After starting our Europe trip with a long weekend in Manchester, we headed down south to our WorkAway host's house in Alton - a little town about an hour west of London.

On our way down we stopped in Liverpool to go to Central Perk - an "exact replica" of the coffee shop from Friends. It was totally novel, but the food was absolute crap. They had the big orange couch though, and lots of large TVs playing episodes of the show, so that was really fun.

Then we had a quick stop in London so we got some yummy take out sandwiches and had a picnic under the London Eye before boarding out final train to Alton.

It was a quick one hour ride to Alton and our host, Kathryn, picked us up at the station and we headed back to her house. She put out a bunch of yummy bites and nibbles for dinner and we ate in her front yard garden. She is obsessed with the clearance section at all of the grocery stores so there was always TONS of random food in the fridge.

WorkaAway is a website that facilitates work trade so Kathryn housed and fed us in exchange for help around the house. We had our own private bedroom upstairs and the "work" was very easy. We stuck to stereotypical gender roles with Kris working in the yard and me baking and cleaning. Kathryn is very relaxed and is a home birth midwife who loves to travel and is well versed in alternative relationship styles so we had a lot to talk about.

One afternoon she took us to Hever Castle, the childhood home of the Boelyn sisters:

The castle itself is open to the public and is set up as a museum so it is a fascinating walk through time - it's 700+ years old. It is surround by beautiful ponds and gardens that would take several hours to walk through. It's a gorgeous piece of property.

Afterwards we walked across the street to King Henry's pub and sat in the garden with ciders. Kathryn's girlfriends Tracy & Saudia joined us and they brought their friend Cath who turned out to be super funny and seriously hot. We had a great dinner - salmon lasagna & hunter's chicken - and sat there talking for hours.

Another day Kathryn drove us into London for an erotic poetry slam. That was one of the most fun nights ever:

Her friend, Gwa, joined us and we ended up spending the night at her flat in London - she even gave us her bedroom! The next day Gwa joined us for afternoon tea - she is an England native and had never done that before! We went to the Celarium Cafe at Westminster Abbey and it was fantastic!

After tea we started on a self guided walking tour that took us through some lovely parts of London:

Later on in the week we went to Chawton, which is where Jane Austen lived for a bit and wrote several of her books.

And here is the Jane Austen walking path, littered with large piles of dog shit:

At the end of the week, Kathryn dropped us back at the train station where we headed to Margate, a little retro seaside town in England, where we planned to spend the weekend.

A Work Trade Week in the U.K. {2014}