england : last day

This is always the saddest day, for obvious reasons, but it gets harder each time we see each other to have to say goodbye. Relationships in general are hard, and you have to work to maintain them. No relationship will survive if one or both parties are not willing to put in enough effort to keep them going.

Now, take your "normal" relationship and add about 3,628 miles of distance. NOT easy. Anything but easy. I've had people ask me things like "well, why don't you just find someone here?" . . . I never know how to answer that. I assume the people who ask such questions are people who have never experienced real love. You don't just simply find somebody who's in a more convenient location, or whatever. I've found who I'm meant to be with, and we are going to make it work. And we have been making it work for two years now. It's not one of those things you just give up because it's too hard.

I came across this quote on Pinterest awhile back and there's so much truth in it:  

"Distance does to love what wind does to fire -- extinguishes the weak and feeds the strong."

Anyways, we left Carlisle around 5:30am to get to the Manchester Airport for my 10:30 flight.

We had a little time to spare once we were there, so we decided to get one last Full English breakfast.

And take our last picture together...

Twins! Haha... Except mine are fake. His are real... Glasses, I mean.

I always take a picture while the plane is taking off out of Manchester. I'm not sure why though, because when I look back at my pictures from my trips, they only just make me sad. It's my absolute favorite view on my flight in; absolute least favorite view on the flight out. Funny how that works!

I really do love photos taken from planes, though. It's refreshing to see the world from a different point of view sometimes.

So, until next time, England. T'rah!

-teddy x

england : day seven

Monday was that sad, last-day-before-going-home day. You know that day I'm talking about? The day you have to pack up and think about the fact that you'll actually be leaving the next day. The day where you don't talk about it being sad but it's unspoken and everyone knows it's sad. That was Monday.

Tom and I went to John Watt and Son Coffee House for breakfast. I'd been there before and really liked it and wanted to get a full English. I could eat breakfast for every meal.

I wanted to do a little shopping before going home so later in the afternoon we headed into town to do that. I found a couple small gifts for friends and found myself some new running shoes. After that, we both kind of just wanted to hang out and do nothing so we went back to his house to order in pizza and once again watch Breaking Bad. We made it to the beginning of the last season while I was there so now we just have season 5 left to watch!

-teddy x

england : day six

I'm so stressed out right now because I'm trying to write this while watching the USA v. BEL game and it's in extra time and it's basically been Belgium v. Tim Howard the past 90 minutes! Belgium just scored thanks to the USA not being able to defend but I've my fingers crossed for the next 22 minutes.

So anyways, on Sunday we chilled for a bit at the camp spot in Scotland before heading back to Carlisle late morning. I took a little walk around the beach before we took off. It was so incredibly nice and the weather was perfect.

After getting back to Carlisle, Tom and I managed to make our way to a bar called McQueen's for lunch. I got to try my very first Sunday Roast! I approve. I think the Yorkshire Pudding was my favorite part. Also, I don't know what it was about their coffee but it was the best.

After that we went back to his house and watched Breaking Bad for a few hours (we're finally getting close to the end) and then got hungry again. Normally I wouldn't include every single meal in my posts but we ordered fried chicken and the box it came in was amazing.

Also, the "fried" chicken came in something that was more like batter that you'd find on fish in a fish n' chips meal. When I laughed at it, Tom said to me, "Keep in mind their menu used to say 'open 8 days a week'". It gave me a good laugh.

After fried chicken came s'mores! We had the ingredients leftover from camping so we thought we'd put them to good use. We made them in his garden on the grill.

I really wish we had gardens like this in America.

Thought I'd include this lovely matchbox for you guys, because fire only kills children and I thought you needed to know!

By the time we finished with our s'mores (I introduced his parents to them as well), it was nearing 11pm... Which meant USA v. Portugal was going to come on soon! We stayed up late to watch that and witness the dramatic equaliser by Portugal in the last minute of injury time. I was sure we were in for the win but hey, we still ended up making it to the Final 16.

Speaking of, the USA v Belgium match has ended amidst my writing this. The last 30 minutes of extra time were the best of the whole game. Tim Howard was an absolute beast. Without him the US would have been destroyed.

I'll leave you with this amazing Buzzfeed article.

Goodnight!

-teddy x