It’s finally here! I’m doing it! The vacation post! This has been in the back of my mind since I got back from the U.K., but I put it off upon arriving back in Cameroon on the grounds that I had Mid Service Training (MST) the next day… actually, that day. (I landed around 2/3 in the morning day one of the training). Then I put it off on the grounds that it would make me sad to think about another year without my family. But here we are, 8 months until Close of Service (COS) and I’m chipping away at the three week family vacation adventure. I’d like to note I’m doing this on a laptop powered with my solar battery as the power has been out for days now. The lack of electricity is yet another excuse I use to put off blogging when this post seems too daunting. Alas, I have to get this done before this weekend, as I am headed into the city for our Beekeeping training! April 5th-7th is the long awaited training for the apiculture groups in my village and Casey’s village. After this is completed we can finally begin setting up the apiaries in our respective villages, there will be a post on that as soon as it happens. For now, here’s a link to my last Bee Update! 

In order to truly enjoy the weekend in Ngaoundéré and all the good food that entails, I have to finish all my little projects.

So, without further ado:

LONDON PART 1:

I arrived late in the evening on December 22nd at Heathrow Airport. A short Heathrow Express trip and a connection to the Underground later, I was somewhere near our Airbnb. The issue was that I had no idea where it was. My cousin Emily was already there and she had sent directions which I could access on the internet at the airport, but once I left Heathrow I only had my Cameroon SIM and it, surprise surprise, didn’t work in London. I was pretty turned around. I was in a legitimate city for the first time in over year and I couldn’t help but wonder if I looked as star struck as I felt. Tired, hungry, and simultaneously sweaty and chilly somehow, I struck out in a random direction. It was the completely opposite direction of the Airbnb, but allowed me to inquire at a local Boots (a store I could have spend 3 hours in, just looking at the shampoo options) about the street where the Airbnb was located. They told me, and I found it. This is something I would have only done in the US pre-PC in a nervous, not travel-related, sweat, so I felt pretty great about my personal development. The woman at reception let me in and asked if I was the girl coming from Africa because she had a key for me. I said I was the girl coming from Africa, and felt even more tired as I realized just 3 days previously I had been in my house in West Africa and had barely slept since then. Emily had gone out to get a SIM, so I had some alone time to just stare at things and take a hot shower and be less gross. Emily eventually came back, and we had dinner at a local pub, which was amazing and was of course never open again during our trip after I talked it up to my dad. After that, I waited for my parents. They arrived around 2:30 am and we had our little reunion. It was so great, I could hardly believe it. Eventually we calmed down enough to go to bed and were up fairly early the next day to get a start on things.

 

We managed to pack a lot into this first day. Here are some highlights.

This church was built on the site of a garden from Saxon times. It was restored in 950 AD, and rebuilt after the great fire in 1697 and finally damaged severely in the blitz. I firmly believe if more churches were actually gardens or just open to the air, more people would attend.

 

My second ever visit to the Tower of London was extra special because I got to watch my mom and dad see the same things I saw not too long ago. See my Scotland and England Post if you want more musings on some of the places that were revisits for me this trip.

Dad and I had a tacit agreement to both order beers that we could share at mealtime to maximize the experience. I broke this a few times. to his dismay, by ordering stouts and sours and other weird (and fun) beers.

One of my favorite parts of London at Christmas was the Christmas Market. They had amazing warm cider and wine, and great food choices. They also had a wonderful honey mead that I picked up to bring back as a gift to Cameroon, only to lug it around for another week to Scotland and give up and drink it by the Lock Ness. I stand by that choice.

A first visit for me was The British Museum. I especially appreciated the little bits of Cameroon like this jug, which my parents spotted for me. With the museum, our first day was done. I also bought new hiking/work boots somehow during this long day, but that didn’t earn a photo in the post.

Our second day started with a trip up to the top of The Shard, yet another first for me.

After the trip to the top of the Shard, we visited the Borough Market, which was overwhelming in comparison to my local village market day. We then headed back to the Airbnb, and Emily and my mom were nice enough to go ahead to St. Paul’s to save our space in the line to the Christmas Eve service while I took a nap.

The Christmas Eve Service was pretty special, especially since I had only ever seen the cathedral during a brief tour when I was there in college. The music was beautiful and sounded right in the large space. We then returned to the Airbnb to eat food, drink wine, and exchange presents.

Christmas Day we went on a red bus tour and stopped a few places to get out and wander about. We ended the day enjoying the London Christmas lights.

On the 26th we walked around a fair bit, and I finally got to visit the location of the first public drinking fountain in London. I was pretty thrilled at the documentation of the birth of a public, and sanitary, drinking supply.

I then dragged my poor father to The Ten Bells pub for a (much needed, for my father) pre-musical drink, only to find that it wasn’t open. I still got to see this last known location of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, and we eventually got to a pub with a decent beer, so we were both happy and enjoyed the performance of Les Miserables. Seeing as how it was the first musical I ever student directed in High School, I was pretty much over the moon to see it done professionally. It was a great way to end our stay in London.

The next morning, we were on a train to Wales.

