Lake District

NOTICE- MORE PHOTOS ARE AVALIABLE UNDER THE LINK TO THE RIGHT. CLICK ON "AARON'S PHOTOS," THEN "LAKE DISTRICT." THERE SHOULD BE SOME VIDEOS UP ON YOUTUBE UNDER THE LINK "AARON'S VIDEOS" TO THE RIGHT AS WELL.

As the title indicated, this weekend (Saturday-Monday) was spent up in the Lake District, which is sort of in the northwest corner of England, up near the Scottish border. If you are familiar with the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, it's where he was born and spent most of his life. Basically, a series of lakes, seperated by really big hills/mountains. Pretty impressive scenery overall.

I'll just quick recap Friday. I went to orchestra, which actually is starting to sound alright. The 2nd trombone doesn't know what the hell he's doing, but the faux-bass trombonist actually is okay. It was a beautiful night, so I ended up making the 45 minute walk back from campus with my trombone. I spent the night watching part of the World Series, talking to my mom and Benjamin (seperately) on Skype, and hanging out. The rest of the group however, went out to celebrate Brandon's 21st birthday. Needless to say, everyone was pretty gone.

Anyways, everyone got up early, and we shipped off for the lake district. It's about 2.5 hours away by bus, and we arrived in Grasmere around noon. That's where Wordsworth lived during his most brilliant poetic years. So we checked out the cottage he lived in with his wife and sister, as well as the attached museum. I'm not really a literary person, and certainly not a poetry person, but it was cool. He seems like a poet I could get into. It's all this Romantic stuff about man and nature, and finding the sublime essence of humanity in wildness. So, if you're in to that, check it out. We also saw his grave, and had real gingerbread. Not gingerbread cookies, but real gingerbread. Anyways, we ate at a pub for dinner, then went back to our hotel in Ambleside, a few miles away. We wanted to go see a movie, but we missed them. Brandon and I stumbled into a jazz club, so we sat for about an hour and listened to a singer backed by a piano and bass. The bassist was not very good, the pianist mediocre, but the singer had some talent. In any case, it was good to hear some live jazz, especially in such a random small town.

Sunday, we got up again and had breakfast in the hotel (it was a B&B). I had the "American Style" pancakes, which in reality were more like pancake flavored crepes. Really thin. American breakfasts are like, legendary in England for their amazingness. That seems to be our one great culinary triumph. Amazing breakfasts. We then went on a hike that pretty much consumed the whole day. Not a whole lot to say. The scenery was amazing, we hiked up a mountain. Then we went around it, and came back to town. On the top we had lunch, and then we stopped in a small town to get a drink at a pub. I had a Coke, and the combination of correct carbonated water/syrup ratio and my own exhaustedness made it one of the greatest Coca Cola experiences I've ever had. I documented it on my camera. We finally got back, and Ryan, Anna, and I ate dinner at an Indian restaurant. Had some pretty good chicken curry. Afterwards, a bunch of us went and saw "The Departed" at the theater in town. The one with Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon. It was bloody, violent, and full of foul language. If you are offended by any of these, don't go see it. If not, it's a great movie. I liked it, but it's not really a feel good film, if you get the idea.

Anyways, Monday I opted for the continental breakfast plus toast. I should mention, that when you order coffee at this B&B, you get your own small coffee press. I was impressed. We walked around and checked out all the highly priced hiking stores. There was this wack exhibit about football photography, and they had a foosball table. Church readers may now that I was at one time the undisputed Christus Victor foosball champion, and was pretty well accomplished at the game. Needless to say, Brandon accepted an invitation to play, and he was promptly crushed 10-0. We played again and I was once again victorious, 8-2. It was satisfying, after a rather dismal winter season. I lost on a couple of occasions to Scott (on a Tornado table too). Lame. Anyways, we went to Hawkshead by bus, which is another somewhat lame touristy town filled with hiking shops. The Lake District is like, England's hiking mecca, partly because of Wordsworth. So yeah, we hung out there. Border collies are big here, and as is probably known, Buddy is half border collie. So I was extremely tempted to buy a ceremic figurine of a border collie lying on the floor, which looked exactly like the border collie half of Buddy. Anyways, we did all that, then got on the bus and came back to Nottingham. It was intense.

In slightly more humorous Luther news, I heard that a good friend of mine proclaimed today "Dress Like Aaron Nyquist Day" in order to justify his obnoxiously colored shirt. When you're so typically seen in a mock turtleneck, I guess you do need some outside justification. Needless to say, I'm marking my calender, and next Oct. 30, I'm going to get as many people as I can to dress like me, whatever that means. I'm still trying to find the best way to get to Vienna in January. These lame cheap budget airlines do not exactly give you the most options for travel, so I'm exploring some other, larger airlines. I'll have a better appreciation for travel agents after all of this.