All right, so I know it’s been a long time since our last post. But we’ve been busy! I’ve been spending all of my time writing my dissertation and Greg’s been keeping busy with work. But it hasn’t been all work! We’ve had a chance to see a little more of England during our last mouth abroad.
Netley Abbey
Just an hour’s walk away from our apartment in Ocean Village sits the ruins of a late medieval monastery. So, we took a day to walk over the Itchen river and along Southampton waters to check out the ruins. They were beautiful!
Netley Abbey ruins
We wandered around the ruins for a while and then made our back towards the water where we discovered a castle! All this time, there was a castle sitting just across the water from our apartment, and we never knew.
Highclere Castle
On Labor Day, we took a train into Newbury to check out Highclere Castle. You might recognize it from the show Downton Abbey! I have been wanting to see this place ever since I saw the first episode and it did not disappoint!
We took a tour of the inside and got to see many of the rooms we had grown familiar with from the show. Unfortunately, the Dowager Countess wasn’t around. And neither was Carson. We probably just missed ’em.
Highclere Castle
Afterwards, we wandered around the beautiful castle grounds. There are hundreds of acres of gardens on the property! And they are lovely! We saw so many flowers and perfectly manicured shrubs. It was a great place for me to get some inspiration for my story.
Exploring Highclere Castle was a pretty touristy thing to do, but I would highly recommend it!
Titanic Museum
Over the weekend, we finally got over to Southampton’s SeaCity Museum to check out their Titanic Exhibit.
Quote at the Titanic exhibit
The exhibit opens with a wall of faces–all the lives of the crew lost on the Titanic. Four in every five crew member came from Southampton. When the ship sank, this town lost hundreds of citizens.
Walking through the exhibit, I learned a lot about the Titanic that I had never known. Including exactly how many grape scissors (100), asparagus tongs (400) and towels (50,050) were brought on board. By the way, can grape scissors become a thing again? I think they’d come in handy.
This Week
This week, I finished and handed in my dissertation!! It’s a weight off my shoulders to have that complete and handed in. I should get my marks on it in about a month!
Hanging out in his travel crate
Tomorrow, our little Sullivan flies back to the States. He’s flying IcelandAir again and has a 45 minute layover in Iceland. His flight leaves Heathrow at 1:10pm and he should be ready to be picked up in Minneapolis at 7:00pm. Poor little guy has no idea what’s about to happen, and is sleeping happily in the room next door.
His leaving signals the real end of our time here in England. I really cannot believe how fast this year flew by!
A Year Across the Pond 