Keep calm and GO TO ENGLAND!

I'm sure you'll all be flipping excited to hear that I FINALLY MADE IT TO THE MOTHERLAND! Merry old England AT LAST! My Rotary Club (of Loudun) has a partnership with the Rotary Club of South Worcester in England - so I went to Worcester (like Worcestershire sauce)! It was only for 4 days but Rotary paid for everything except my souvenirs so hey, free trip... =D

Emmeke's chateau/humble abode

To make things easier to get to the airport (2 hour drive from home) I stayed over at Emmeke's house the night before so we could leave early the next morning (ie. FOUR IN THE MORNING). Only to find out that her "house" is a CHATEAU! It took me 2 hours to explore the whole thing PLUS the huge garden - and it turned out that I missed an entire wing which Emmeke showed me later. INTENSE.

England is v green. Weird.

But then I finally got to the airport and, with nothing but a banana and a kitkat for sustenance, WENT TO ENGLAND! I would love to say LONDON but unfortunately didn't make it. But Worcester is still pretty cool. There were 7 other Rotarians/Rotarians' wives who came too.

Emmeke and I were staying with a really nice (and TYPICALLY ENGLISH! SO GREAT!) couple called Ian and Pat, while the other (French)Rotarians were hosted by other (English) Rotarians and their partners.

After we chilled out a bit at our new home, Emmeke and I popped out for a spot of shopping! Had a look at the town of Worcester and bought some fashionable ENGLISH clothes and ENGLISH souvenirs while listening to people talking in ENGLISH accents (wot you doin' mingaaaa?) surrounded by ENGLISH flags in honour of the ENGLISH (and Australian, let's face it) Queen!

Not even a real phone box! At East Midlands Airport

ENGLISH TAXIS!

Everyone in Worcester was going crazy with patriotism (or is that normal behaviour?) because:

- the Olympic torch had just passed through the town a week or so ago

- the World Cup (soccer/football/whatever you want) was on

- and THE QUEEN was coming to Worcester on 11th July!

So there were decorations EVERYWHERE and flags in windows and general insanity.

English cakes



English sewing machines (that one's for you Mum)

And just general queenly love!

Yeah so after the mad shopping rush as soon as we got there... well, the next day happened? Drove to STRATFORD UPON AVON to go say hi to Shakespeare's much-less-poetic-when-dead body. Not really, it was only his house.

Hittin' the tourist hotspots

Need I say more? EXCITEMENT!!

Stratford was pretty good, even though I'm not a massive Shakespeare fan.(Pretty lucky we did Hamlet in year 10 so I could say that I'd read at least ONE of his books...)

There was a really great street (where ol' Willy's house is) full of cool touristy shops and all sorts of stuff. So after we'd done a tour of the house, everyone split up and went UBER SHOPPING for the rest of the day!

Found myself lots of QUINTESSENTIEL ENGLISH LANDMARKS like postboxes and phoneboxes and even Union-Jack-coloured-cardboard boxes (I don't know if they're normal or that was part of the "THE QUEEN IS COMING" frenzy).

DOUBLE-DECKER BUS!! Unfortunately, didn't get to go on it. :(

I'M IN A PHONEBOX!

Shakespeare's very own walk

English lolly shop...mmmm...

You know how a picture says a thousand words? Well, this picture says a lot of rude words and even terrified screaming. Confused?

Those people pretending to be statues have ALWAYS scared me. I HATE THEM. I think (well, I'm pretty damn sure now) that I have a phobia of them. Our group was standing outside Shakespeare's house, in this big street with heaps of people running around AND a certain "statue" (not running around. He was being a statue).

Because I was the youngest person (by about 40 years), all the old people starting picking on the kiddie with the phobia saying "go and shake the statue's hand! GO ON!" Therefore, SOMEBODY got FORCED into APPROACHING THIS SHADY CHARACTER.
Imagine me, creeping up to this awful person, adrenalin pumping, reluctantly reaching out a hand... AND HE JUMPS! He jumped up and down on his little box AND I NEARLY HAD A STROKE! Then I screamed and everyone in the entire street laughed at me. Thank you, STUPID POMS.

