“As I sit here writing my last entry from the castle, the sky is clear above with twinkling stars, and the castle clock is chiming towards its twelfth chime, each one echoing into the dark. To my left, mist rises from the stream, the castle lit in eerie shadows; straight ahead the castle’s towers; above me, figurines atop the battlements that I suppose were meant to scare invaders or intruders off centuries ago. Sitting here, time seems to have stopped, and it’s such an indescribable feeling to sit here quietly, just surrounded by such a sense of history. Tonight, I feel very much at home.”

I wrote this entry into my study abroad journal from the outer bailey of Alnwick Castle on May 16, 2007, 11 years after the trip I talked about in last week’s post. It was the summer between my first and second year of graduate school, and I was in the UK on a study tour learning about the British higher education system, and both its similarities and differences to Canadian and American systems.

Now as you might recall, in last week’s post I wrote about the first time I returned to the UK in 1996 and the feeling of home I experienced. It’s this sense of home that connects last week’s post to today and the second part of my travel series.

Growing up, I was close with my parents and Aunt in Winnipeg and my family in the US. While I’ve always understood the importance of family – biological and chosen – there were always a couple of things that felt missing. Part of growing up is about finding yourself and defining your own identity. Being in tune with family history, and all that came before me was and still is important. In moving to Winnipeg, I always heard stories about my Dad growing up there, the years my Mom lived there, our many family members across the UK, the occasional relative visiting from the UK, and calls at Christmas or when family members would pass away. From hearing these stories, I knew a lot about my family history, but wouldn’t meet many of them until I was 19.

By the time I went to the UK in 2000 (this time with my parents and best friend), almost all of my parents’ aunts and uncles had passed away, but I finally got to see some of the places from those stories. Where my grandmother went to school, the house my mother was born in, where my father grew up, my grandparents’ grave, and where I was born and lived for the first year and a half of my life. The most special part of this trip was meetings my cousins in Wales and Scotland, and a Great Aunt in Scotland. This trip also coincided with a very special occasion - my parents’ 30th wedding anniversary.

This trip was important for so many reasons, including that I got to share it with my parents and best friend, and that I got to experience a big family gathering for the first time. This trip also helped connect me even more so to my heritage, and the important place heritage, particularly my Scottish and Celtic roots hold in my life.