2005 Note: Sheryl and I were so tired when we got back home to Nashville on June 3rd that I didn't write an entry in the travelogue. However, when I initially typed in this journal about 18 months later, I wrote this postlogue. I'll probably post one more time tomorrow on this trip and then get back to my regular Friday schedule.
Well, I intended to write a post-trip reaction about six months after we got back, but life managed to intervene as it always does and I’m only getting to it now. Things have changed for Sheryl and me. I’m no longer teaching, but working as a tech writer, and we now have a beautiful, six-month-old little girl, Kinsey Morgan. But this isn’t about her; it’s about extended reactions to our trip.
Well, I can honestly say that the part we cherish most is the part in Scotland. I think some of that has to do with our fascination with the land. Sheryl and I have joked that if our families didn’t live so close to us, we’d like to live there. What we’ve now decided is that when we get rich, we’ll have a home here in Nashville and one in Edinburgh.
We talk about driving a lot, mainly because it’s so different from here in America. The other joke we make is that if an American marriage can survive driving in Great Britain, it can survive anything. Probably vice versa on the nationalities.
This trip really was a life changer for Sheryl and me. Not in dramatic ways, but in the sense that it gave us a chance to view how others. That was also affected by the September 11 attacks. In watching some of the international coverage, when I saw the Guard at Buckingham played our National Anthem and saw that same song sung in St. Paul’s Cathedral, I felt an even stronger connection with that land.
That’s another one of the aftereffects of this trip. I love seeing places on TV that I’ve been. Seeing Buckingham, St. Paul’s, Parliament, Westminster, Edinburgh Castle, and all of the other places we saw, it just is a cool feeling to look over at Sheryl and say, "We were there." To look on a map and be able to say, "We were there. Our feet walked those streets" is an extraordinary feeling. 2005 Note: As happened in the Amazing Race on May 3rd, when the remaining four contestants took the Heathrow Express to Paddington and Sheryl and I saw the restaurant we ate at before seeing Les Miz.
We definitely want to go back and see some things we didn’t get to see, like Iona, York, and Glastonbury. We also want to spend more time in Scotland, because it was so beautiful there. Sheryl and I have talked about maybe doing a motorcycle tour, not that either of us knows how to ride. Or course with Kinsey now, we really want her to see all of the things that we saw. She will, too, one of these days.
2005 Thoughts
Post Trip Thoughts
Day Thirteen
Day Twelve
Day Eleven
Day Ten
Day Nine
Day Eight
Day Seven
Day Five
Day Four
Day Three
Day Two
Day One of the trip
Intro
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2 comments:
That's so cool, Phil. I know exactly how you feel about seeing places you know. (Melody can tell you how I drive her crazy with it!) Like in "Sliding Doors", where Gwyneth and her boyfriend live on the same street I did!
I was actually in London on and after 9/11, and got to go to the ceremonies at both Buckingham and St. Paul's. For all of the negativity expressed toward America in the press in the days after, the outpouring of concern and love by the people in London was overwhelming. Immediately after the attacks, one of our group was stopped in the street, asked if he knew what was going on, and encouraged to find the rest of us and contact his family. At the St. Paul's ceremony, my roommate Taleen and I were crammed into the streets with 15,000 other mourners. People of all nationalities approached us, gave us hugs, told us they were praying for us, wished us well, asked if our families were okay...
I already had a soft spot for the UK because it's just such a cool place, but after 9/11, it really feels like a second home.
Good thing those feelings are still there about us.
Oh, wait....
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