Haworth (SPOILER ALERT: Do NOT read this post if you have not read Jane Eyre)

The Moors were completely and totally amazing. There are simply no words to sufficiently describe the experience. Not only was everything about them beautiful, but I was so incredibly proud of myself for climbing them. First of all, I am the clumsiest person that I know; I fall down stairs I knock things over, I am basically a walking disaster. The fact that I climbed the Moors and did not sustain terrible injury is in itself a miracle. Furthermore, I am not typically an outdoorsy kind of girl, but I guess that I was so passionate about this particular hike that I just wanted to keep going and going, and I refused to give up. Even when my shoes were completely tearing apart my feet, and they actually began to bleed, I just had to make it to the top.

The Moors were beautiful they were hills and hills of green, and flowers. I even made the comment that it reminded my of the Sound of Music and that someone should burst out singing "The Hills are Alive." So of course the logical choice of canidates to break out into song was Christy. (see picture).

I have to say that the thing that had the biggest impact on me was the realization that the hike that we took was the favorite walk of the Bronte sisters. It was amazing to take that walk, and wonder how the landscape may looked a bit different then. I would wonder was that house there, or were there always all of these Sheep (by the way I don't think that I will ever look at a sheep the same way after this experience). Overall the landscape was beautiful, hence why I took over a hundred pictures of it! In addition, it was an amazing feeling when we got to Top Withens, I was thinking to myself, I don't think that I can go any further, and then we were there. It was just really cool. The remanants of the structure of the house, I could totally picture what it must have looked like in its full glory.

While walking the Moors, I kept wondering what specifically fit with Jane Eyre, and what aspects may have inspired Charlotte Bronte in her writing. I can definitely see a resemblence between the walks that Jane and Rochester took; and this particular walk that the Bronte's took. It seemed as though walks played an important role throughout Jane Eyre. When it was raining and gloomy looking I could see a resemblance between the scenes in the book after Jane leaves Rochester, and is wondering, basically starving until she stumbles upon St. John. On a seperate note something that I noticed in Haworth was River Street...is it possible that this street may have been an inspiration for the name of her character St. John Rivers?

I also really loved the Bronte Museum. I found it facinating. All of the information presented and all of the artifacts were so informative and interesting. I also loved how Jane Eyre was clearly inspired by events in Bronte's own life. Loowood was inspired by Bronte's own experience at Cowan Bridge (clearly she wasn't a fan). I was also surprised by the fact that Bronte's Helen character was inspired by her sister Maria. This knowledge only makes the death of Helen that much more traumatic.

The gift shop I found to be highly entertaining. While they did not have the Bronte doll that I was so excited about/in desperate need of, they did have pretty much everything else under the sun that they could cash in on. They had tee shirts, however I definitely think that I should become like their marketing/creative director, I could design such better tee shirts. I mean I was totally hoping for a tee shirt that had a really cool quote from Jane Eyre or Weathuring Heights. I would totally have bought one of those. They also had coffee mugs, key chains, and erasers. There were some really cool post cards with the best quotes from the books on them, and I purchased those. I also purchased a graphic novel of Jane Eyre that I am completley entranced with, it is ridiculously cool. The Weathuring Heights version was aname and just tacky, so I did not feel the need to purchase that one.