We’re already at our first week break of the semester! I can’t believe that it’s already been a month since the new group arrived. This week, the majority of the group is headed off to Spain and Italy. Jessica and I, however, decided to stay in England and use up our Britrail passes and travel to a couple of places in England that we really wanted to see.

Yesterday, the two of us trained down to Dover to see Dover Castle and the White Cliffs. Dover Castle sits on top of one of the cliffs, and the town sits below it. We had to walk all the way up that cliff to get to the castle, only to discover when we reached the top that Dover Castle was closed. Needless to say, we were quite disappointed, and had to settle for taking pictures of the outside of the castle. Luckily, the weather was pretty nice, so the climb up wasn’t too bad.

Our next stop was to try to find a good spot to see all of the White Cliffs. There was a winding road that led from the castle down and toward the cliffs. We thought that the it would take too long to follow that winding road, so we hopped a fence and walked through a lovely English pasture down toward the road. It got a little sketchy when our third fence-hopping experience happened over a barbed wire fence, but we had fun frolicking through grassy fields and seeing the scenic side of Dover.

After wandering back to the road, we ran into a very nice couple who kindly suggested that maybe the best place to see the cliffs would be on the waterfront instead of on top of them, which is where we were. So we made our way back into town and walked along the water. We never really got a good look at the cliffs because there were cars and overpasses in the way, and we didn’t have a car. It was a little disappointing, but we did spend some time picking rocks on the beach, and watching the waves coming in and out, which is my favorite thing to do.

Our day ended with a visit to a museum in Dover which houses the oldest seafaring boat that has been found. This boat dates back to the Bronze Age in 1550 BC, and was excavated from Dover in the early 1990s. It had to be the biggest attraction to the museum, because it was pretty much the only thing inside, but it was still pretty cool to see something that old.

Overall, our little misadventure turned out to be pretty fun. I would probably like to go back to Dover and actually see the castle one day, but that was a fun first time. It was also a good reminder that even when things don’t go exactly as planned, they can still turn out to be fun if you go with the flow.