Canterbury and Herne Bay!

This weekend I decided do a short weekend break and head east to the famous city of Canterbury. I left on the train out of London on Saturday afternoon, and arrived in Canterbury around 6pm. I checked into the hostel (VERY NICE!) and then quickly headed over to the famous Canterbury Cathedral before it closed for the day. It was truly amazing! There is a very rich history behind the cathedral that I won't bore everyone with, but it's really amazing to go into and see first hand. I actually got there just in time to have enough time to quickly walk around before they closed for the day.

After the cathedral closed, I roamed around the town for a bit and stumbled across Westgate Gardens which was really beautiful. They surround Westgate Towers, one of England's finest medieval gatehousees with built in features like "murder holes!" I didn't get to go into any of that part b/c they were closed for the day, but I did get to roam around the gorgeous gardens and take a few pics! Then I went to a pub across the street for a token class of Pimms and to look at all of the travel brochures I had from the hostel. BTW, I'm in LOVE with Pimms still! Mmmmmm! :-)

That evening I headed over to an Italian cafe for some spaghetti (was craving some!) and to finish the book I was reading, since I wasn't going to wander around the town in the dark but it was too early to go to bed. I stayed there for a good long while after eating, finished my book, and then headed back to the hostel for the evening. I was in a room with three other German girls and they were really nice and as it turns out one of them actually went to high school in Kansas of all places!!! HA!



This morning I made sure I was up early (8am...so pretty good for being on holiday!) to get showered (as I wanted to be first in line before the German girls) and packed up for my day trip to the nearby seaside town of Herne Bay. I'm a sucker for water and thought it sounded really cool in one of the travel brochures at the hostel. It's about a 30 minute bus ride from Canterbury, so I left my backpack at the hostel and hopped on the bus. I was getting slightly worried along the way b/c the sky was starting to darken and it looked as though it was going to rain.

When I arrived at Herne Bay, I walked along the shore taking a few pics and did a bit of exploring. However, it wasn't long after I stopped to get a cup of coffee that th wind picked up and the bottom fell out of the sky! It was pouring! My poor little pink umbrella couldn't handle the wind and kept turning itself inside out, so I went into a cafe for a bit to wait it out and read a book. However, it kept on raining so I decided to cut my losses and head back into Canterbury. I got on the next bus...

Oh! We drove through the area around the Univeristy of Kent though, and that was pretty cool to see what university life is like there...

When I arrived back in Canterbury, I did some roaming around the shops in the town square (of sorts) and bought my token postcard that I but from each of the places I visit. Then it was time to walk back to the hostel to get my backpack and then head back to the train station for the train back to London.

I timed it PERFECTLY, only having to wait about 10 minutes for the next train and then slept most of the way back to London (where it was ALSO dark and raining!).

Glad I made the trip though - it was very pretty and scenic! :-)

P.S. - I found out the hard way that if you want people to stare at you and say things like, "Oh you must be American...", wear a baseball cap with your hair in a pony tail, a shirt with "Rock Star" emblazoned across the front, and a Texas A&M sweatshirt tied around your waist - HA! (See pic from above) It took me a few minutes to figure out why I had so many people staring at me when I'd go into places, but when I thought about it, I couldn't remember seeing a single female on the streets of London wearing a baseball cap. Guess it must be an American thing, but I had an emergency with my CHI (if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it) and had to throw my hair up in a cap to prevent myself from looking like a hag. I got some really strange looks though and it was creeping me out for a while!