a day at the sea.

Last weekend we took a trip to the sea! Prof. D'Andrea had business in Switzerland so we had a long weekend and Peter and Jill proposed a trip to the sea, while it was still warm enough to enjoy the fact that we live on an ISLAND! We decided to do a day trip to save money and so Brandon could still get his studies done. After a long search of good locations on the railway we decided to rent a car instead because it was cheaper and we could reach the quaint little villages where the train doesn't take you.

We headed up to Norfolk to the villages of Cromer, Sheringham and Weybourne on the North Sea. The drive was beautiful especially with all the changing autumn leaves. It was strange to be driving on the left side but we only had to remind Peter twice that we should be there and not on the right side. :) We arrived in Cromer and squeezed our way through the narrow streets until we found a parking place. We walked through town stopping at an old bookshop and at a bakery to get lunch. We took our sandwiches down to the beach and enjoyed them while admiring the view! It was just how I had thought it would be at the coast, but even a little chillier than I had imagined. After taking a nice long relaxing stroll along the sandy beach we headed back to the car to warm up and drive on to the next town.

As we drove we saw little white houses covering a distant hill and thought they looked like the buildings in Greece. When we got closer we realized that it was an enormous trailer park! I guess they have those here too, and these people have prime real estate. We passed through Sheringham and on to Weybourne where we found a secluded beach area with beautiful clay cliffs. This beach was made up of small smooth rocks like the north shore of Lake Superior. The waves made an amazing sound as they flowed through the rock (watch a video of it here). Many of the rocks on the beach were chalk, so I took some home to use on our chalk boards. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and relaxing.

When it got dark we drove back to Sheringham and had dinner at a pub that had a really cheap meal deal (buy one meal get the second for a pound!) Peter really wanted to build a bonfire on the beach after dinner, but we had no firewood and didn't know where to / didn't want to buy it. We decided that if we could find some firewood just by driving around we would have the fire, otherwise we would just head home. So we drove around through the dark English countryside looking for wooded areas. We finally found an area of trees and Peter pulled over into a dark long windy driveway (as there were no shoulders on the roads there.) He used the tiny flashlight on his cell phone to search through the woods for sticks, ducking or pretending to be looking at a map when other cars would drive by. He accumulated enough wood fairly quickly, and we drove back and he built a fire on the beach! It was such a fun day!