Over and Dover

           Sam had a three day weekend for Veterans Day, as he should considering he is a veteran, so we decided to take advantage and go on a little trip. I had already found a dog sitter for Hercules and had booked him in (which is what the British people say instead of reserved or made a reservation) back in September. We had originally planned to go to Scotland, but with my unfortunate fight with food poisoning leaving me in the states longer than planned, I didn’t get a chance to plan a trip to Scotland and by the time I was back in the UK we had waited too long and it was too expensive. So we decided to go somewhere a little closer to home and per Rachel’s suggestion we headed down to Dover. Sam had a long flight on Friday, he flew to Crete, which I had to look up because my geography skills stink, but I learned that it is an Island off of Greece. It is also where a lot of people from the squadron are deployed to, so Sam got to meet some more guys that he hadn’t met yet because they deployed right before we arrived. Sam also had his first experience of flying a civilian, one of the wives going to visit her husband, who is deployed, for the long weekend. Her name is Meg and she is a super sweet person that I have had the privilege of meeting a few times and I saw on Facebook that it was her first ride ever on a KC-135, how fun! She got to sit up in the jump seat while they took off and she got to lie in the boom pod while they refueled six F-15’s from Lakenheath, which sounds totally awesome! I can’t wait for my first ride on a KC-135, unfortunately it won’t be while Sam is flying unless they lift the ban of spouses being on the aircraft that their husband (or wife) is operating, but we may be flying Space A home in May and we would be taking a KC-135 to Kansas, so that will be super neat if it happens!

This is a map of where Sam flew, the little red dot is Crete! Long flight! He particularly enjoyed flying over France and Italy.

Sam refueling an F-15. I stole this picture from Meg's Facebook, if your reading this Meg I hope that is okay, sorry I didn't ask permission! That would be a Boom's Eye View....hahaha I am so funny

And a map showing where Dover is, just below Canterbury, Southeast of London. Some people I talked to had never heard of Dover, England, just Dover, DE.

My crafts that I worked on while Sam was away. The red and white one is going to be a Christmas wreath, I have to add some snowflakes and other pizzazz to complete it

          Sam’s flight was supposed to land a 9:30 on Friday night, since we still only have one car I was there to pick him up at 10:30pm, but unfortunately he didn’t land until 11:15 so we didn’t leave the base until midnight, good thing I had my interest crafts to work on! We had a restful night’s sleep on our air mattress and headed for Dover around 9:00am on Saturday. When we dropped Hercules off his dog sitter, Maxine said American’s always go to Dover, but British people don’t care for it, so I took it she doesn’t visit there much. It was a pretty easy two and a half hour drive, where I slept most of the time, and we arrived in Dover around noon. We had lunch and then headed straight for the castle. It was rainy and cold on Saturday so we were excited to tour the castle and be inside. Upon arriving at the castle we noticed it was a 16 pound entry fee for both of us, which is about $25 a person, but if we joined a English Heritage club (for 80 pounds) then we could get into the castle for free as well as other English Heritage sights all over the UK. Since the castle closed in two hours and we knew wouldn’t finish it all in one day we decided to join the English Heritage, which I think will be worth it since there are so many other places we want to visit that is on their map. We started our castle tour by taking a tour of the underground war tunnels. It was about a forty-five minute tour that described how they rescued soldiers during WWII and brought them down to hide in the tunnels. It was a pretty neat tour. After the tour we headed to the main castle, hiked up a million stairs, explored the rooms (which were set up like they would’ve been in the medieval times), and finally made it to the roof top! It was a gorgeous view; I really don’t think I will ever get use to looking at England’s landscape. After we finished exploring the main castle building Sam discovered a museum, so of course we had to stop. Lucky for me I found one of those awesome penny machines, like they have at SDC, and made a design on a pence. This entertained me for a good five minutes, but then my lovely husband made fun of me for making a “white trash” penny but I told him it was cool since it was on a British coin. After we left the castle we headed to our Bed and Breakfast (my new favorite thing since staying at one in Albuquerque) and got checked in. We found a place that had awesome reviews that we decided to try  for dinner, but we were the only ones in the four star restaurant and I am very leery about food since the English Asian’s tried to kill me, so I stuck with a hamburger, which was not very good. Sam had some sort of English pie, which also looked pretty gross, basically it was English cuisine at its finest, and they have never been known for their food.

