Close to "Home"

Ash and I decided to keep it local this past weekend. Every weekend we’ve taken off to visit other cities and never experienced what our “hometown” has to offer on the weekend. So Saturday was spent exploring Hitchin, in all it’s glory.

The town really starts to bustle first thing - all the shops are open, the town center gets setup with some carnival rides for the kids, a violinist & vocalist set up shop with their speakers and CD’s for the adults, the farmer’s market in full swing and crazy costumed marketers are out pushing their local store’s wares.

We started the morning off at the bakery – a sausage roll for me and a cheese twist for Ashley. Breakfast £1.85

Unfortunately, with our focus on fighting our way to the frontlines to place our order, we failed to order anything to wash down our freshly baked breakfast… ugh.. no way we’re fighting that crowd again for a chocolate milk, so we opt for the old Starbucks.

Hot chocolate and a coffee £5.50… haha. Yes almost 4 times the amount of our breakfast for two drinks, gotta love paying the American premium!

Oh yeah, side note, finally converted my keyboard to UK standard – I held out as long as I could, but the fact that I work in an Accounting dept in the UK it was getting old typing out the word “pounds” instead of having the symbol and my colleagues were really getting tired of me calling everything dollars, it tends to cause confusion. Especially given the fact we have three bank accounts: Dollar, Euro and Pound and I have been assigned the fun task of switching all of our accounts to a new bank! It’s critical to use the correct terminology referring to money or I could get us into some trouble…..

So a quick note on the exchange rate.. Starbucks £5.50 equals about $7.98 !!!!! Gasoline (Petrol) prices, of course they charge per liter because it looks better, but I worked the formula out for you all:

£0.84 per liter. 3.8 liters per gallon. £0.84 * 3.8 = £3.19 per gallon * $1.45 (Avg FX Rate) = $4.63/Gallon !!!! And this is the lowest it’s been in around 8 years !

Enough math, back to Hitchin, wish I could say I had some pics to share, but apparently we took all of ONE picture during our adventure… haha.. here it is:

Dude was rocking the electric violin.. We spent a good 15-20 mins just soaking in the amazing music and singing that these guys were pumping into the streets:

After visiting every shop in Hitchin, we spent some time at the Hitchin museum (all the way across the street from our flat) studying up on the history of this great little town. It was time well spent getting to know all the in’s and out’s of our home for the next 5 months (time is flying)...

On Sunday, we went to Cambridge! What a crappy day to tour around… the temperature just kept dropping as the day went on and the rain got stronger. But in spite of it all, we had our best shopping experience yet. They had an amazing craft market in the town center. Here’s some pics from our day in Cambridge:

Cambridge is just an amazing city to see. The entire town seems to be plucked from the middle ages - new shops occupy these amazing structures everywhere, it's a very cool experience. In the middle of it all is the market:

None of the pictures i'm posting do it justice - the weather was miserable. You can see the sidewalks..

This was more of a crafts market.. there was a lot to see here. We picked up some great hemp shopping bags (because we're hippies now... the UK is VERY environmentally conscious, if you use plastic bags you get evil looks everywhere! haha). The bags came in handy as Ashley found some art to make our flat more comfortable. We came across a home brewer of flavored liquors and bought a bottle of some "damskin" flavored Gin in a cool looking bottle.. this is what we were looking for, some local talent and craftsmanship.

All this shopping was making me hungry, it was getting closer to lunch time. Luckily for me there were some vendors in the market. Here I am, clearly enjoying an Ostrich burger.. mmmm:

I also sampled some Ostrich sausage.. it was actually pretty good. Supposedly more healthy than beef, it tasted pretty similar.. I could eat more.

From the market, we explored the colleges that surround us on every side. Cambridge is literally a college town. You could close yours eyes and walk in any direction and you'd manage to encounter some world-renowned school.

Here's a shot of the courtyard entrance to King's college:

And the famous mathematical bridge at Queen's college. Yep. I'm sure Omer will appreciate this more than the rest of us, with his love of engineering.

