Monday, 7 April 2008
bath
We somehow managed to book our trip to Bath for the weekend of the opening of the famous Bath Christmas Market. This meant that the train was incredibly crowded, and our cabbie from the bath train station to the rental car company had to take a detour out of town, around the standstill traffic, to get us to the place before it closed. Then we got to experience that standstill traffic on our way to the super Radnor guesthouse, where we had fanagled an apartment rather than a regular room because some Bath Christmas market shopper cancelled at the last minute. Here are a couple shots of our lovely abode.
The (thankfully very warm) bedroom and bay window
The living area
We used Bath as a base to explore some of the other famous sites around, including Stonehenge, South Wales (including Tintern Abbey and Chepstow Castle) and Salisbury. Maybe we'll even post about those someday. In retrospect, we should probably have used a smaller, cheaper town or even village as a base, but hindsight is 20/20 and anyway, what we saw of Bath was delightful.
Despite the fact that it rained often while we were there - the clouds more or less gathered over the train station as we pulled in - we did manage to venture out and around the Bath Abbey, the Christmas market, the old Roman Baths, and a number of yummy restaurants, including the famous Sally Lunn's House. The slide show shows it all.
On our last night, we ate at the Hole in the Wall, an unlikely-named restaurant that provided perhaps the best meal we had in the U.K. (outside of our fabulous house, of course). Everything was exquisite, from the appetizers (olives for Joey and poached pear salad for me) to the wine to the delicious main courses. In all, Bath was a fun trip. If we had it to do again we'd choose another weekend to go, but the outings were more than worth it.
If you're still checking this blog, don't give up on us - we'll manage to get the last few posts in eventually! There are too many pictures and stories for us not to get them all on the blog, even if it takes a while.
North Wales
North Wales |
Scotland
One highlight was the Scottish National Storytelling Center, which was awesome. I dragged myself out of bed to go to the first event we went to (and managed to stay quiet ...). The first night was a collection of stories and songs (some in Gaelic) in memory of a late great storyteller who sounded like quite a character. This was no children's story hour as there were a couple raunchy stories, all made even more awesome by Scottish accents and people in kilts. We enjoyed it so much we went twice in the 5 nights we were there.
We also went to Stirling to fill my castle fix. Edinburgh castle is really a fort standing on top of where the medieval castle was before it was thoroughly demolished in one of the many sieges. Stirling was much more legit (no canons).
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Merry Christmas
The food and fun were both great =) We've got quite a lot of other things to share as we've been out and about nearly every weekend this month, trying to pack in the experiences before we head back to CA at the end of this week! So hopefully we'll have stories and pictures of the castles of Wales, Roman Baths, Windsor, and Edinburgh before to long ...
Thursday, 6 December 2007
happy belated thanksgiving
A couple weeks ago, on the Sunday following actual US thanksgiving, to be precise, we had our own thanksgiving here. As thanksgivings go, it was warm and fuzzy and buttery. Really - thanksgiving, as it turns out, is a very buttery holiday. Which is probably why it tastes so good. I know this because we cooked all day for it, and it took a lot of butter. But getting to eat leftovers for the week following is definitely worth the effort, and you only do it once a year... Which makes it okay, right? Anyway, it was only our second complete thanksgiving cooking session ever, but I think we did a good job, all by ourselves, except for the salad. First, the menu. We had:
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Mushroom & Onion Gratin
Green Beans with Caramelized Shallots
Stuffing
Cornbread
Gravy
and of course, Turkey
For dessert: homemade apple pie, with vanilla ice cream
Yes, we ate dessert. Somehow.
Second, the cast. We were 9 for dinner: ourselves and our 4 housemates, one housemate-significant-other, Stephen, one Greek/Swede ex-model, Alex, and my friend Caroline Mair. Third, the process and the pictures. There was a lot of strange new world cooking in our English kitchen, let me tell you. Joey started it off the day before, when he made cranberry sauce from scratch. He also peeled and cored bushels of apples for the pie. (Joey loves him some thanksgiving dinner, and he's evidently not afraid to work for it.) On the morning in question, we rolled out of bed and directly into the kitchen, where birds were dressed, seasoned and basted, vegetables were sliced, diced, marinated, sauteed, roasted and otherwise adulterated, root provisions were attacked, cheeses grated, breads crumbed, and so on. This went on all day. But let's start at the beginning looking at pictures, shall we?
These are the beetroots that were picked fresh from the garden that morning
This is Russell, the beetroot grower, proudly displaying his babies, right before putting them to boil so he could put them in the salad and we could eat them.
Here is Joey, creating stuffing
The work in progress
Darkness fell, and still the faithful laboured on...
No detail was spared
And finally, (almost) everybody assembled, prepared to eat.
In this picture, clockwise from Joey: Russell, Stephen, Andrew, myself, Caroline, Graham, Alex.
