4.15.10
What a lazy day. I woke up right before tech started and then did some work after class for studio. After lounging and watching scrubs with the guys for a bit I took a shower as a distraction- I should have gone swimming in Richmond when DuPuy and Emma went in to do some errands!! Emma’s parents flew in today- I’m excited to meet them! They are going to tag along with us tomorrow, and make us dinner (so I automatically love them).
I did some more work until I gave up and read some more Sherlock Holmes- the library here has the complete illustrated novels (I finished Maus a while ago). For dinner I made- I kid you not- pork faggots. I saw them in the grocery store and had to find out for myself what it is all about. The answer: not too much. They look like giant meatballs but are made of pork liver…so basically they’re not too excellent. But I can say I tried it! Now I have to figure out how to have this as leftovers…I could only pawn one off to the guys. Maybe stir-fry? After dinner I watched Burn Notice (I’m really missing all my American shows) and am doing work in my room. All in all, a not-so productive day.

4.16.10
Emma’s parents came to Kiplin in the morning so they could go around with us today. We went to Helmsly first- very cool little town. We went to the castle there and then drove over to the Rievlaux terraces. They were pretty cool- literally a flattened terrace in the landscape, about a half-mile long, overlooking an abbey with a folly at either end of the terrace. We drove back to Helmsly and picnic-ed with our lunches and ice cream (!) then headed toward Castle Howard.
The house and gardens were spectacular. Definitely one of my favorite places to date- plus there were peacocks everywhere, go figure. We wandered around the gardens then went into the house, it was cool to recognize the scenes we saw in Brideshead Revisited. The folly was excellent- I wish we could have gone into it. It was a great day, and pretty leisurely- we were actually able to ‘stroll’ as opposed to ‘march’. Back at home we relaxed and had dinner in front of the TV and watched Che- pretty cool documentary, but I wasn’t really in the mood for it. Went to bed- couldn’t read Sherlock, too tired!

4.17.10
Another day on the road- first stop: Scarborough. It’s a town on the coast, and the castle there is built up n a cliff. Very cool. We climbed down to the beach (think Jersey Shore- no lie) and walked along the beach until we worked up enough courage to climb back up the giant hill to get to the car. We sort-of lost Chris somehow, and waited around at the car for a while until he found us. We drove over to some cliffs- basically a bird haven. So.many.seagulls!! The views were spectacular though. We drove over to Flamborough to see the lighthouse and climb down the side of the cliff there to go onto the beach. We discovered an inlet with some coves, but the tide was coming in and we had to climb some precarious rocks in order to make it out. Long drive home and dinner! Work day tomorrow- unfortunate.