still good till end of november. And I just love it XD It makes my skin feels sooo smooth =D Though I had to convince myself in the begining to use it as it looks and smells a little bit like seaweed (well, they use seaweed, duh XD) 

That was the end of the awesome weekend and in the end I just fell into my bed and was happy to have been together with my friends for the whole weekend! =D

Love

Thym

English Sweets

This time I just wanted to show you some of the english sweets I encountered up to now. Not all are purely english but some of them XD
Let's begin with the biggest mystery I encountered here: Custard. Everyone talks abaout it, everyone knows it but somehow nobody could describe it to me... Our dear friend Katy actually bought some just to show us what it looks like:

As you can see it looks like vanilla sauce... but it isn't XD It's what we germans (and the americans too XD) call pudding! Hence our new group joke: the english put pudding on their pudding XD
It tastes really good, has the consistency of just normal vanilla pudding and is, as you can guess, put onto puddings (deserts).

Another english thing I always wanted to try is mince pie. Katy was so nice to let all of us try a mince pie each when we were at her house in Lymm (report will follow shortly XD).
It looks like this:

It tasted really good! Lots of cinnamon (which I love *_*) fruits and other things mixed together and put into a pie =D Perfect idea! It is traditionally eaten around christmas time if I understood right but we tried it in october anyway XD It actually tastes like christmas XD Perfect thing and on my have to buy list for when I return to Germany.

While writing this I get the feeling that Katy is treating us to way to many sweets here XD But alas the next one is also something she introduced to us =D Yorkshire Mix. It looks like this:

Looks great and tastes even better! Especially if you're a sweet tooth like me XD I think it's pure sugar with some ingredients added to it. I love it and will probably take some home with me too XD I liked the brown ones with the white stripes the most! :3

The next one is also a small treat and something I was assured was completly english: Mints. I was a little bit sceptical at first for I had some bad experiences with mints... some really taste like... nasty.
Here is the one I tried:

And I have to say: it's great! I can only recommend it. Particulary after a meal. It really refreshes your mouth afterwards. I wish I had more than one but I guess that's what makes it more special for me. XD

Last but not least something that is not purely english. In fact I think it's a worldwide know treat: cupcakes! But not any cupcakes... The best ones I ever had! See:

Perfect! They are: banoffee (banana and toffee), plain chocolate, lemon, mars bar, daim bar, and just pink XD
I didn't eat the pink one so I cannot say anything about that but the other ones were great! I like the banoffee and the mars one the most XD They actually have a filling in there center *__* They are all sold here on campus every tuesday and sometimes fridays! Maybe I'll get one tomorrow ;-D Looking at them again makes me want to eat one XD

That's all about sweets for now XD I have a sugar from just thinking about all this sugar (Hot chocolate fudge cake not even shown x.x) So I'll end this here XD
A report about my trip the beautiful village of Lymm will follow soon.

Love
Thym

The Lake District - Part 2

Picking up where I left in the last entry, let's end the story about our adventure at the lake district =D
As I already told you we ate some of our lunch in the bus to the cottage. While on the bus I envisioned a haunting, old and small cottage like from a movie... I really liked that thought and got excited to see it in the end.
After about 3 stops which took 15 minutes, I think, we arrived at Grasemere. A small village right next to a beautiful lake and in between the mountains.
Most of the streets there looked like this:

I loved those streets *__* And with my favourite stone houses! As we walked eup to the cottage I got more and more excited. 

I've got to say: I was disapointed. Dove Cottage as it is called is not one of the really old ones (at least not from the outside, we didn't go in) und it's been made a museum. I don't like it when old houses and sights are made a museum... most of the time they lose their charme with the business going on in there.

But alas , it is still a nice house:

But the trip there was worth it for Ashley seemed really happy about being at this place where the famous poet William Wordsworth wrote some of his poets. To be honest I don't remember ever hearing about him but Ashley assured me that  he is really famous XD I might look up some of his poets. I actually like the short one on the plate on the second picture. 

While the others looked closer at the cottage I saw something on the other side of the street:

I think it's scary. O.o

After hanging around the cottage for a little we decided to got back to drink a hot chocolate before taking the bus back. Here is the hot chocolate:

 It looked really good but sadly it wasn't as delicious as it looked. =( But it was still nice to sit in the cafe and enjoy talking to my friends. =)

What followed was nearly an hour of talking, talking and more talking XD I loved it =D 

Yet, everything as to come to an end so we went back on the street and on to the bus stop. We saw that the bus would come in 20 minutes so we decided to walk just a little bit down the street towards a lake ( of course not that far away, still traumatized from our last bus stop encounter XD)

Here are some pictures of the 20 minutes =D :

After taking the pictures and  goofying around for a bit we went back to the bus station jsut to be on the safe side ;-D

The bus to take us back came right in time and we went upstairs again as this bus actuall only had half of a roof O.o Oh and we saw an awesome sign XD:

During the bus ride we ate some more of our lunch and enjoyed the view. =D Thanks to our awesome timing and lots of luck we got to the ferry in the very last minute to board. Actually they already readied the boat to take off but when we came running down the landing stage they were so kind to wait for us! Thank you boat people! =D

On the ride back I took some pictures too:

The foggy weather was acutally quiet good to give the area this mysterious feeling XD

When we arrived back in Windermerewe decided to explore this city (town?) a little bit more. And it was so worth it XD This town is so full of confectionary *__* it's everywhere XD

It was great! I got a huge lollipop *__* and Ashley should do commercials for sweets XD

In the end we ate way to much that day and most of it were sweets XD But I regret nothing XD

On the way back to the coach we kept going into shops and jsut goofying around and I took some flower pictures. That's what I love England for. Bad weather but beautiful nature!

In the end we were all exhausted but happy and back in our coach on the way back to Preston. 

This picture sums most of it up pretty well XD :

Together with the earlier pictures of Ashely it actually sums up the day XD Rain, walking, stone walls and food XD

That's it from my side about the lake district.

Feel free to leave me a comment if you have any question.

Love

Thym