As the day got worse, we tried to wait out the evensong ceremony at King's College. We went to a pub to dry out, waste some time and watch some football (soccer), had a beer, then off to church.

Wow. The sun was setting on this dreary day by the time the service was beginning. People were huddled in the arch of the entrance to stay out of the rain. You enter the cathedral and even with the amazing church's we've experienced so far, you can truly understand the awe that is inspired when you entire a place like this. The ceilings 100 ft high, with intricate tracing and a detailed wood organ screen carved with amazing detail. I wish pictures were allowed, but because we entered a service, they were restricted.

The choir enters and the service begins, and I don't care what you believe, I'm not catholic, not very familiar with their rituals, but the choir's echo off the walls of this building sets you at ease and allows you to forget the rest of the world for an hour.

We were ready to go home after the service. A perfect way to end the day, at peace, a little cold, but ready to face another week before our next adventure.


That's all for our trip.. a new British word for the week: Daft.

Used in a sentence: It's daft to spend two hours in the rain to see a 30 minute service. :)

Bath and Oxford this weekend!

Happy 30th Tom!

Salisbury

Forget weather forecasts – supposed to be rainy all weekend. We contemplated staying home; thankfully we took the chance and decided to book a hotel room in Salisbury.

Interesting choice as far as my colleagues were concerned. Again, now that they know we are planning a trip every weekend, they want to know when, where and WHY. To most people around the office, Salisbury is a “nice place to visit.” To me, it was always on the agenda – an absolute. Really it’s all about my father-in-law and a book called Sarum.

About 2 years ago I was given this book by Ashley’s father which traces the history of the southern part of England from prehistoric times through today. It’s a fictional history based on fact (as far as the facts can be discerned). It was one of his favorites, if not his favorite book. Now, I’m not saying it was an easy read, the longest book I’ve ever read, 1344 pages – I think even he would agree it isn’t an “easy read.” Although, nothing worth having is ever easy.

I finished the book before ever knowing we would have the opportunity to come to England – I made it about halfway through before her father passed away and got motivated to finish the book when we went on vacation with Ashley’s family in Topsail North Carolina in July 2008. I ultimately finished it around the beginning of September. In November I found out we had the opportunity to come to the UK.

Immediately, my first thought centered around visiting Old Sarum and walking the grounds this book covered. When explaining to everyone at work where we planned to visit, it was interesting to see that none of them had even heard of “Old Sarum” ! They were like “old what????” They’ve long given into the idea that I’ll know their country better than them (scary thought); sadly, just as most foreigners could pass a test granting them citizenship to the US that 80% of American’s couldn’t get through.

Anyway, getting off on a tangent – but this was easily one of my favorite trips so far. I reserved seats at one of “britain’s most sought after restaurants” for dinner. We played it safe though - steaks and mashed potatoes for our main and deep fried goat cheese with cranberry for an appetizer. Absolutely delicious ! We stayed away from the Kidney pudding and the Wild Boar and Venison Sausages.

Okay okay, enough talk, I know, let’s see some pics… before dinner we visited Salisbury Cathedral. I managed to get us into the single tour they offer, limited to 12 people for the “tower tour.” Here’s some pics from this amazing experience:


Our approach to the cathedral:

A shot from the restaurant at the cathedral...

A level up, a view of this medieval Cathedral:

Yup, this is how you work your way up the spire... The local boy scouts built a new spiral staircase for us to climb. I'm sure it's safe:

Here's the inner workings of the spiral. Remember, this is the tallest spire in all of England - this is what holds it all together:

A view of the Cathedral at night.. quite breathtaking:

Before the cathedral, we arrived and spent our day at the market. Just follow the signs to some areas you may have heard of:

Ahhhh... feel so at home. Just follow the sign:

The Salisbury Cathedral is also home to one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta. They house one of the most well preserved copies from 1215. This is the basis of most of the Constitution of the United States of America. Obviously no pictures were allowed here, so unfortunately I can’t share them with you.

