Birmingham, Sizergh, and the end!

So we left Nottingham and took a two hour train to Birmingham. Andrew Michael, a friend of Jordan's and a former CCF intern at Southern, is involved with a ministry there called Canvas. It is one of the few student ministries at the University of Birmingham. We took a short train to the suburbs where Andrew Michael lives. We set down our bags and met his roommates, Jen and Nathan, we then settled in for some cooking out and some World Cup action. We watched the match and then went to the local pub to have a beer. It was really nice to chill for a few hours anyway. We planned our next few days, slept for about 6 hours and then got up, said goodbye to Andrew Michael, and headed for the train station. We had to take a three part connection trains to our next destination which was near Kendal, UK in the lake district in the north west of England. From the Kendal station we had to take a series of buses to get to Sizergh castle. Sizergh castle is the ancestral home of the Strickland family. It was finally the castle experience we were looking for. The castle was amazing, the grounds are gardens were awesome, and it turns out most of the Stricklands that were of that noble house in England were named Thomas Strickland. Which happens to be my father and my first name! Who knew! The castle was great but after some thought over a pint at the Strickland Arms (yes my family has its own pub) we decided that we were more than ready to go home and were beyond worn out. We called Delta after getting back to Kendal and realized we could either fly home two weeks from now for a lot of money plus however much we would have spent just being over there, or we could fly out today (Tuesday) and save thousands. So we took a bullet train to London, spent the night in Heathrow airport with zero sleep. Took a 850am flight to Amsterdam and are now about to board a flight to Atlanta. We unfortunately had to skip Ireland but we are both glad to be going back to the U.S. and can see how God blessed us with an opportunity to go home.

We thank everyone so much for keeping up with us on our trip and for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers over the last month. Be sure to check out our pictures on our facebook pages as we are still in the uploading stage.

We love you all!