December 20, 2005

• Internet Island Topic #3: Describe Your Dream Vacation

  Internet Island has invited its members to blog about their dream vacation. It’s an interesting and challenging topic.

  My husband and I love to travel. One of our favorite vacations is a nice relaxing cruise. Our dream, however, is different. In the fall of 1995, our son spent a semester at the University of London. My husband and I took our daughter and son-in-law over to spend Christmas with him. We had 10 days in bed and breakfasts in London and Edinburgh, Scotland. Ever since, we have talked about going over for the summer some year, renting a house, and inviting all of our friends and family to come and spend their vacations with us.

  We would look for a place like this somewhere out in the countryside.
  We would need a place that would sleep at least 10 people comfortably, because, of course, we would want our children and grandchildren to come over for a substantial part of the summer.

  We would enjoy spending some relaxing days playing croquet in the yard or walking into a nearby village. I think that the pace of life would be a little slower and that would be very welcome!

  Some evenings, we would have supper at a charming pub like this one, sitting for hours talking to the people of the area and learning about their lives. We would drink a pint or two as we chatted and there would be no hurry to get anywhere. When our friends from the US visited, we would introduce them to all of our new British friends and watch them try to understand the accent. (Many Americans are very bad at understanding foreign accents!)

  We would eat bangers and mash or fish and chips, but probably not steak and kidney pie, while we enjoyed the tall tales of the locals. Perhaps there would be music, maybe even a chorus or two of Henry the Eighth, although we might have to supply that because I don’t think Herman’s Hermits version of that song was really popular in England.

  Some days would be spent touring lovely old castles. My husband and my son are history buffs, so they would want to know all about the people who lived in the castle and the battles that were fought there. My daughter and I would probably dream about ancient knights on white horses and beautiful flowing gowns worn as we danced at a grand ball. We would never think about how drafty the castle would probably be in the winter or about the hardships of life in feudal times.

  Other days would be spent exploring like this. We love to bike and I can’t think of anything lovelier than a leisurely ride through the countryside to reach a wonderful village where we could browse the shops.

  By the way, this isn’t England, but it’s a wonderful picture, don’t you think? And, since European countries are much smaller than the US, we would probably make some trips to France or other nearby areas. Hopefully, they rent bicycles.

  Neither of us can speak any language but English, but we have friends who can speak Spanish and French, so we might have to make some of these trips when they were visiting. I have always been a little afraid of traveling to places where I can’t speak the language, which is one reason that the only European countries that we have visited have been England and Scotland. This lovely gentleman makes me want very much to see France, however.

  Of course, we would make extensive use of this excellent system. Passenger trains in the US are not as well developed as they are in Europe, except possibly on the East Coast where there are many commuter trains. When we visited London, we made our trip to Scotland by train and enjoyed the experience immensely. We had seats that faced each other with a table between them and were able to sit and play cards as we watched the countryside. It was snowing that day and everything was white and beautiful. Since our dream trip would be in the summer, we would probably be seeing wild flowers and possibly some farm animals grazing peacefully.

  Some of those train trips would involve dressing up and heading here. We actually saw this play at this theater when we were in London. As a matter of fact, we saw 3 or 4 plays. London theater is famous for good reason. It is absolutely wonderful! We would have to take advantage of it during our summer and it would be a favorite place to take our guests. When our family came over, we would have to babysit sometimes so our kids and their spouses could go.

  We would need to attend some concerts, too. One place that we were not able to go when we were there before was the Palladium. We saw the outside, but were not able to see a concert there. Actually, I have always wanted to see Peter Noone perform there, which he does when he makes a British tour. That would be my ideal, but I would be happy to see just about anything so that I could say that I had been to that great hall.

  That’s my dream vacation. At least 3 months in a wonderful setting, surrounded by family and friends, but occasionally alone with my husband. When we returned home, we would be leaving new friends whom we would miss. Want to come along?

  • 9:03 am
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