Global Britain - Sunderland and Durham

On the flight back home... 9.16p.m Dubai time 10/7/2017

The fourth leg of my summer holiday is going to be a journey back home. It has been slightly more than a year since I last flew back to Kuala Lumpur. Every year since going abroad, I have made this annual journey. This year's stay in Southeast Asia is going to be short however, and the plan is to check out Myanmar for a couple of days as well.

The last few days has been quite a journey as well. Upon arriving in Gatwick from Iceland, my loyalty to Sixt was proven as I picked up an Audi for the weekend, although I had to turn down the offer of a upgrade to a Mercedes convertible. From Gatwick to Cambridge, and after a few hours of sleep, 130 miles up north to Sunderland.

Why Sunderland? Another wedding! (Check out College Humor's latest video on this topic). It was another very beautiful wedding which was blessed by great weather. And, I felt that it was a very quintessentially British wedding, at a village church and a village hall with a ceilidh thrown in. Congratulations to the couple and thank you for the invitation - it was great to have the opportunity to spend the day with you two!

The day after the wedding, this time not super hungover (probably because there were no schnapps involved), we were able to explore Durham, a historic city in the north of England, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and also the set of a few scenes in the Harry Potter movie franchise. The scene where Harry Potter freed Dobby from Malfoy was filmed in the cloisters of Durham Cathedral. I was obliged to watch this episode again on the plane (thanks to a very wide selection of entertainment on Emirates In Flight Entertainment System, ICE).

Durham Cathedral

I guess I should pay attention to the safety demonstration now....