Ketchup: Host Weekend

Welcome back to the series I like to call "ketchup", where I apologize for being the worst blogger ever and leaving you hanging with no updates on trips I take until months after the fact. I promise I worked SO hard to get this one up before I jetted off for Spring Break, I was literally inserting pictures up to the very last minute I had to leave for the airport but I just did not meet my deadline! I hope you will forgive me and will keep paying attention. Mostly because I don't want to do real homework so I am going to be doing lots of this instead.

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WHERE: Lincolnshire, England

WHEN: 19 March 2010 – 21 March 2010

WHAT: weekend with a host family

 

I was able to spend a few days with real English folk, via a host program that NYU-London is a member of. On Friday, I took a train about an hour and a half away to Newark (not New Jersey, not even Old Jersey actually), where I switched onto a tinybaby train (literally it was like a bus on tracks!) and rode for another 30 minutes or so to Lincoln. The Cushnies live about a half-hour’s drive from Lincoln, so I explored Lincoln’s High Street (composed almost entirely of tandoori restaurants and nail salons) before my host poppa got off work and drove us home. Once we arrived and I met host momma, we had tea (=dinner) and then went to a nearby town hall for Game Night, organized by the Cushnie’s church. Our team failed miserably at the faux-quet (it would be wrong to call it croquet, but it was close) and the bocce ball and the Connect Four, but we redeemed ourselves with a survival quiz at the end; it was so fun and just so comfortable! I was in bed by 11pm, getting to quickly meet the Cushnie’s youngest daughter before cuddling up in a real bed, worlds more inviting than these Nido torture boards.

 

Saturday morning started with my first full English breakfast – and I am so glad my first was homemade! No one really eats this much food for breakfast anymore; full Englishes are kind of like hot dogs in terms of the iconic-but-not-realistic stereotype. Which is probably good since I found myself in a food coma following this yummy plate of food.

I managed to get myself away from the kitchen table and my host momma took me for a walk around Caistor, the small town the Cushnies officially call home. We managed to catch the tail end of the regular market in the town square, and my favorite part was how natural it was. This wasn’t a farmer’s market teeming with hipsters who were being so totally earth-conscious by buying local; this is just the way it works in Caistor. This is the way people live. It’s quaint, but not because it tries to be quaint. I loved it.

Caistor Town Hall

The White House, built in 1682; it’s now a bed-and-breakfast sort of establishment. Host Momma and I peeked in the windows to see all the antiques lining the walls of the front room.

The Anglican church in Caistor; it was so pretty! I’ve noticed that people are usually buried right outside churches here in England, it kind of freaked me out at first but I am sort of down with it. Graveyards are weird because we just stick everyone in them and then only visit them a few days out of the year, if even that often; here, you see them every week and they aren’t just tucked away for safe keeping.

Driving out to Barton, where Host Daddy planted a hedge (the lesson was a Christmas gift from Host Momma – so cute right?!). This area was flat like west Texas (but really about a million times more rolling) but SO green! And apparently other parts of England are even greener; holy moly!

England why are you always so bright and sunny

I guess we can’t say the clouds didn’t warn us they were about to cry big fat cold tears all over us in about 10 minutes.

Walking through the wilderness

The infamous hedge! I usually skip over HGTV when it’s gardening shows, but I was impressed.

The Humber Bridge, over the River Humber. You can’t tell it but at this point we were all drowned rats. We popped into a little café right next to this, to dry off and warm up and enjoy one of the best (and sweetest) hot chocolates I’ve ever had.

This building is not this long just for the fun of it; it used to be a rope factory! There was a short exhibit about how rope was made, which we opted to pop into once it, of course, recommenced pouring upon our emergence back into the world.

And then we were just really cold and wet and so we went back home, drank hot ribena (my favorite drink ever now! Blackcurrant juice mixed with water, all warmed up and delicious), read novels in the cozy front room and Host Pops taught me all about rugby, which I firmly believe is a million times better than American football. Continuous play, rough-looking men with bubble butts, and good accents? Count me in. Then we got hungry again later so Host Sister and I made this cake fully from scratch! It was also yummy, and the perfect finish to our roast beef dinner and it went great with the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice – who says I don’t stay on top of my schoolwork even when I vacation! (PS English humidity does awesome things for my hair) (and I have not been impregnated by a charming Brit, my cardigans just fall weird)

 

The next morning I grabbed a hot cross bun and we mozied our way to church, where we sang lots and were privy to a baptism of two adorable little ones. After that we ate even moooore food, and then the Cushnies dropped me off in Lincoln with time to spare, so I was able to check out the GORGEOUS Lincoln cathedral after bidding them goodbye and thanking them profusely for all of their hospitality.

 

Pretty homes right across the road from back of the cathedral. The blue one is so cute and eye-catching!

 

Just a smattering of the 1.3 bajillion shots I took as I walked all the way around

Just a (larger) smattering of the 4.79 quadrillion I took inside

The front of the Cathedral; it’s huge!

View of Lincoln as I walked down Steep Hill, which didn’t earn that name for nothin’, let me tell you. In fact, I had to stop and buy some Belgian chocolates in order to recover from my workout. I eventually made it back to the station and got myself back to London just in time to let some wonderful friends into my communal kitchen so that they could make fried chicken and roasted vegetables. Man, my life is so tough, you know!