For the first time since I moved to the UK two years ago, I had visitors from Solingen last week. My sister and my best friend came over to stay with me for 5 days.

We started with a typically English breakfast and a tour around Carlisle and its castle. The next two days, I rented a car and we drove around Cumbria. Since this county is famous for the Lake District, we first of all went to Keswick, which is on the shore of Derwent Water. Although I'd wanted to go down to Ambleside and Windermere and from there to the coast, we decided to go straight to Maryport from Keswick.

The next day, we followed the old Roman footsteps along Hadrian's Wall (the old border of the Roman Empire which was supposed to keep the savages from the north away - I like that explanation!) near Brampton. We visited Lanercost Priory and Birdoswald Roman Fort, though the weather was quite British. It was pouring it down, so to say.

We also went out for a couple of pints in some of the pubs and went to TC's Nightclub with a few friends of mine from uni, since my sister wanted to know what British nightlife is like. My best friend wanted to see whether he could understand an English film, so we went to the cinema together and a shopping spree on the European market was part of the programme too.

However, on the way back home, they missed their flight! Virgin trains was running late in Carlisle, which made them miss teir connection in Preston. The next train down the Manchester was running late too, which got them to Check-in five minutes after closing time. They had to stay the night in Manchester and book new flights the next day, but they finally made it home in the end.