The table, at the beginning of the meal
The triumphant entrance of the bird
Followed by its immediate decline
The delicious vegetables
And the hungry chefs. We're only smiling here because we're polite.
And finally, the very photogenic pie, which we were all excited to eat.
(Case in point)
There was after-dinner entertainment in the form of books
And of course photography
Orlando the cat, who we had very rudely failed to invite to the feast, saw an opening and went for it immediately.
It was a good evening. See the looks of contentment?
And then the next day, we got to do it again. :) The end.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
tintern abbey
The other thing we discovered is that attractions off the regular radar are fabulous and inspiring, especially when they come recommended by major literary figures, so to speak. The excerpt I love from Wordsworth's poem goes like this:
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Maybe it was the kind of solemnity that comes from ruins of graceful and austere places, the drama of bird's nests and puddles between stone arches and walls, the contrast to the bulk and military air of the castle we'd visited that morning, or maybe just the threat of rain. Either way
we may not be quite as eloquent as old Will, but we were definitely a reflective pair that afternoon. And we loved the place. Here's a panorama view from the inside. Be sure to click on it (and the later pictures) to get the full effect.
And for your edification, in case you have always been longing to know more about Tintern Abbey, are otherwise interested in the ruins of British history, or just like looking at pictures, here are a few images. We start with the abbey, as seen from the (relatively recent) road that runs in front of it:
That road takes us to the gift shop and welcome area:
This was where we got our handy and fab audio guides. Joey put his on and immediately looked more pensive and devout.
I was more than a little excited about it all, especially when we got inside the church building itself.
What used to be an abbey as fancy as any others we'll blog about, now has grassy floor and windows and roofs open to the sky.
Here's Joey, contemplating his own verses, on the grass.
The west window, with me for scale.
The South window, same scale.
And the outside view, of course complete with wind and rain.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: the ruins at Tintern Abbey.
Monday, 26 November 2007
let's hear it for the boys
Our housemates are Marc, Graham, Russell and Andrew. Marc is the guy whose email convinced us that we might like to live in this house. We have lots of in-depth chats about books, and cling film (that's glad wrap, Trinidadians), which he avoids at all cost and I apparently can't use often enough. Graham works for the Guardian newspaper and loves 'walking', also known as 'hiking', and Andrew spends half the year leading tourist coach tours all over England (he's a font of useful tourist knowledge). One night I drank them both under the table, completely by accident. They were extremely witty and funny all evening, and I only found out I'd drunk them under the table when neither of them remembered their wit or humour the following day. You might say that the fact that I'm the only one who remembers it is questionable, but this is my blog and I'll write the story the way I want to. Russell works for a bank, but for his non-day job he curates exhibits of antique photographs. His non-day job takes him to places like Poland, Pakistan and Dubai. We also live with Orlando, who is a marmalade-coloured cat. She is absolutely adorable, except for when she yowls, which sounds like a bad feline imitation of a colicky baby. Orlando was not upset about not having been mentioned on the blog. But then again, she doesn't ever cook dinner, so I guess you can't have everything. The men cook dinner - we generally take turns at it - so we've had good exposure to proper english meals, from lamb with mint sauce to Bird's custard on pies. We've also benefited from insider's tips to London, travel advice as mentioned, and a guided trip to Brixton market. As far as living in a strange country goes, it's a pretty nice arrangement.
So now that I've finally introduced our housemates - let's call them the fabulous four - I'll try to keep them in the story line so I don't get in trouble anymore and the experience of life at Clapham Road is fully recorded (as opposed to life in the much less specific 'London'). There might even be a picture or two of them in the coming posts, which are belated accounts of things we did in the last few weeks, of course. Just don't expect anything too soon; you know how it goes.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Heathrow
Personally, I don't like air travel at all ... the only good thing it has going for it is the destination, the experience of traveling is usually tolerable at best. In all my years of travel, I have never seen anything like Heathrow. We got up 5:20am (or basically midnight Oklahoma time) to begin our journey, and caught one of the first trains of the day, arriving at the airport at 6:30 for our 9:20 flight. As an appetizer, this is what the check in line looked like for American Airlines after we'd be standing in line for 20 minutes:
Notice that we're standing between metal rails, this is not some freak occurrence, the line is that long regularly. They eventually called our flight at 7:40 (we were half way through the line at this point) and we got pulled into the express line for tardy people. We thought we'd be alright with an hour and a half to go, but the fun was only just beginning.
We went up the escalators to the security checkpoint, and, well, it blew my mind. The line stretched from the actual check point down the hall, past a dozen shops and restaurants, and out some doors.
We joined the procession of people searching vainly for the end of the line mouths wide open. The line went out some doors and made a sharp right, and as we rounded the corner things went from ludicrous to just comically unbelievable. The line went all the way down this hallway and out another set of doors.
