After our lovely time in York we continued on to the land of our ancestors. Our first night was spent in an Airbnb in a little town called Stowmarket, England. Loreta was our host and she was absolutely wonderful. We emailed back and forth a few times before our trip and she graciously asked if she could pick us up from the train station. Not only did she do that, she made us dessert that night, recommended a great restaurant for dinner and then made a full spread for breakfast that next morning. We stayed up all night talking politics, about family and all sorts of things.
We had a mix up the next morning with our rental car. Since we were in England, Ian knew that he had to drive on the other side of the road and the other side of the car. With that in mind, I booked an automatic to make sure that he didn't have to worry about shifting with his left hand all while trying to drive on the wrong side of the road. The rental car company made a mistake and the only car they had left was a manual. So we decided to wait 6 hours until the next automatic would be coming back. In the meantime, we decided to take the train to a lovely town called Bury St Edmunds, England. I am so glad that the car wasn't ready because this was such a magnificent little town.
We got back to the car rental place and the car had been returned. We packed up and got ready to head on our way. The hard thing about being in England was that we didn't have any phone service which meant we didn't have a GPS. We didn't know how to get around once we got the car. For some reason I didn't think about this beforehand. The guy at the car rental place handed me a huge map of England and showed me how to use the map. We made it a solid 15 feet before we had to flip around because I had already told Ian to go the wrong way. This continued on for about twenty more minutes. I would tell him the wrong direction and he would have to flip around. It hit me really quickly that we might not make it to our next airbnb because there was a high chance that I couldn't get us there. I said a quick little prayer and when I opened my eyes I realized that on the bottom of the radio there was a button that said nav. I clicked on it, the screen came to life and we had a fully functioning GPS system in the car. We put in our destination and we were there in 20 minutes. It was a blessing we didn't get the car we had initially booked because it wouldn't have had a GPS system. God knows exactly what we need even when we don't see it right away.
The next place on our list was Bedingfield, England. We spent some time wandering around and looking at the local church. Bedingfield is so small but it was so neat to stand where our ancestors once stood.
After Bedingfield, we headed to the coast. I really wanted to see the ocean and we heard that Aldeburgh was so pretty. It did not disappoint. We walked the beach, ate some ice cream and enjoyed the beautiful views.
That night we stayed in a beautiful Airbnb in Bardwell, England. This couple had converted their barn into a bed and breakfast. It was magical.
It was so great to explore a part of England that we never knew existed, yet both of our families came from!! More to come!!
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