Making it to England and the Geography of England

Heathrow Airport

Becky (and Jay in the back)

Auntie Julie and Richard

Andie and James

After months of planning and preparing, we have finally made it to England to visit our family for Christmas. We saw our Aunt Julie, our fifteen year old cousin Becky, Aunt Julie's "special friend" Richard and his twelve year old son James and our Nana. It's been four years since Ben, Andie, my mom and I have been to England and thirteen years for my dad. We were going to leave on the nineteenth of December but the flight was cancelled so we had to move it to the 22nd of December. We would drive to Cincinnati Airport at 8:00AM and wait until 12:30PM for our flight. It would first take us to Paris which sounds like fun but it was awful. Our plane was late so we had 30 minutes to get to our plane and they made us go through security again. We ended up having to sprint down aisles but we made it! When we got to Heathrow Airport we discovered that they had left our luggage at the Paris Airport. We then had to rent a car. Our car rental was messed up, though, because of the cancelled flight. After figuring out the car rental we were on our way to Aunt Julie's house. In England the steering wheels are on the left side and you drive on the left side of the street. My dad drove and it took lot's of getting used to. England isn't on a grid like the U.S. so instead there are round-a-bouts. Round-a-bouts are just ways to turn but have kinds of rules on entering and letting people through. We managed to make it in one piece, though.

Paris Airport

We arrived at Aunt Julie's house at 8:30AM on the 23rd of December. She lives in small town called Dunstable 30 minutes away from London. When we arrived we all didn't want to do anything except sleep. England is five hours ahead of the U.S. so even though it was 8:30AM is felt like 3:30AM. We went straight up to bed and slept until about 5:00PM. At 6:30 our Nanna came over and we ate dinner. Our Nanna lives in Coventry so she stayed in a hotel up the street. After dinner we sat down and watched TV and talked. Tomorrow we probably won't be jet lagged and that's when we'll start out sight seeing.

England is in the far north part of Europe. Because Europe is so far north, the days are very short in the winter. The sun rises around 7:30 AM and sets and 4:00 PM. In the summer, though, the days are very long. The temperature in the winter is very cold, rainy, foggy, and it snows a lot. Occasionally the sun will come out, but normally the sun is hidden behind the clouds. In the summer, it still rains, but not quite as much, and it is sunnier. Overall, England is just rainy. The absolute location of London is 30 degrees north and 10 degrees west. England is a region in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is an Island and is east of Ireland, West of the Netherlands and Belgium, and north of France. Most people walk, take the subway, or drive in small cars. We took the subway to get to London, and after that, we walked everywhere. The cars are much smaller in England, and much more fuel efficient. As I said before, England is one of the regions in the UK. The other regions are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The cultural differences are very obvious. Many of the words are different, for example, french fries, are chips, pants, are trousers, bathroom is the loo or the restroom. On Christmas day, right before you eat dinner, you rip apart crackers. Crackers are tubes of cardboard that are wrapped in foil with a crown, a toy, and a joke inside. You and somebody else pull apart the cracker, and there is something inside the cracker that makes a loud popping noise as it is ripped. The person who has the bigger side, wins and gets what was inside the cracker. On New Years, everybody lights little candles and puts a decorated paper bag over, kind of like the Chinese lights, or a small hot air balloon. You let them go outside, and watch as everybody else in the neighborhood does that same. Also, when Big Ben chimes on New Years, everybody get's in a circle and sings a song.