Tynemouth, England.
Description to come in the near future!
Newcastle, England. August 2 - 8, 2012.
Hello again! Sorry for the delay - same excuse as always, busy with school and friends. I’m glad to be keeping up with this though! It’s worth it :). The good thing is that there is still a lot left! :D. Anyways, here is the post about Newcastle! This time it’s a bit different than what I normally write because I took “notes” as I went through my days so that I could save some time on the blog writing. Therefore, it may not flow so well, but you’ll get to read about the most important parts and thoughts of the days. I’ll try to fix some of them up so they don’t sound weird and choppy. Enjoy!
But first, some background:
In Lisboa, Portugal, I was fortunate enough to make friends with a lot of great people - more specifically, two Croatian, Andrea and Andja (which you’ve already “met”), a Belgian, Tomas, and an English man named James. All of them were extremely kind and wonderful people. Like you’ve already read, I was able to visit Andrea and Andja in Zagreb once my internship was over with, but I had room for one more trip somewhere within Europe! At the end of my stay in Portugal, James was generous enough to offer me a bed at his apartment in Newcastle, and so I happily obliged! After Zagreb, I flew to London and took a train to Newcastle, where I was going to stay for about 5 days. Anyways, here are my notes on the trip:
Blog:
Day 1 (Friday the 3rd)
James has an incredible apartment! I can’t believe he can afford it… Haha. It’s walking distance from the center of the city but far enough so as to be peaceful and quiet at night. I really like the size of Newcastle, it’s not too big nor too small and there seems to be a lot of growing going on in it, which means that a lot of things are new, but cheap!
For not being this famously historic city, there are a surprising amount of old, historic churches, structures and neighborhoods, which is nice. The best part so far is when I find old neighborhoods or blocks - they’re super typical and really unique. The area by the river, called the Quayside (Dean Street, butcher’s area?), is very historic and the architecture is really traditional and pretty. Very nice to walk along. There is also an old city wall with very traditional buildings which I really liked.
I can’t understand when some people talk.
That night James and I went out drinking with one of his friends named Chris. This was actually a really cool experience because I got to see really old, “classy” pubs as well as dance clubs and I had a lot of fun. They drink sooo much! We drank two pints before we left, and drank about 4 more throughout the night (and Chris and James even more) - I couldn’t keep up! By the third beer I was already struggling to keep up and wanted to take it easy, but they wouldn’t allow it, haha. I had a lot of fun though.
Day 2 (Saturday the 4th):
James drove us to Kielder Water and Forest Park (I believe), which is about an hour away and in the Northumberland area, so that we could go mountain biking! I was really excited to go, I have never been truly mountain biking in a trail. However, when we get there it is raining unbelievably hard, so we weren’t able to ride :(. We ended up driving around more, but that actually wasn’t so bad because the countryside is really pretty (rolling hills) and green. We also passed by tiny, tiny villages which was a really unique experience for me. It’s funny because even two block villages have a seemingly ancient church…
Day 3 (Sunday the 5th):
Watched Olympics, went to the beach in Tynemouth - so pretty! Then went out with a friend, was more relaxed this time but also got to see a lot of really cool bars.
Day 4 (Monday the 6th):
Museum Tour! Learned a ton about the history of the area (North England) which was actually extremely interesting! I was really surprised as to how rich the history was and how interesting it is. It has a great mix of history from Roman, Viking, tribal, royal and other eras and periods! I am really impressed as to how many (great) museums there are here, it’s a great thing to have in a city! I ran out of time at the museums!
Day 5 (Tuesday the 7th):
Last day. Went to Durham! Durham is nice, and had an amazing cathedral! Surprising for the size of the town. Went to a few museums and learned a lot about the history of Durham, which was interesting. Pretty traditional streets, it was worth going to.