I managed to shake his hand and starting casually walking away REALLY REALLY FAST - thank god that's over, right? WRONG. I'd barely gone two steps when everyone started pointing and calling out to me, as if something was BEHIND me... HE WAS CHASING AFTER ME!! This was worse than any Doctor Who episode - I have never been so SCARED in my LIFE! So I just BOLTED. I just ran for my life, screaming my head off, while all the tourists in the street wet themselves laughing so hard (laughing at my PHOBIA, may I remind you). I ended up hiding behind Brigitte, HYPER-VENTILATING.

That was my most recent brush with death and just for the record, I'm still still having nightmares of that THING hiding behind doorways and under my bed and in cupboards... England has lost some brownie points.

Outside Shakespeare's house

Baby William's cot! (Maybe. No one actually specified anything.)

A PETER RABBIT SHOP! I found my childhood in Stratford.

At the Shakespeare cafe

After Stratford (and after finding Christian and Christine, who got lost trying find to find the carpark and ending up on the other side of the city!), everyone (and by "everyone" I mean all the Loudun Rotarians including me, AND their respective English host couples, 14 people all up) had dinner at one of the host couples' house. They were both chefs (possibly...or maybe just amazing cooks) so the meal was mega fancy, complete with a menu written in French!

It might not look like much, but Pat cooked the MOST delicious pavlova in the history of the
 pavlova hall of fame. Or maybe I was just really desperate to eat one. Either way, WAS AMAZING.

Next morning le gang trotted off to the Mayor's private office - INVITATION ONLY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I even got to swing around this hugely heavy ceremonial sword!

The Mayor even let everyone try on his mayorial chain - you know the big gold ones that mayors wear? Well, it was worth 500,000 pounds. As someone pointed out to me, "that's probably the most expensive piece of jewellery you'll ever wear".
There IS a photo of me wearing it but it's on another Rotarian's camera...I'll get it eventually.

Then we had a tour of the place and it's pretty specky, I have to say. Although that might have been because the QUEEN was coming on the 11th July!! So everything was squeaky clean - even the ceiling, weirdly. Do you REALLY think the Queen is going to notice the dust on the 30-foot-high ceiling? No. Silly poms.

By the way - the ceiling was cleaned WITH COTTON BUDS. The ones that clean ears. Must have taken FOREVER.

Had a look in the prison too, which was cool. It led up to the courtrooms for YE OLDE HANGIN'! Not in use anymore, obviously...



Dummies - don't freak out!



The view of the mayorial gates from the inside (being repainted for the queen)



After saying cheerio to the mayor and mayoress (his wife), everyone went SHOPPING in the high street. Then to Worcester Cathedral, the oldest in, er...Worcester.



Pretty cathedral-y

 







The library there contained some of the oldest books in the world. Ever. There was the first atlas ever made as well as books from the year 1100. And we could touch most of the books too! Apparently gloves don't work anymore.

No idea how old they are...but probably very old.

After the library tour we had a proper look around the cathedral, famous because it has the tomb of King John! (For those unfamiliar with who he is, he was the baddie in Robin Hood who was trying to kill Richard the Lionheart, also known as his big brother - it's a good thing I've watched Robin Hood twelve billion times, you know! I always thought it would come in useful!)



King John



Took some arty photos on the way back to the car:



Arty #1, the Severn River in Worcester

Arty #2

That night was the great ROTARY DINNER with the whole club at a fancy restaurant, which everyone claimed later to have crap food - France always wins the food race, though, doesn't it?

But it was cool to meet the whole club, and I exchanged pennants with the Worcester club, so now my Australian sponser club of Subiaco is in the picture!

The president of South Worcester club gave a speech in French



And Jacques from the Loudun club gave a reply speech in English!

The next day was the last day, which is when I tend to take photos of the house/hotel/hostel/tent I was staying in: so here is your TYPICAL ENGLISH GARDEN! 

The lawn was perfectly smooth, like the Dursleys' in HP

MY BELOVED BACON AND EGGS!

Pat was even amazing enough to grant my wish and cook bacon and eggs for me on the last morning! Undescribeably (hard word to spell, shut up) delicious. I have been PINING for this!

Me, Emmeke, Ian and Pat

All in all, pretty great trip! Sucks that I didn't get to go to London, but it means I'm going baaaaack!!