Alnwick Castle! My first castle.

On Saturday the 21st a really cool student body group here at Sunderland, the Student Union, sponsored a trip to Alnwick Castle and Gardens. Also known as Hogwarts for the first two films. It wasn't even a question of whether I was going or not, the answer was yes yes yes and yes!! I was so excited. I woke up in the morning, and was exhausted. I had hung out with some of my flatmates the night before, after a long and exhausting but wonderful day in York. But I woke up, went to the bus with some friends, and the energy from my excitement immediately began eating away at my sleepiness. For one, we were riding a double decker bus, which I have never been on before. So I scampered up to the top level and promptly fell asleep to power up for when we got there. So this time I do not have wonderful pictures of the countryside because I was unconscious. But my camera was charged so I didn't have to use my phone, and the ride was shorter. I eventually woke up to people oohhing and ahhing. The castle had reached eyesight, standing alone on this glorious hill surrounded by a forest. It was the most mystical thing ever. But I was too slow to retrieve my camera in my just-waking-up grog. I could not wait to get off the bus.

So we get our tickets, and I hustle out with my friends and the first thing we run in to is not actually the castle itself, but this beautiful piece of work:

This fountain is puts on a show every few minutes, and is surrounded by beautiful hidden garden gems on each side. It was easily the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. I just wanted to take a seat on one of the benches and relax, breathe, and just admire the beauty of it for the rest of the day. But I had things to see, places to go! Here is a little slideshow of the gardens flanking the gigantic fountain:

---

We were hungry after trekking through all these amazing gardens, unable to stop ourselves from constantly gasping at how beautiful and amazing everything was, and how lucky we were to be here. But we decided that the castle was more important than lunch. And what if there was food in the castle? We could be dining in a castle, looking out on the courtyards. So on we went! Plus we had a tour to attend.

There was so much to explore on this property, it was gigantic. There were Italian ice cream stands, little cottages, and other cool plants to stop and look at. We climbed up the hill, stopped and took pictures with the castle, then found our Hogwarts tour guide.

We also got to go inside the living quarters of the castle, where the Duchess and her family still live a few months out of the year, but no pictures were allowed there. It was very grandoise and over the top, lots of red and gold and paintings of people. And lots of fine china and art. And they had a library that was just as lovely as the one from Beauty and the Beast, and smelled of old books. It was very fancy, but I am glad I don't live there. Too fancy to be comfortable, I would be afraid of breaking things. I'll just be the hobo living outside of the castle, admiring all the outdoor beauty of it (:

After touring the castle, and I bought postcards and homemade strawberry jelly (jam I should say, jelly is jell-o here) and honey and fudge, we decided that it was time to eat. We went back down to the beautiful gardens to eat because the scenery was amazing, and they had more options for food down there. They had lovely tables and lots of paper cranes hanging from the ceilings. I ended up eating roast pork, roasted potatoes, green beans, carrots, chunky applesauce and having some white hot chocolate to drink. The white hot chocolate was not as delicious as I wanted it to be, but it certainly wasn't bad. The applesauce was actually probably my favorite. Very, very good. They also had cute little plants on each table, and lights strung up all over the place. I imagine that this place is also incredibly stunning at night.

---

After replenishing our energy with delicious food, we decided to go back to the castle to explore what the tour guide had not gone over. You can do all sorts of wonderful things at the castle like practice archery, go through a child's haunted maze, climb the wall, and explore the several little museums placed around the grounds educating you about the history of warfare and the castle.

After our second round with exploring the castle, we were all getting a little tired from climbing up and down the hills and waking up early to travel here. So we decided to wander around the town of Alnwick and happened to stumble upon this adorable little bookshop. They welcomed dogs inside, and had little water bowls for them all over the place. There was also a cute little buffet/cafe in the back with separate rooms in which some dogs were allowed into and some they were not. The cafe had different color coded rooms for the buffet or cozy cafe where the waitress would come to you. It was adorable.

Lastly, as we were headed to the bus to take us home we happened upon - can you guess? A tree house cafe! This too was adorable. I could get married here some day, and that would be fine I think (:

All in all, this has been an absolutely surreal experience so far. I feel so blessed every day that I am here. Everybody is so kind, and there's so much history and wonders to see right in my back yard. It feels like even though I've been to these places and learned about them, I couldn't have actually gone there. I'm from a tiny village in Nebraska. How did I get so lucky to study in England and explore Europe? It's so crazy to plan future trips knowing that I'll actually get to see all these places. I am so excited to get to show my mom all these things and everything I've learned when she gets here in January, and I'm so excited to visit my other friends from school that are studying abroad in their own countries. Life. Is. Good. (: