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Hello again! It seems like we’ve been very busy lately, and looking back at some of the posts (and the newsletter, if you were following us before the blog), we have been! The weather has been getting nicer, and we’ve been taking full advantage of it!

This past Friday, we got up early and drove to Dover! We started right away with a visit to the famous white cliffs (We did not actually go cliff jumping. There are rocks at the bottom…). They were really beautiful, though, and on a clear day you can see France! Unfortunately, it was not a clear day, and all we saw of France was fog. We did get a great view of Dover Castle. It’s one of our favorite places to visit so far. The castle is about a thousand years old… let me say that again, a thousand… years… old. There are parts that are even older than that. It’s fantastic, and incredibly well preserved. Another really cool thing to see while you’re at the castle is the secret World War II tunnels, where they set up very important communications centers. It was here that they oversaw the evacuation of the British troops trapped at Dunkirk and the large disinformation campaign on the eve of D-Day. It was an awesome site, and we highly recommend going!
Dover
After Dover, we went to Canterbury, of Canterbury Tales fame. We went straight for the cathedral. It is such an important site. Thomas a Beckett, the archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred there (you can see the spot where he was killed), and also several kings and important people are buried there. It was a very important religious site, and many people made pilgrimages here, up until King Henry VIII decided ‘We’re not catholic, and all your riches belong to me now. Thank you very much.’ Despite that it is still very beautiful, and the architecture was amazing! We were lucky enough to be there around the time they were practicing with the choir and the organ. It is said that these buildings were built to impress on the people the awesomeness of God, and you can definitely see where people would be awed. It was so beautiful, and the music really did give an ethereal atmosphere to the place.
Canterbury_In

Canterbury_Out
So Colleen’s blitzkrieg of a week through England came to a close. We had just enough time for a full English breakfast and a few games of TopGolf before we dropped her off. Just a recap for those of keeping score at home… This week, we went to:
• Stonehenge
• The western countryside of England
• Several days in London
• Lots of time in and around our neck of the woods
• The southeast coast of England

All of this, and we just had one week! We love having people come visit us, and would be happy to show you around if you’re in our neck of the woods. You can experience this and more if you come see us! I know it’s a shameless ploy to entice people to visit, but we miss you guys!

So we’ve been going full blast lately, and sooner or later it will slow down, but we have no plans to do so! Until then, we’re going to just keep enjoying every moment we can. You can’t see the world from the couch!

Cheers!
Derek and Libby

Also, I’m going to take a minute to plug one of my favorite podcasts, The British History Podcast. It’s made by a very entertaining guy who is just a great storyteller, both informative and funny. He started talking about prehistoric Britain and is slowly making way through history to present day. You not only get a sense of what happened, but what life was like for the people who were living at that time. It’s been great for us, since we’re able to see a lot of the places he’s talking about. We’ve loved it, and know you would too! Enjoy!

Also, special bonus trivia for the day! For those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular internet meme, an explanation of where I got the inspiration for the title can be found here.