A recounting of my first weekend excursion! A bit delayed in posting, but still fresh in my mind.
Emmy was the one to suggest Dover in the first place. I had never heard of it at all, my weekend day trip was supposed to be Windsor, because a random plan had been thrown together with a few friends. On a whim, I scrapped my Saturday day trip ideas (which led to the Spumoni escapades documented earlier) and booked some cheap train tickets to the small beach town. I then proceeded to stay up much too late plotting a full day of hiking along the cliffs, and got up early the next day to get to the London Bridge station for our 8:30 train.
Before going further, the main characters of these escapades should be given proper introductions. Cat, of course, is familiar for being the leader in previous spumoni adventures; she is the most animated and jolly person I’ve ever met on this planet, and someone I’m so grateful to be rooming with this semester. Emmy was one of the girls I had never met before arriving in London, but someone I got along with the moment we met. We have since discovered that we spent the entirety of our freshman year living across the hall from one another and hung out the first week at Samford, but our different majors and friend groups never brought us together again until now! It’s worth mentioning, now being almost halfway through the semester, that some of the greatest parts about being in London have been the people I’ve gotten to know. Written out, it looks cliche, but I mean that wholeheartedly.
(Left) Cat and I after going to an eighties party freshman year; (Right) Emmy and I before neon party during connections weekend freshman year!!
Emmy, Cat, and I got to the train station much too early, but the spare time allowed us the perfect opportunity to grab coffee and chat on the bench beside the platform. The train was slightly crowded, but as we approached the Dover Priory station, slowly the car emptied out (a few dances may or may not have taken place once we were sure we had the car to ourselves). As first-time train passengers, we all learned a valuable lesson: sometimes the train splits in half to go in different directions, and it’s important to ensure you’re in the right car. (We had a moment of mad scrambling to get to the correct half of the train.)
After the eventful train ride, we arrived to the tiny train station of Dover Priory. Everything smelled like salt, the buildings seemed ancient and sprinkled with rust. We walked along the road until we found the coast, walking towards a shipyard until we turned off onto a small, overgrown trail. The stairs we trekked up were torturously steep. We paused for a moment to breathe, discouraged by how far we still had to go until we turned, caught sight of the castle in the distance and realized how far we had come already.
The view once we got to the top of the cliffs!!!!
The rest of the mid-afternoon was spent walking along the white cliffs, exclaiming “oh wow!” to everything we saw. We passed cows, a tent pitched on the cliffs edge, and finally found the perfect place to have our PB+J sandwiches. The only thing better than the view was the conversation we had. Even now, almost a whole month later, the three of us still bring up those moments.
We found a lighthouse turned into a tearoom, chatted with an older gentleman who rattled off facts about the lighthouse and the trail we walked on. Eventually, we found ourselves at St. Margaret’s bay, where we stumbled our way down the rocky beach to wade in the cool waves. After an early dinner and an uber back to the town, we killed time until our train with ice cream sundaes and wandering around the ruins of an old church. (We met a seagull named Pauline.) I remember we kept saying “should we just move here?” we liked it so much.
On the train ride home, we checked Emmy’s oura ring and realized we had walked over ten miles. The soreness began to set in after about thirty minutes after sitting down, we all agreed we smelled like fish, and we didn’t get in bed until late.
I’d do it all over again.
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