Here I finally have a chance to explore Sheffield, Andy’s home, though he hates it when I say that. So maybe Sheffield isn’t his home currently but it is his first home — the home that made him who he is, and there is something powerful to be said for that.  

Situated next to Windermere Lake in the Lake District, here is England’s tiny town of Windermere. Don’t be scared to fall in love — I am smitten and if I could have moved there, I would never have returned to the US.

Locals and the English as a whole talk of Cleethorpes’s past as if embarrassed at what it has become now. As an outsider though, I saw beauty: boutiques, book stores, antique shops, baskets of overflowing flowers, and classic buildings.

What was even more breathtaking than Derwent Valley though was the Peak District’s forest, where wild raspberry bushes grew massive and where clusters of purple heather bloomed.

Sure, overall maybe Castleton is “stereotypical” if stereotypical is also a synonym for beautiful. The village holds not only unique shops and pubs but also little cottages that sleep beside a bubbling stream. And behind that, ruins of an eleventh-century castle sit atop a hill dotted with grass-munching sheep. And, as if to protect the area, cavern walls stretch high above the village. This, in it’s picture-perfect glory, is Castleton.

It was a warm July day in England so what better way to explore than walking around Sheffield and stopping in its quaint and charming pubs…

My second trip to England felt different than our first and it also made me more aware — aware of two dramatically different homes that Andrew and I now share.