We eventually found the end of it on the walkway from the parking garage to the terminal. This is a picture from the end of the security line, across a large construction site, to the Terminal where our flight was going to depart from:
And here's us at the end of line:
In that picture you can just see the neon green jacket of one of the poor people whose job it is, day in and day out to shepherd this monstrosity and explain to people that yes, this really is the security line and yes, even though it doesn't make any sense, they should stand in it. The poor man in line behind us knew what he was getting in to, he had arrived at the airport at 6 for his noon flight. It just wouldn't be complete without a little irony:
Anyway, the green jackets eventually called our flight and we joined the mad rush to the express line back out the doors, down the hall, out the other doors, passed all the shops, etc watching the poor people's faces walking the other way as various shades of disbelief passed over their faces.
The security check point as also unbelievable ... it was a huge row of 30 or 40 metal detectors all of them operating. Once we got through that, it was still over a 1/2 mile to our gate and we had to run as they said our flight was "closing." We got there, and after having our tickets and passports checked by seriously 4 different people, sat down exhausted in our seats. At which point a security guard came on looking for "Daniella" and needing to check her ticket one more time to verify that we were on the plane. Eight hours later, we had a brief and relatively painless stint at O'hare ... never thought I'd ever hear anyone say that. We were so very happy to eventually step out onto the red dirt of Oklahoma.
In conclusion, trains are much more civilized.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
and the lakes, belatedly
We got to our B&B after dark, which was too bad because the google directions we'd brought were only mostly correct and our map covered every village in the lake district except the one we were staying in. Oops. And our mobile phone server was not working, so we couldn't call them for help. Double oops. Through some feat of navigation, luck and direction-asking, we got to it, and were very pleased in the end. If you're going to the lake district and want to be off the (very crowded) and beaten path, it's worth checking out Armidale Cottages. We told Sue, the lady of the house, that we'd put in a plug for her when talking about our travels, so here it is. Our room was warm and comfy, which is good because after trekking around the forests and lakes in the rain, we appreciated warmth and dry comfort. The full english breakfasts were extraordinary. Let's just say we didn't need or bother to have lunch a single day we were there. As b&bs go, it was excellent.
Day 2 was a more traditional lake experience, kind of, starting at an ancient stone circle, Castlerigg, that looks like a mini stonehenge (insert Spinal Tap movie joke here). We neither of us seem to have druid ancestry/leanings - I know that seems a little obvious - because we were much more interested in the view from the stone circle than the stone circle itself. After exploring that area a little, we went to the Derwent Water, which is an impossibly picturesque lake near the buzzing tourist town of Keswick, pronounced 'kezik'. Everything we encountered was so adorable that I'd bore you actually describing it, so here are a few pictures instead.
Adorable children dancing in front of adorable musicians at the lake's edge
Adorable view of the lake from an estuary between it and a bordering forest
Adorable cows in a nearby field
You get the idea.
To make sure we were properly tired at the end of the day we then packed in another 'walk' that included a visit to the Wordsworth museum (he's a darling son of the lake district) and cottage. Here is an illegal picture of Joey sitting in Wordsworth's chair. I hadn't yet been told that photography wasn't allowed when I took it, I promise.
That evening, having spent too much time soaking in the adorableness of Derwent Water etc., (literally, we got caught in the first downpour of the day - and it was a downpour - on our way back through Keswick) we drove, after dark, along a route that has been voted the most beautiful in Britain. Oh well. From the little bit of the side of the road that was lit by the car's high beams, I'll bet they're right about that. Why did we drive it in the dark? Well, our b&b hosts had recommended a country inn along the way as a real Cumbrian experience. Not being connoisseurs of such experiences, we can't say for sure whether they were right, but the food sure was good. And now we can say we've been along that route. Just don't ask what it looked like.
The delicious Cumbrian pub food:
Day 3, also the day we returned to London, we went to the place we'd spent so much time staring at from the stone circle, and it didn't disappoint. Sure, it was a bit soggy after the rains the night before, but you can't have everything. Then we stopped at Hawkshead for a village experience, took a brief walk, more pictures of sheep (sheep are for Joey what geese are for me), and made a stop at the Beatrix Potter gift shop. Ms. Potter is another treasured product of the lake region. Then we uneventfully got the rental car back to Enterprise, and uneventfully caught the train back to London. Thank goodness. The end.
devon
As you may have seen in the slideshow, we got to other parts of
The hidden highlight of the trip, though, (aside from forcing Mark to have his picture taken) was the town where they live now, Budleigh Salterton. Our first introduction to Budleigh Salterton was of having its name echoed around the dining table of our house by our housemates. None of them had ever been there, but they all knew and loved the name. They declared it the most typically
Us on the (cold) beach at Budleigh Salterton