I would describe most of this trip as a “spiritual” experience. Truly, you are placing yourself into the hands of what created modern history as we know it. To be within inches of an original document that gave birth to the US Constitution is quite an experience.

Prior to Salisbury, there was a city among itself that King’s visited frequently and traces back to ancient times, Old Sarum. Here are some pics from our visit:

Me, trying to absorb whatever I can from the site:

The old Cathedral foundation. They were very environmentally conscious.. once they decided to move the town 5 miles south, they used all available resources. Including the stones from the old cathedral and castle in Old Sarum to create the new town of Salisbury:

Okay.. it's hard to resist, stones are sticking out of the wall:

Um, yeah..

Finally, Stonehenge. You come to England, you have to visit the tourist sites. We gave in and visited one of the most visited areas in the world and listened to the speculation of the site. Interestingly, the most powerful feeling is when you come over a hill on a highway and Stonehenge comes into view. It’s one of those things that hits the center of your belly in a way you never would have thought. That feeling supersedes anything you experience once you actually stand before it, so here’s some pics of us once we were within feet of the monument:

The obligatory holding of the stones, Ashley was too afraid to make a fool of herself. Me - not so much:

A shot of the henge... what was the purpose?

We also had a chance to catch a play while in Salisbury. I got some front seat tix to “A Convicts Opera”. The story centered around Britain sending their convicts to Australia and a group of convicts were tasked with putting on a play for the Captain. Of course I was pulled out of the audience and brought on stage to be harassed. I had some horrible smelling shaving cream put all over my face and shaved with a dull straight razor in front of the crowd. Entertaining for Ashley as I played along with the actors on their trip to Australia.. again no pics allowed, sorry kids.

Oh! Yes, have to share some British with you. So many choices, my life is filled with terms that are entertaining to hear as an American.

British word of the week: Dodgy.

Used in a sentence: We did not encounter any dodgy characters on our trip, although some of the construction we encountered in the cathedral tour was quite dodgy and held together by the grace of God. You have the pics, what do you think?

Weekend Trip #1 - Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick Castle

Okay, this is a long one. If you manage to get to the bottom, there's a special prize for you though.

As I said in the last blog, the company has given me a car. As luck goes, here's what they gave me..

Sporty huh? Oh yeah, and realized the antenna is gone, so I get to listen to the one AM radio station that comes in until I get that fixed.

Day 1 with the car:

Yep, snow. England is going through an unusual cold spell at the moment so the day I get the car we are hit with a blizzard. Since the temperature in our area doesn't normally remain below freezing, they don't do anything with the snow as they think it will just melt quickly anyway. Due to the cold spell, it ices over instead!

I get the keys from our HR woman and head out to the car (4pm, dark), find the car by hitting the panic button on the key fob, and jump in......... the passenger seat. Hmm.. things aren't boding well for a safe journey home.

It's easy to think about everything and say, well it's simple enough, everthing is just on the opposite side. Right. Now put that into practice. Ignore everything you've known your entire life. Come to England and see how long it is before you start looking the right way before crossing the street. Now jump in a car, in the dark, on icy roads and drive yourself home!

Thank God for GPS! and the internet, for giving us the European maps. Traffic is horrible at rush hour, rivaling Atlanta traffic even. That's actually a good thing though, because I only have to make decisions at 15-20 MPH as opposed to 70 MPH (the speed limit when no sign is posted here in the UK). The roundabouts are the most stressful part of driving - there seems to be one every 2-3 miles and there are roads that shoot off of them every few feet. Roundabouts vary in size, they aren't all like the one you see in National Lampoons European Vacation, sometimes they're just a concrete circle in the ground - 5 feet across and 3 inches high - but it's still a roundabout, although most of them are rather large with 4 or 5 exits off of them.

