My second full day with the Robins family has just come to a close. I sit here in my room for the week, thinking back on yet another day well spent.
I can't get over how amazing this family is! Anna reminds me so much of Britt sometimes, and Heidi more of myself, with a bit of Tiin. We're all getting along so well, and I really feel like we click! I don't feel shy around them, like I often am with strangers, and I find myself laughing up a storm with them SO OFTEN.
So again, I'm sitting here at 1am, and I'm completely 'knackered' from another day of walking and laughing and everything...so no promises of anything witty or funny coming out of me today, but we'll see where my typing hands take us.
We got up at a more decent hour today (closer to 9am) and the 3 of us girls had a morning tea in Heidi's room. We went over pictures from yesterday (some of Heidi's were so funny!) and then we eventually migrated downstairs for breakfast. Jenny met us there and helped us plan our day out. We decided to drive up to Clovelly, in north Devon, and take a look around the town, known for its cobblestone walk and just for being an adorable coastal town.
We wound our way through the back roads, never going straight for more than about 50meters at a time...and the one time we did go straight for a while, the girls pointed it out, and told me that it was a Roman road, (ie built by the Romans) and apparently the Romans did not know how to make corners...hmmm. Oh, I must mention here, I think I have have got Sean's name wrong. I think the girls might have named him Seamus or something else different. I can't seem to remember now, but I'll try to remember to ask them tomorrow again. Well Sean or Seamus or whatever his name is, kind of tricked us into missing the "All Visitors to Clovelly" path, and we ended up going down SUCH a steep, winding road on a hill, that I wondered if we'd ever be able to get back up. Without a word of a lie, it was probably a 40 degree angle. I felt like we were going to fall out the back of the car. Anyway, at the bottom of the hill, we discovered that the road had been leading us to a car park for the anglers, as it went down to sea level. We also had the terrible misfortune of meeting a van on the way back UP the hill, and that was frightening to the point that I was literally clutching my seat (as if that was going to save me if the brakes gave out).
Okay, so this is a view of what the majority of roads are around Devon...hedges on both sides, and only sometimes wide enough for 2 cars to pass. I believe this photo was when we were reversing to get to a spot in the road where we could let the other car go by...
So yea, we scoffed at Sean/Seamus/Whoever, and made it up to the visitor's parking lot. Luckily, by this point, the sun was out! It had been warming the left side of our faces for pretty much the entire drive -- weather that their home in Chumleigh apparently wasn't so lucky to have, as I found out after talking to Bev in the evening. [Oh, and SPEAKING of bad weather, here's a long, hopefully not boring aside -- we saw on the news last night that pretty much the entirety of Scotland is snowy again, and some places expected up to 50 cm of snow in ONE NIGHT. aack! The northern regions in particular were in rough shape -- which means that Aberdeen was snowed in (buses canceled, etc). Dang! I thought it was SPRING, Mother Nature. What's going on?] Anyway. Back to my story: We get out of the car, walk to the visitor's centre, and see right off the bat that we have to PAY to see this village. Rough! We quickly noticed that prices for under-16's was much cheaper than the adult price, and as we tried to decide whether or not to risk it, we dawdled inside. Thanks to some sly (ie confident) talking by Heidi, the youngest of the 3 of us at age 19, she asked for three under-16 tickets, and we got them, without even being questioned. A part of me was like "WOO, pay less, save more!" and another part of me was like "WWJD?" and a third part of me was like "wait a second...do I really look 16?!". Kind of sad, really, especially after being so excited last week about my 21st birthday. The funniest part of it all was that as we were all paying, Anna went to clarify what the price was, but instead of asking "How much?" she asked "How old?"!! Freudian slip, much? I was trying so hard not to laugh behind her, and luckily, my laugh-suppressing practices have paid off and I was able to act casual.
Anyway, so us three 16-year-olds wandered into the town, which was entirely downhill towards the water, again quite steep (but not as steep as the hill before!). The whole ground was made of cobblestones, but not the nice-ish kind that purr when you drive over them. These ones looked like some kids had gone rock collecting and then decided to make a road out of the misshapen, pointy, uneven rocks they had. It was so hard to walk on and because the rocks were so tiny, and I was just wearing semi-thin-soled shoes.
We stopped right near the harbour and got a pastie for lunch, which was amaaaazing (they were advertised as 'hot and fresh', and by golly, they really WERE hot and fresh!) For those of you who don't know, a pastie is a (British?) meal that is basically a pastry filled with things like meat, potatoes, spices, and/or vegetables. Ours had beef, parsley, potatoes and onion. It was sooo delicious! We munched on it as we continued through the town, stopping at adorable little tourist attractions like a fisherman's home, where there were displays of fishing tools, etc, and the gift shop, where we encountered a very frightening mannequin with a movement sensor that starts a rather loud audio recording which may or may not have made Heidi and I jump. After buying a few postcards to remember our journey, we made our way down to the harbour, where the waves were rolling in and the wind was completely messing up our hair. But it was a good mess, you know? The fresh sea air, the blue sky, the smiles of friends surrounding you...*sigh*
Wow, that got cheesy, fast.
