First Weekend in England!

A view of the marina, so close to where I'm staying:




My "exciting" weekend plans changed, but it was still a good weekend.

IT RAINED!!!! I was very excited. The ladies in the office rolled their eyes and laughed, and asked me: "why don't you go out and dance in the garden deary" with a chuckle and merry eyes. Honestly, I was tempted.

After work got out on Friday, I decided that it was too rainy to go anywhere.

Saturday, it rained in the morning but in the afternoon the sun did make an appearance! I grabbed my chance and headed down to the sea. I had hot chocolate at this place on the water called "The Terrace," and it was gorgeous.
This is the view from where I sat, sipping warm chocolaty goodness.

The tree was sort of in the way. Sorry.

Ok, here are those famous Mayflower steps! Granted, I don't think those are the original ones... Plymouth has been built on since the colonial era, but still. Cool.

Here's an only slightly better view.



So that was Saturday, and I also looked for a church to attend on Sunday. I found this:

Isn't it so old- fashioned?!

And this:

I love how tall these clock towers are in the churches. They are really, really, really tall. And here's the door just below it:

It's sooo pretty! At least I think so.

But, not as pretty as this:

Yep, life is just rosy over here. :)

I found a little baptist church to go to, so I headed there in the pouring rain Sunday morning.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It was a very small congregation in which I was the only young person present, and the rest were sweet, austere elderly couples. They welcomed me, and I enjoyed the service very much.

After the service, all the little old church ladies with clutch purses, dainty white gloves, hats, and pearls, were all a- twitter to hear I was from the desert!

*In a very British accent, unnaturally high-pitched voice like Meryl Streep did in Julie and Julia: "Ooooh my, you simply must join us for tea! Oh, and look at those pretty brown eyes, sorry we have no young gentleman here deary, but do, just do come have tea with us!"

Well, like I could turn that down?! They gave me tea with milk in a little English tea cup, with a saucer, and there were little cookies and things. It was just "lovely," in every sense of the word.

They were scandalized that we had snakes and scorpions, and little Ethyl said, while clapping her hand over her mouth, "ooh dear, I don't think I shall be visiting Arizona any time soon" and they all gave each other those "church lady" looks, you know the ones I'm talking about?

So, I had to explain that we were really a popular tourist place for elderly people in the winter, and had these things called retirement villages that kept all the young people out, and they were very interested in those. "Ooh, you mean you have to be older to live there? Well that sounds a bit smart!" and they chuckled.

Veronica, the friendliest of them all, asked me if we still had cowboys. Ha! I guess many still think of Arizona as being cowboy country. I said well not like in the movies we didn't, but that we did have cattle farmers still. They wanted to hear all about those. Their husbands wanted to hear too, about them; and wondered where we got our water from and how the economy was. It made me think of my great uncle dave, he would have liked talking to them I think.

And so much more. Oh, it was a good time! I haven't enjoyed myself that much in a long time, and I will be back this Sunday I think.

Even though my original plans didn't pan out, I can check this off my bucket list: I had proper tea with little old English church ladies, and after church even!!!! How fun is that?!

I will treasure that forever.

After I got back to my flat, my supervisor picked me up to have dinner with her family.

They took me to this fancy restaurant on the water called "The Waterfront," and I had this yummy pasta dish. It was very, very good. But the view was even better! Right outside our window was the ocean, and I saw tugboats and the ferry to France going by. Such fun!

Next weekend I'm supposed to go exploring, and see a bit of Exeter. We'll see!