The British North Sea

My story for today is a bit late and a bit short, because we came back home late. Richard and Norma did take Kay and me to the coast. We went to Whitby, a very lovely coastal town. No white cliffs, but it was very beautiful. It has a ruin of an abbey, a church, a cemetery, a lot of restaurants and a remarkable number of sweetshops. It was nice to smell the sea, to hear the waves and the seagulls. I really enjoyed the trip!

Richard told us that the story of Dracula, the one written by Bram Stoker, originated in Whitby. A Russian (?) ship was wrecked near the beach. One of the sailors came out of the water; all covered in seaweed and locking like sailors did in that time (late 1800). The people of Whitby did not know what they saw and were afraid. Stoker was inspired and wrote Dracula. How cool is it to have seen the place where the inspiration for a very famous novel was found! (Sorry, I am and I will always be a bookworm (that sounds nicer in Dutch…)).

The trip in the car to Whitby was also very beautiful. We rode through the moors, with a lot of purple heather. It was very lovely to see. And mountains of course, it is always a pleasure to see the views when you are riding in the mountains. I had seen something about the Yorkshire moors on TV, but if you see it with your own eyes it is much better. It is more beautiful than you can imagine.

This was of course after school, so we had dinner in Whitby. We had something very English… sorry, British: fish and chips! Again, I ate fish (to be specific: cod). I really liked it and the chips also. It was a very nice dinner.

After dinner we, Kay and I, went up the cliff to the Abbey and St. Mary’s Church. The entrance to the Abbey was closed, so we only could see it from some distance. Surrounding the church was a cemetery. I think it was very old, because some of the stones looked very old and the writing on them was almost gone. It is a beautiful place for a church and cemetery.

And back to the serious part of the day… School was good today. The morning lesson was okay. I am still not used to the Italians, but that could still happen. The lesson in the afternoon is always pleasant. We do a lot of talking and the subjects are always interesting. Today we had to teach someone else something in your own language. So, I had to teach someone Dutch. It is a difficult language. I learned a bit of Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. Arabic was difficult, but written it is a beautiful language. And Chinese, how interesting! It has no alphabet, but the characters are the words. So for each word they have one ‘symbol’. And I asked why; how did the language developed like that. John, the Chinese student, showed me that the ancient Chinese used symbols. Those symbols were changed into some other – easier – symbols, and those were eventually turned into characters. Very interesting!

Just a few days left, and I am already sad I have to leave. I fell in love with York, with Yorkshire. And there is so much to do and to see here in Yorkshire. I definitely will come back some day.