Wednesday, September 30, 2009

39 girls do Northern England- Day 5, Liverpool and Chatsworth

                      
Today we were in Liverpool all morning. The first thing we did was head over to Albert Docks. This is where around nine million immigrants left England in search for a new life. Of this nine million many were newly converted Latter-Day Saints heading to America to begin their journey west. A sculpture stands on the docks in honor of all the Mormon families who did this. It was a really powerful experience to be in the place where many of our ancestors began their lives in the church. We sang a verse of "Come Come Ye Saints" and as was expected I was pretty emotional. I just love the pioneers and I forget that for many of them their journey west really began back here in England.
After that powerful experience we did something a little lighter...we went to the Beatles Museum! My dad was so excited I was going to Liverpool because the Beatles were born here, so I was pretty excited to get to that museum. It was really cool and a lot of fun. I came out of there completely educated on the life of the Beatles. They were pretty interesting guys, but I can't deny that their music is timeless and fabulous. I have a feeling it will be around for many years to come. After we gave the giftshop some excellent business we grabbed a quick lunch, boarded the coach, and were on our way to Chatsworth!

      The Beatles Museum!




Chatsworth was amazing! It is an enormous estate that has been around for centuries and still has a Duke and Duchess currently living in it. It is also where scenes from the latest Pride and Prejudice were filmed. We toured the inside of the house first and then went out on the grounds. The rooms were incredible. They were so old, but so timeless, elegant, and classic. I love old estates. I think they're beautiful. We walked through the "statue room" that Kiera Knightley walks through too, so that was a lot of fun.

The Statue Room
The grounds were incredible as well. They have hundreds of acres of gardens, grass, fountains, and scenery. I think I liked the outside even more than the inside. We walked around for a while and took some fun pictures in front of the house. We all felt like we should have been born in that era, wearing Victorian clothing, and living in estates like Chatsworth. We were sad to say goodbye when it was time to leave. Our journey back to London took about 3 hours. We stopped for some dinner at a rest stop and I surprisingly has some really good tomato soup and a grilled cheese. Delicious. When we walked through the doors of 27 Palace Court around 10:30pm  I have never been so happy to be there. We were home! We were tired, and ready to be back in London, but it really was a great week!



Chatsworth!

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