I did have a little bit of a "look kids, there's Big Ben!" moment on my first trip home though: the road to our flat is immediately after exiting a roundabout. So you literally have to jump into the roundabout, shoot off the 2nd exit, get to the right lane immediately and make the turn. Well, I got it the 3rd time around. I could see the flat, I just couldn't get there the first two times...

I had a whole week to practice, so with the wagon fueled up we're ready for our first weekend daytrip! First plan, hit Birmingham - the second largest city in England. I run it by the girls at work and they laugh and say, "Why would you go to Birmingham???" I bump into a few other people at work and they all have the same response.. Well, I'm determined we at least go for dinner since there is an Indian dish called Balti that supposedly originated here.

With that said, I get opinions from everyone on where we should visit, Stratford-Upon-Avon and Warwick castle were mentioned - so, with a little research, we're in.

First stop, Warwick Castle. Built in 1068 by William the Conqueror, with many restorations over the years. Here's some pics from that visit:

Ashley in the stocks:





The main living quarters entrance:



Library in the living quarters:




One of the many bedrooms, this particular one was given to the Duke of Wales since he visited the castle so often. The woodwork throughout this entire bedroom was amazing. The bed is a pretty good example:




Ashley, beginning our journey to the top of the towers! They warn you before you begin that it's over 500 steps or so on spiraling, STEEP steps. They weren't kidding:





A look back down the first stairwell....




Whew, first break, we took a pic of ourselves a quarter of the way up:

Steps to the next level, good thing Earl of Warwick thought to install handrails :)

To give you a little perspective of how tight the stairwells in the tower are.. onto the final steps:



Wow, we're at the top. The second tower's stairwell was no joke; I didn't think we were ever going to make it to the top. But, check out the views! This is a shot looking down to where we took the pic of ourselves that I posted above:



A pic of the oldest and original section of the castle:

A look down on the living quarters:

Caesar’s Tower, dungeon in the basement (which was blocked off when we went):



Oh yeah, didn’t mention the weather on the day of our trip. This is typical of what we’ve seen almost everyday. Foggy, mists of rain/snow flurries. You can really see it in this pic of Warwick Cathedral, located in town:

That will do it for pics of the castle. There were many more taken, but it’s too much work to post them all! Overall, we really enjoyed the castle and reading the history that took place there. Check out the Wikipedia page to read more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwick_Castle

*************

Next, we drove about 10 miles west of Warwick and visited the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford-Upon-Avon. We bought a ticket that gave us access to the home he was born in, the home he retired in and the home of his son-in-law, a prominent doctor at the time.

Ashley and I are certainly not experts on Shakespeare, we didn’t even bother to research anything about the significance of the homes we were visiting prior to going. It was great; I looked at Ashley on our way to Nash’s House and was like “So what’s the deal with this place?” She responds “I don’t know.. it was 3 for 1 on the ticket.” Haha, well, that works for me. I like a deal.

Each place had very knowledgeable guides (as far as we know), some even dressed in period clothing, that gave you a thorough overview of the history of the home, the significance and an idea of life in the time of Shakespeare.

Pictures weren’t allowed inside of the homes, but here’s some of the outside for the rest of you. At least you won’t be as ignorant as we were if you ever get a chance to visit.

Shakespeare’s birthplace. Pretty self-explanatory:

Front of the home:

Nash House/New Place. This is where Shakespeare retired and ultimately died in 1616. His wife Anne is also believed to have died here in 1623. The guide at this place was really long-winded, but gave a pretty good history of Shakespeare’s life and how he came to be successful, as well as discussing some of the controversies of the Shakespeare family.

Side view and gardens:


The final destination on our 3 for 1 ticket! Hall’s Croft. Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah married a Cambridge educated doctor, Dr John Hall. John Hall bought and enlargened this home, with portions of it dating back to the 1500’s. Some great paintings from the 16th and 17th Century are here as well, again no pics on the inside, but here’s the outside:


A cool tree in the backyard:


Finally, with a headache from ALL of the knowledge we now possess of Shakespeare, we hit up the oldest pub in Stratford-Upon-Avon for a beer before our trip home:

On our way out of town we did manage to catch a glimpse of Ye Olde Pizza Hut:

So that's all for our first trip. We probably took another 100 pics to chronicle our adventure, someday we'll post them all up on Kodakgallery or something for those of you that just haven't had enough!

