Monthly Archives: April 2016
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by L…
The year is 1915. Mary Russell, a brilliant and feisty young woman, takes a walk on the Sussex Downs and bumps into Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective. The Holmes of 1915 is older, semi-retired, and amazed at Mary Russell’s powers of deduction. The two strike up a friendship, Holmes mentors his new pupil, and they […]
London Wrap-Up
It’s now been almost a month since we left for the UK, which is really difficult to believe! After Mom and I had a few weeks to process, we’ve decided on some things that worked and some things that didn’t. I hope this wrap-up post helps you in your future travels to the UK! 1. […]
One Summer by Bill Bryson
A lot happened in the summer of 1927: Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight across the Atlantic, Babe Ruth was closing in on his home run record, and President Coolidge took a three month vacation in South Dakota, to name a few things. Bill Bryson’s book One Summer is an in-depth look at just about everything that […]
Why Shakespeare?
If you click over to Google today, you’ll see that their logo commemorates William Shakespeare, who was born (according to our best guess) on April 23, 1564, and died on April 23, 1616. Today marks the 400th anniversary of his death, and if you’re like me, that’s cause for celebration. But why? To modern readers, […]
Day Seven: Last Day in London
Our last day in London got off to a slow start, but it was a wonderful day nonetheless! After six days of walking and walking, we were both pretty tired, so we planned a few last sights to see–including a Thames river cruise where we could (thankfully) sit down! Our first stop did involve some […]
Day Six: Mysterious London
After we returned, very tired, from our day trips to Stratford and Oxford, we had scheduled two final days in London to soak up everything the city had to offer. Thursday morning was gray and so, so cold. We hopped on the Tube to get to our first sight of the day: the Tower of […]
Day Five: City of Dreaming Spires
We woke up on Wednesday morning and caught a train from Stratford to Oxford. Oxford is a very special place for me, since I spent three months there studying during my time at Auburn. I was excited to see the place again after five years. We started off by leaving our bags at the tourist […]
Day Four: The Bard’s Hometown
On Tuesday we left the familiarity of London and ventured out to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare. Our first train left from Marylebone for Leamington Spa, where we had to quickly cross the platform and catch our connection to Stratford. The English countryside is lovely, and we loved looking out at the green hills and […]
Day Three: Westminster Wonders
Sorry it’s been a few days since my last post, friends! We spent the last two days in Stratford and Oxford, so I’ve been off the grid, so to speak–and exhausted–we’ve been walking a lot! We spent Monday in the London region of Westminster. This is the area of London that is home to […]
Day Two: Windsor Castle
Day two of our trip was an excursion to Windsor. This pretty little town is dominated by Windsor Castle, which has been a royal residence for over 1,000 years. We traveled to Windsor via Slough, and the whole trip only took about 30 minutes. The coolest thing about the train trip was the glimpse of […]
Book Fifty 