Week 3 -- Walking and Wandering

Hello friends.

So, this week, at request from my dear, dear ginger friend, Caitlin (who doesn't have Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. "THE HORROR!"), I shall be posting pictures of my travels hither and yon (nice antiquated phrase, huh?). This week, I have had the pleasure of exploring two cities. Now, neither of these cities is London, sorry y'all. London will come later this autumn.

Monday: I hit up Nottingham. Now many of us know Nottingham from this...

Am I right? Classic Disney.

Back to my and exploring. I discovered Nottingham Castle, and there is a statue of Robin Hood there (how convenient), so I took my wee bit of photography skills and put them to use.

This is the normal touristy shot of ole Robin. He is well prepared for wherever the Sheriff might appear.

On the right we see where Robin expects the Sheriff to be coming from. The opening there in the wall is underneath the main gate into the castle.





Below, it appears that Robin thinks YOU are the Sheriff of Nottingham. Watch out!




Okay, enough cheesy commentary and tourist photos of a statue.

Nottingham Castle despite the name, really isn't a castle. I know, disappointing. It used to be a castle,  then it was destroyed, a Duke was given the castle, he removed the rubble, and built a nice... mansion. Several years later the Duke did not support a bill that the townspeople liked, so they burned his mansion. Can you imagine if people in America did that to the White House now!? (wait, isn't that the premise of White House Down?) Anyway, so the inside is just a museum, with a very modern interior. :( 

This is a panorama from an outlook of the castle. I still haven't entirely got the whole iPhone panorama thing down yet. Things are a little smooshed.

This is the main entrance into the castle itself. It reminds me of French palaces, like Versailles and the Louvre, except on a MUCH smaller scale.

Side note: the garden was very quiet and pleasant.

Nottingham had several churches throughout the city centre. The largest and by far the most photogenic is St. Mary's Church. It is Church of England (as are almost all in England). Here is a lovely picture I took as I was walking alongside of it. I couldn't get inside the church because I was there on a Monday, and Monday is the only day it is closed.

I really, really like this picture.

I also saw the canal, the Victoria Clock Tower (sadly, not all that impressive), and a couple other churches in Nottingham.

Canal

St. Barnabas' Church, Roman Catholic.

Tuesday through Friday were working on the estate. This week I've basically settled into the routine fully. Which is good, but it also means I must be on my guard to laziness, oversleeping, Satan's attacks and inattentive to what God is doing and showing me. We had a company of people at Bible study on Tuesday, and loads of moms at the Tots and Toys.

Working on my British pop teen angst look.
British thug right here.
Get on my level, One Direction.

Saturday, Grace M. had a conference in Derby (pronounced "Darby") and offered to drop me off near the city centre (and shopping mall) for the day. So I joined her for another touring adventure. This time I had the fortitude to look up what there is to see in Derby. I found their museum was free(!!) as well as the cathedral. First stop was the museum. It was quite small and so before walking in I was a little disappointed, and unsure as to what I would see. It turned out to be very nice. They house a fairly large collection of Joseph Wright artwork. He was a renown 18th century portrait artist who hailed from Derbyshire (that's, 'Darby-sure' for you Americans) which is the county in which Derby is. The museum gave lots of history information about Derby, specifically its military history. Derby was the southernmost point "Bonnie Prince Charlie" made it in his quest to unseat the Hanoverian dynasty from the English throne, and return his father (James, a Stuart) to it. 

Handsome man right there.
"Bonnie" means good looking in Scottish tradition.

Derby has a colored military history, loyally serving the crown from Canada to South Africa, to India, to Hong Kong, the Crimean War, and of course both world wars. It is very interesting to see these wars from the British perspective.

Small historical fact:
Battle of Yorktown, VA 1781. The British surrender to the Americans and the French.
Odd.

Derby was also known for its porcelain, and their collection is quite nice. Some of it quite beautiful. The porcelain was all behind glass, and so I couldn't get a good photo.

After the museum, I went over to Cathedral. I was happy that this one was open, and the caretaker was extra friendly, I think she was glad to see a under 40 person interested in the cathedral. It was very nice cathedral, very formal, but that is to be expected from the Church of England. I wanted to climb up the tower, so I asked the woman about it, and she explained that normally they do them, but today they weren't because they had the Derby Mountain Rescue Team repelling down from the top as a publicity thing for the rescue team. I'm not sure if its sacrilegious to repel off a cathedral, but it was odd to me. It was also odd because there are no mountains in all of Derbyshire. In fact the highest point is 2,088 feet above sea level, this point is a flat mound, its not even a peak. The lowest point is 100 feet above sea level. So I guess the cathedral is about the sharpest incline they have to practice on.

The tower on Derby's Cathedral. 

I spent a good amount of my time in the Westfield Shopping Centre. This place was posh, and huge. The main part of the mall is two floors, with a third floor for a couple restaurants, and a fourth level for the cinema. Some of the stores within the mall had 3 levels themselves. They had basically every posh shop that is found in Britain, and had three different outdoors stores. Naturally, I went into the outdoors stores, as well as looked for the food court. They had a very nice food court, plus about 10 different cafes and coffee shops scattered throughout the mall. There was a market, a grocery store, and about four shops like the dollar tree. They had everything, even 5 barber shops (called hairdressers here, very posh).

Keeping it classy here in Britain.

All in all, it has been a good week of weather once again. This is a rare treat for them, normally it is about 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler, and rainy. It has only rained once this week, with highs in the mid-upper 60s.

I know this week's post isn't really that much on the ministry necessarily, but I hope it gives you a little glimpse of some of the culture in Britain!