A Quiet Day in the Country

Originally written January 23

Sometimes a girl needs a break from the big city to go see the country. One of the most common things that Brits have told me is that London is not England. Its like people talking about New York, and assuming you're talking about the City. There are so many other parts to the country, and deserve exploration. With that in mind, earlier this week, I went online, looked up places that weren't too far, and decided to take a little trip.

Saturday night I had a city night. My friends and I had talked about getting together, but everyone ended up being too wiped out, but I had spent about 45 minutes curling my hair (more cuz I was bored then anything else) and decided I would take myself out. I took the Picadilly Line into Leicester Square, and was trying to decide what I wanted to do. When it came down to it, I wanted to spend time with people, so first I looked for theatre tickets, but as it was 7:30, I was a little late. Instead, I bought myself a slice of pizza from a vendor, and went to the sold out show of Slumdog Millionaire. This was a great movie, but it also showed all the poverty in India. I understand its a big cultural influence, and there are aspects that are beautiful about it. But it still made me sad to see children bathing in the same water that cows defecate in, and so much prejudice. If anything, it makes me want to work harder to learn and understand about other cultures. I feel very lucky that I am experiencing that in this time in my life, even if its still a 'Western style' culture.

Sunday morning, I got up early and headed to the train station at Waterloo. I took a 35 minute long train out of London to Woking. From there, a REALLY overpriced cab took me to the RHS Gardens to see the Butterfly Exhibit. Basically, this is the Royal Horticultural Society's garden that is open year round. During January and February, they have one of their tropic greenhouses filled with hundreds of butterflies from a farm in South America. They all fly around you and even land on you. The rest of the gardens are beautiful, and I got a great day with lots of sun. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from the day:










Ok, so Blogspot will only let me load so many pictures, but I have a ton more. Please take a look at them here and here. They are so amazing. The day was just about me walking around in the peace and quiet, surrounded by all this natural beauty. It made me homesick, but was so refreshing. Everyone should do this for themselves. For my first spontaneous, relatively cheap trip, it was perfect.

Love,
Em