Essay: What I Appreciate About England

1. I absolutely LOVE how green England is! I guess that living in a desert makes me appreciate it even more. I am awed every day by the beauty of this country.

2. I think their speech is lovely! It is just fun to listen to the people speak...sometimes, truly, I cannot even understand a word they are saying, and it's the same language!

3. I love how they appreciate the OLD; the history of this amazing country. We recently visited a castle that originally started being built in 1066 - imagine 1066! Of course, it had been added onto, and restored, but part of the original was still there.

Contrast this with America. While we were in New York last fall, the original Shea Stadium - home of the New York Mets -was torn down; too old; too outdated...and when was this old stadium originally built - 1964! It had stood for 48 years and was too old.

Allen has told me for years about the English and how they relish the past; it's beautiful, really. In the town where we are staying: Abbots Bromley, if you build something new, it has to reflect the era of all the other buildings in town. There is a very old girls's school in town, and one day, as a joke, some of the girls put a sign in front of a famous very old landmark; the sign read - Future Home of McDonald's. Not knowing it was a joke, some of the residents were - needless to say - incredibly upset! No McDonald's for them in their lovely little farming village; that would be heresy and ruin the quaintness of this centuries' old place. I really appreciate their ties and love of the past.

And those are a few of the reasons I like England!