England - Day 1

To transfer or not to transfer, that is the question!

This is what we would call a blanket statement for our experience today. We left our hotel in Wales this morning after a 30 minute delay on breakfast. The morning was quite nice with sunshine, but that soon turned into rain…massive amounts of rain…as we made our way to Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare was born, raised, and later retired after his fame and success in London. We stopped in downtown Stratford where we were able to tour the house that Shakespeare grew up in. We learned that his father was a glove maker (interesting business!), and that William was quite lucky to even be in history as he was born in the middle of the Plague, he was able to receive an education as the oldest son of a wealthy family, and he got much of his inspiration for his plays from his bringing up. There were many other interesting facts that we learned as we made our way around the house.

We had a little bit of free time to stroll the street that Shakespeare would have walked hundreds of times, and stopped in a couple of shops along the way. Meanwhile, the rain continued to come, as did the wind. In some ways it felt like I was back at golf practice this past spring! From there we went over to Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife. We first ate lunch across the street: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots and peas. It was a spectacular meal given the weather conditions. Did I mention that not only was it raining and windy, but also only about 55 degrees! After lunch we headed back across the street to tour the cottage and the information about the Hathaway family. Many interesting facts, including that at least 14 loaves of bread and several gallons of ale would have been consumed each day in that household between the master of the house, his wife, all their children, and any of their servants! Also, loaves of bread were sliced horizontally rather than vertically because the bottom of the bread would have been dirty from all the ash in the oven. Guess who ate this part?! The children! This is where we get the phrase “a cut above the rest.” Another phrase, “the top crust” comes from the idea that the best piece of bread, the top, would have gone to the master or to any guests.

We left the cottage at about 3 pm and expected to get to our hotel at about 6 pm. At about 4 pm, our bus pulled into a rest area for a bathroom break. As we stopped, our driver soon realized there was an issue with the bus (I’ll spare the details!). Long story short, after a visit from a mechanic (1+ hour later), and a call to a new coach and driver (1+ hour), we switched coaches and left at about 9 pm! I think God had some angels watching over us because we got stuck at a huge rest area with food, bathrooms, and plenty to distract ourselves with! The kids stayed in pretty good spirits as both I and the other group leader had preached at our pre-trip meetings: BE FLEXIBLE!!! Along with that, Chloe, our tour director, talked to EF and they felt so bad for us that they gave each of us £8 for dinner! So all in all it worked out, especially as we really had nothing big planned for this evening.

We are currently on the bus as I write this and most of the kids have fallen asleep. Hopefully no more surprises today and we make it to our hotel by about 11 pm and get a full nights rest for our exciting day in London. By the way, weather forcast for the next two days is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL!!! J Praise God! Other than that, I will post two more student perspectives under the Falcon Corner. Today’s guests: Mikey Overton and Tiffany Patrick. Again, thank you for all your prayers and enjoy the posts. Mr. C

P.S. I know I said I would post some pictures, however the internet cut out on me last night so I was not able to get that accomplished. I will try to do that once again, but no promises!

P.P.S. If our day could not get any more eventful, I am adding this on at 12:30 am and we just got back into our hotel room as our entire building of 8 floors was evacuated because of a fire alarm! Some of our students were ill prepared to go outside (i.e. no shoes, no sweaters, no clothes?! Well at least a towel!), but all is well now and heading to bed! What a day!!!! Kids were masterful at exiting the building in an orderly fashion, you would think they had done this before or something. Most of the adults had to take their que from the students! Go Falcons!