Entrance to the castle

At the castle

View from the castle

A British seagull! This is for you Anna and Stephanie...HARRY

One of the many gates to the castle

Heading to the main building

The main castle

Just hanging out

The kitchen in the castle

Pumping water

View from the top of the castle

The city of Dover from the top of the Castle

At the top

Touring the inside of the castle

The ferries

The view from our B&B

View of the white cliffs from the castle

           Since we didn’t get to finish looking at the castle we headed there after church on Sunday. It was a much prettier day, the sun was shining and the high reached 51*F! We took a tour of the second underground tunnel, which were used as a hospital during the wars. This tour was about 25 minutes, but way better than the wartime tunnels. You followed the story of a pilot who had been shot down throughout the entire tour and each room you entered was staged, with smells and everything. The lights also flickered with the sounds of bombs going off so you got the feel of what it was like for the hospital staff during the war. We saw the kitchen, dorm rooms, operating rooms, bathrooms, hallways, and dining facilities. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to take pictures of these tunnels. After the tour was finished Sam and I ate some lunch and then headed out for more exploring. We were determined to find the medieval tunnels and along the way we found where the moat must have been and I freaked out. I was so excited to see a real moat, but sadly there wasn’t any water L. We finally found the medieval tunnels and we hiked around them for about thirty minutes, it was pretty neat to see something that was built throughout the Middle Ages, those things take a long time to build! I was super excited to see the Roman Light House, which was supposed to be the oldest standing building left, I was expecting to be able to go up to the top and see this light house, but much to my dismay it was only half a building and not very exciting. The final place we toured was around the chapel, and again I was disappointed since they didn’t have any candles for me to light and pray with, lame!

The lookout from the castle

The knights quarters...according to Sam...who knows what it really is the building was closed

Castle

The moat!

The King's gate

And again

Dover city

Beautiful England

Loved the castles

Trying out the cannon in the Medieval tunnels

The chapel without candles

The Roman lighthouse

More of Dover city

Beautiful city

In front of the Roman Lighthouse

             After the castle we headed out to the white cliffs of Dover. The white cliffs are part of the coast line facing France; they act as a barrier and protection for Dover. Since it was such a clear day we could actually see France from the cliffs. Once we got to the cliffs we parked and began our hike. It was starting to cool down a bit, but we saw a sign for a lighthouse that had a tea room, it was about a three hour journey there and back. We set out on this adventure, but saw a sign that said the tea room was closed, probably because it was Sunday, my second hope of seeing a lighthouse…dashed! We hiked around the tops of the cliffs, taking in the beautiful view. We decided to hike down the cliffs to the beach, which was full of rocks and smelled like a dumpster. We both touched the English Channel, so that we could say we touched it, and it was very cold! After we had our snack it was time to make the long hike back up the cliffs. We decided to head back once we got to the top, we had seen enough and we were tired, the sun would also be setting within the next half hour or so, yes the sun sets at like 4:00 here. We could see why our dog sitter, and other British people, do not really get too excited about the white cliffs, maybe it’s better in the summer, but we spent about two hours there and that was plenty for us!

White Cliffs

And again

I thought this couple looked cute, they had been biking

Sam and I's kissing shadow

Beautiful view

The cliffs

The English Channel

On the beach

At the beach

Rocky beach

White cliffs

More of the beach

The grass is so green here

More cliffs

Ferries

Sunset

Beautiful Sunset

The castle from our b&b

          On Monday we decided to skip breakfast and sleep in a bit. We checked out of our B&B and went to Dover’s Town Centre; it was much busier than where we had been, with lots of shops. We had a small breakfast at Costa’s (which is like a Starbucks) and walked around the shops. I even found a discount card store and I was super excited because I needed to buy my Thanksgiving cards, but then I realized we are in England, where they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but I enjoyed reading some of the funny British birthday cards anyway. We headed to the town of Canterbury, which is indeed where the Canterbury Tales are written about, and it was on our way back home. We decided to go to the Canterbury Cathedral and as we were walking in Sam received an e-mail saying our household goods had cleared customs! Yay!! I did a happy dance in front of everyone! The Cathedral was beautiful, I can never capture the beauty in a picture, but it had lots of places for lighting candles, so yes of course I was requesting loose change from Sam and spreading my prayers throughout the entire journey, while Sam stopped and read each sign. After the Cathedral we had lunch and walked around the town of Canterbury, which reminded Sam of London but on a much SMALLER scale. They had really neat shops and I enjoyed walking around the town. It began to rain so we decided that was our time to head home.

Canterbury Cathedral

Sam finding out that our household goods cleared customs

My candle stand inside the cathedral! I guess I am the only one who is obsessed with these

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

            We picked Hercules up from the dog sitter and learned that he was a big bully to the other dogs L. She said that he wasn’t shy at all; he came right in and started picking fights with the other dogs. She found he did better with these two big dogs, outside, because they would just run away from him. So basically, Hercules was chasing these dogs all up and down the yard and they kept running from him. And he wouldn’t listen to Maxine, eeek! All my worst fears had come true, but she said he was allowed to come back, but she doesn’t think he will ever calm down or not be a bully. He is staying with her for about a week over Christmas, hopefully it goes well, because if he gets kicked out of the dog sitter’s I don’t know what we will do! Sam say’s it’s too bad for me, he will travel while I stay home with the dog, but since I am the one who plans all the trips and he is too lazy to make plans, well he won’t make it very far, or he will spend lots of money by waiting until the last minute!

How can this sweet face be a bully?

Wow! Three blog posts in one week...I didn't think I could do it! Well that pretty much catches everyone up on the Holbrook's life. We are busy setting up our cottage, now that our household goods have arrived so you can look forward to another blog post next week (hopefully) with pictures of our new place.

Thank you for reading! Have a blessed day!

Amanda