I’ve always wanted to go to Wales, ever since I learned that Lloyd originally came from the Welsh name Llwyd, and that it meant “grey” or “brown” or “holy”. I’ve never been quite sure which one is more accurate. I am sure, however, that both sides of my family have some ancestors from Wales, and, like lots of American mutts, I’ve always wanted to have a better understanding of the motherland. Sure, I’m Polish and German too, and I’ve been to those countries and felt pretty much at home (especially in my favorite city, Kraków) but there was something special about Wales to me. I mean, I ended up with the freckles in the family, I wanted to see where they came from. I was not disappointed. We stayed in an Airbnb that I tragically forgot to take a photo of. It was called “The Cwtch” (Welsh for a cubbyhole or a hug) and was about as cozy as you can get. A log cabin with a sleeping loft set right on the edge of Brecon Beacons National Park. I’d go back in a heartbeat. We’d picked up a rental car when we’d first arrived the evening before (a nightmare on the narrow Welsh roads, with my father driving on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD) so we drove to several hiking spots on our first full day. The first was called Owl’s Grove. Enjoy these pictures of a mossy fairyland, I suggest a Hozier album as background viewing music.

 

From there we headed to another hiking path, this time with waterfalls.

After all that hiking, we were starving. We ate at the Red Cow Inn, where I had one of my favorite meals of the trip. We ordered appetizers, I had a Christmas Ale, and I fell asleep promptly afterwards in the car. It was what late-night Cameroonian PCV dreams are made of.

Our second full day was just my mom and dad and me, as Emily had gone off to explore Stirling Castle in Scotland. We started our exploration at one of my favorite tourist spots that I’ve ever visited: The remains of Tintern Abbey. The ruins of this 13th century abbey are breathtaking. Seeing this abbey in person is a religious experience, and not just because it used to be used for such purposes. As I said earlier, an open church is just about as good as it gets, in my opinion, for getting close to the spiritual, and this place was ten times the size of the ruins of the church in London. Add to it’s size the surrounding countryside framed by skeletal stone windows, and you have a masterpiece. Here it is, from just about every angle:

 

I figured nothing could ever top that, but we did visit several other interesting sites that day.

The Monnow Bridge in Monmouth was built circa 1270 as a town defense and is the only surviving medieval bridge in Britain with the gate tower still standing. This gate tower was used as a toll-house, guard room, and dwelling house.

Raglan Castle was also a fascinating visit, a medieval castle in use between the 15th and 17th centuries. Unfortunately it was destroyed after the English Civil War to prevent military use.

As if all that wasn’t enough walking about, we ended the day with a very long uphill hike, but I was satisfied with it all at the end because I got to wander around a very old and very mossy cemetery.

The next day we returned the car and were off to Edinburgh, one of my favorite cities, for Hogmanay! Here James met up with us, and the Lloyd family was complete again!

Celebrating Hogmanay (the Scottish New Years celebrations) in Edinburgh is a once in a lifetime chance that I highly recommend. The festivities began the day before New Years Eve with a torch procession. And these are NOT the tiny candles I imagined we would be carrying when I thought of fire safety restrictions and the other laws that would be in place for a similar activity in America. Oh no, in Scotland they trust you with full blown sticks of fire (whether they should trust tourists is another matter, several young women from not-Scotland almost lit me on fire while they were taking a selfie). This procession follows the Royal Mile down to King Arthur’s Seat and ends in a party and fireworks. We watched the fireworks, but did not stay for the party.

On New Year’s Eve we decided to visit the Palace at Holyrood and Holyrood Abbey. This was very exciting for me because the last time I was in Edinburgh the Queen was in residence so I couldn’t do the tour.

On this day we also went to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, which I do not have a photo of because I skipped that and got my eyebrows done, bought new underwear at H&M, and stared at stuff in a Boots for about an hour. I have since seen the ship in the “The Crown”, but I still think I got the better end of the deal on this one.

On the first day of the new year we lost Emily, because she had to return to America. The Lloyd clan spent the day visiting Edinburgh castle (I again refer you to my post about Scotland because I didn’t bother to take pictures this time) and went to the Royal Museum of Scotland. Oh boy. What a place. I didn’t even know it existed until we walked by in search of food, but I could have spent our entire trip there. It is full of amazing and varied exhibits, there really is something for everyone.

The next day we trekked to St. Andrews so my father and brother could go see A Very Old Golf Course™ and my mom and I enjoyed the beach. I have been to the beach pretty much every year of my life, so it was nice to see it again.

 

We then headed to Stirling Castle, which Emily had visited earlier in the trip and had given her seal of approval. It was full of history that I really appreciated, being obsessed with all period dramas involving Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Victoria, both of whom had been to this castle.

I posed by the statue of Robert the Bruce, who unfortunately did not resemble Chris Pine.

That day, I found out that my roommate from my study abroad program in Freiburg, Germany just happened to also be on vacation in Edinburgh. Seeing as how she was currently teaching in Germany, I was living in Africa, and we had also previously found each other on separate vacations in Venice in a random piazza (see Three Countries, One Post) I was completely amazed.

We met up the following day. We hunted for the tombstones that inspired J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series, and we got a haircut together, my first professional one in over a year. Luckily, Anna also needed a haircut because she had been avoiding getting one in German. I could completely sympathize.

The 3rd of January was also my last full day with my parents.We had a nice dinner and my mom and I went out for a fancy cocktail and a chat.

The next morning, James and I sent out parents off on a train bound for London. We initially planned on going back to nap and take a late train to the start of the siblings leg of the trip in Perth, but I found myself antsy and ready to move on. We were on our way an hour later.

I’m going to end Part 1 here, although Part 2 will be significantly shorter because James and I have a more leisurely approach to travel so we did things more slowly and I took less pictures. I am afraid that if I try to squeeze Perth, Loch Ness, the Orkney Isles, and London into this post it might never upload. So, Part 2: Lloyd Sibling’s Adventure will be up tomorrow!