UPDATE: Finding my English Roots

September 4th - "What a Day this Has Been!" in Derbyshire, England

I just had to write a note of what happened yesterday as I'm still on Cloud 9.  This post will be in detail on Day 169, probably in 2 months.  :)

We are staying in Derby, about 20 miles from Ashbourne, the nearest "big" city to the Roston area where my English ancestors came from.  We hopped on a bus to Ashbourne with some bikes that our couch surfers and let us borrow.  That was an ordeal, so then we biked 5 miles to the little teeny tiny place of Norbury where there are only 200 residents now.  The big pub has closed down, but the Norbury Church  has not.
  http://www.norburychurch.co.uk

To make a long story short (I'll go into detail and have LOTS of pictures later)
-   I found the house which has many surprises.  so exciting!
-   I found the church and had a FULL tour from an 82 year old man who handles everything there
-   I found three (maybe more) generations of ancestors' grave stones
-   I met a couple (aged 89 and 98) who remembered my parent's AND my 2nd cousins visits from 25 - 40 years ago.
-   I heard stories about some ancestors from back in the 1800's

GREAT DAY and so many wonderful memories.  Beautiful sunny day for riding bikes.  Can't wait to make this post, but for now, I'm still in Switzerland posting pictures and stories and there are several there as well which are quite interesting.  I'll have another one up probably in about 15 hours.

ENJOY a beautiful September dear friends and family and maybe non-acquaintances as well.  I love you all and am learning so much about the world around us, but more than that - I'm discovering the fabulous people of Europe and all their different religions and customs.  I'm realizing so many valuable lessons are in their stories and their insights and I am a better person for them.

You will be reading about Switzerland, Germany, a bit of France, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and England in the next month.  We have only 5 weeks to finish our trip which will take us to Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, and finally Portugal, which we'll fly out of on October 8th back to the good old USA.  We have been traveling since mid March, so we've had such a magnificent journey.  thanks for staying with us and traveling right along.  Love you All!   -Shari (and Rich)