As promised, British word of the week: Gobsmacked.


Used in a sentence: I'd be gobsmacked if half of you read this entire long-winded post!

Next week, we're thinking Bath or Salisbury... until then.

London - Overview

We decided to make a trip to London Saturday. The plan was to jump on an open-top bus tour and get an overview of the city. Step 1, always check the weather before you plan your trip. Step 2, travel arrangements.

Weather: 0 degrees (celsius of course), but sunny ! This should be PERFECT for an open-top bus tour... hmm.

Travel: It's simple! We walk to the train station in Hitchin, no problem. Purchase a ridiculously priced ticket to London, easy enough. Make the train on time (we already know about Ashley's issues with making trains), should be doable. Then we'll just conveniently jump on-board the bus tour that's going to stop right outside Kings Cross. So on we go.

We make the train out of Hitchin; arrive at Kings Cross, flawlessly; then walk out to catch our tour bus. We're thinking, easy enough, just look for a red double-decker bus. See London metro bus pic below:

Twenty minutes later, Ashley spots our stop, only 45 minutes until the next time it comes around! (0 degrees).. We jump on board and begin the tour.



Kings Cross is in the North of London, nothing really to see there, a lot of rundown buildings and renovation, so we decide to stay downstairs and warm up as much as possible until we join the main tour line, beginning at Speaker's Corner - the place where those condemned to hanging were allowed to give their last words, along with a pint of Ale.



Nothing really special to speak of regarding the tour that you probably haven't already seen on TV. We did decide to ride on the top of the bus for most of the tour, which was absolutely freezing but otherwise not worth being there. A couple observations though: One is that Big Ben isn't nearly as big as I thought it would be. Two, the buildings and architecture in London blow away anything I've seen in NYC. The palaces contained within the City would be worth a second look. Most of the newer areas could be found in any other major city in the world, no character, franchised shopping, blah blah, etc...



We did the typical Buckingham palace stop, took some pics that I'll post below. Rode over the Tower Bridge (commonly mistaken as London Bridge), rode under London Bridge (just a normal bridge, not impressive, didn't even take a pic, wasn't worth the 250kb of reusable camera memory).

Hey, look it's one of those guards that don't notice you, walking back and forth in sub-zero temps.





Ashley standing at the gates of Buckingham Palace (she's the one on the right, bundled up so much you can barely tell there's a person inside the jacket, scarf and british hat):





Little Ben, so much cooler than Big Ben:




TOWER BRIDGE, yeah that's right, you thought it was London Bridge:




After the tour, we decided to stick around and check out China town and eat some good chinese food. The Chinatown in london is VERY small and is composed of about 100 chinese restaurants all right next to each other, very few merchants and not a single Coach knockoff in sight! Seriously, why go to Chinatown if you aren't going to purchase mass quantities of illegal items and sell them on ebay for 3 times the price?? The kung-pow chicken was delicious though.

Entrance to the largest Chinese food court in the world:

After a few days here and having had the chance to travel around, we've found that there are a lot of chains in England, including the pubs. Although few manage to retain the character that Hitchin has to offer. Don't ask if they are going to put American Football on the tv either (even though they subscribe to Sky sports that I KNOW is airing the game), especially when some apparently important soccer, oh sorry, football, games are on. Oh yeah, and DARTS?? Who the H-E-Double-Hockey-Stick (kid friendly) watches darts??? Enjoy the playoffs jerks.



PS - We did finally get feeling back in our fingers and toes after our tour... Note: Do not do Open Top tours in London in Winter, even when it's "sunny." Oh yeah, and we got a car today! Stay tuned for the next adventure..