The next day, we woke up early, ready to make the most of our last day together. First stop, a tour of the YMCA that Taylor's family run. Her Dad is the big boss, her mum is an instructor and her sister Kaitlyn's works in marketing. A couple of years ago, Taylor sent me this book, Bill- the legend, has written a book all about the people he meets at the Y, and I read it straight away. But I had never been to it before so it was super cool to see in real life, and it was exactly how he painted it in the book. Such a strong community feel, something the UK is missing out on I feel.
Next, we were off to Kaitlyn's house for breakfast, she bought us bagels my fave and after following her house progression since they moved in on Instagram, I was so excited to see it while I was here. They have done an amazing job transforming it into the perfect home, and I have major house jealousy!
While we were at Kaitlyn's, we spontaneously decided to go to Alstede Farms, a local farm in Chester, NJ to have a look around. They had lots of animals, I even learnt a cool fact: did you know that goats have rectangular pupils in their eyes? You could also pick your own for a variety of fruits and veg like peaches, blueberries, sweetcorn, sunflowers and apples in the fall. We took a tractor and trailer ride around the perimeter which stopped at each fruit field for people to get off and get picking!
And then, we tried not to get lost in the sunflower maze which was super cute!
Afterwards, we headed back home, it was BBQ time! We got everybody round, Bill cooked some gigantic steaks, Kaitlyn made pasta salad and grilled some veggies for us, and me and Taylor had Beyond Burgers- meat free!
We sat outside all afternoon chatting and we saw loads of butterflies, hummingbirds and even heard a hawk! Slowly it was time for everyone to take off, inc me to the airport. I said some very emotional goodbyes the people who had made me have one of the most amazing weeks ever, and invited them all over the UK anytime!
Taylor drove me to Newark airport with plenty of time before my flight, we had some final deep chats about how lucky we are to have eachother and to make these amazing memories together. I truly felt like one of the family and that is such a special experience to have and I truly treasure it. I cried a lot as I got my stuff out of the car and cried during quite a lot of the line for security too.
It was tears of sadness that I don't know when the next time will be, but I hope it will be soon! It was tears of joy, that this trip had happened! It was sheer exhaustion, it was dealing with the end of term lurgy that I had been trying to put off all week, it was total and utter disbelief at the amount of genuinely amazing experiences that I had in just 6 days. I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else.
I love you guys so much and I can't wait until next time for more adventures!
That's all for now, hopefully I won't leave it as long...
Speak soon,
Em x
No comments:
Post a Comment