It's really hard to see how steep it was here...but hopefully you can at least see the cobblestones!
We stopped right near the harbour and got a pastie for lunch, which was amaaaazing (they were advertised as 'hot and fresh', and by golly, they really WERE hot and fresh!) For those of you who don't know, a pastie is a (British?) meal that is basically a pastry filled with things like meat, potatoes, spices, and/or vegetables. Ours had beef, parsley, potatoes and onion. It was sooo delicious! We munched on it as we continued through the town, stopping at adorable little tourist attractions like a fisherman's home, where there were displays of fishing tools, etc, and the gift shop, where we encountered a very frightening mannequin with a movement sensor that starts a rather loud audio recording which may or may not have made Heidi and I jump. After buying a few postcards to remember our journey, we made our way down to the harbour, where the waves were rolling in and the wind was completely messing up our hair. But it was a good mess, you know? The fresh sea air, the blue sky, the smiles of friends surrounding you...*sigh*
Wow, that got cheesy, fast.
Some brightly coloured houses in Clovelly
Anna and Heidi enjoying their lunchtime pasties
Down by the harbour
A shot of the beach along the coastline
After Clovelly, we made our way back to the Robins' house to pick up Jenny, who was going to a meeting in Exeter. The plan was to pick her up, drive her in to Exeter, and then do something while we were there. We made it there alright, and as soon as we got out of the car to walk into the house, it started sleeting!!! Luckily, it was only for 5 minutes or so, but it still made us fweezing! After Jenny got out of the car, we turned on Seamus (haha) and found parking downtown Exeter. I forgot to take pictures there, but it was a cool little city! There was decent shopping, some really cool ruins from 200 B.C. that were destroyed in the war, and a little man zooming around on a street cleaner that looked like a zambonie.
We went for supper at a Japanese restaurant called Wagamama's. I think I like that word. A lot.
And eating the food was just as great as saying the word. Wagamama. Wagamama. Waga....mama.
I got a dish called 'chilli men'; mostly because of the name, but also because I asked Anna what a courgette was and what she described seemed to be a zucchini, but I wasn't sure, and was too curious not to try and find out. It was, indeed, a zucchini. Courgette is french, isn't it? Strange. Same goes for eggplant. They call it aubergine. Although, I like saying aubergine, so I'm not going to complain about that one. Our waitress was pretty horrible, but the food was great, so we left a tip anyway.
We finished supper around 7pm, and then decided we'd watch a movie. We had printed out locations and times of movies earlier in the day, (and yes, when I say "we", I mean Jenny had so kindly done it for us and written it all out on a piece of paper, AND printed out synopses for us. We thought about seeing Shutter Island, but as it's a psychological thriller, I probably wouldn't be able to sleep tonight so I suggested against it. We wanted to see Kick Ass, which started at 7, so we walked over to the theatre anyway, not really caring if we missed commercials. UNforutnately, by the time we got there, there weren't 3 seats left together (they actually give you seat numbers at movie theatres here...weird!). The next showing of Kick Ass wasn't until 9:30, and we didn't want to hang around for that long, so we settled on seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D at 8pm. It was actually quite good! Different from the other versions I've seen, and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was great.
On the way home, I just about dozed off to sleep, because I was sooo knackered from walking around Exeter, walking in Clovelly, and getting up so early. I was awake for when we may or may not have hit a mouse on the road, though. We had no chance to stop, in our defence, it just darted out in front of us, did a little panic dance, and then I don't know what happened. I hope the little guy survived. Poor Guss.
I think one of my favourite parts of every day so far here is spending the evenings with the family. We came home to find Bev and Jenny trying to fix their home laminating machine, which was melting and warping the papers we were trying to laminate earlier this morning. They were so funny, trying to figure out how it was broken and how to fix it. I was going to say they were just like a cute married couple, but clearly, that wouldn't work as a metaphor since it's exactly what they are. Then Anna made us tea and Heidi pulled out some McVities biscuits to eat. We each had one, and when Jenny ate hers, she was making a fuss about how soft they were and suggesting that they had gone bad. Heidi kept saying things like "no, no! I like them." "What do you mean? They taste fine!" and "I think they're great!". Then Jenny said something like "check the best before date, I bet you it's something like 2007."
Heidi shook her head, rolled her eyes, and then went to read the date. Then she kind of just went quiet and said "....oh". And set the rest of us off on a laughing fit. The best part was when Anna managed to see the date and tell us -- it was even worse than we expected -- these biscuits were best before....drumroll please........2005!!
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! See what I mean? With the 16-year-old trickery to the courgette to the 5 year old biscuits... I never go an hour without a good laugh when I'm with them.
Anywhooo, must go! Je suis tired!!
Until Next Time,
Beckers
xxx
P.S. One funny thing I had to take a picture of was the name of a town nearby -- it's called "Westward Ho!" and it always has an exclamation point beside it's name. How exciting! :)
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