CT Expat in London

Alnwick Castle

2011-08-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

After a second night in Dolgellau, I decide to drive up to Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, a 6 hour drive from Dolgellau. Alnwick Castle was used in the filming of Harry Potter, specifically the outside where Harry learns to use a broom. It was a lovely castle, and the Duke of North Umberland and his family still live there. I only spent a few hours there before beginning the 6 hour drive back to London. 12 hours driving in one day is quite a bit! All in all it was a lovely trip, and I would happily go back to Wales to explore some more.

Conwy

2011-08-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

On my second day in Snowdonia I decided to go visit a castle so I went to the lovely town of Conwy. It's a beautiful town, completely encased in castle Walls, right by the sea. I was really feeling the previous days hike, esp my knee which I twisted slightly on the climb, so my mobility was a bit limited. I had a lovely day anyways, walking around the town and castle and reading my book.

Mount Snowdon

2011-08-28T03:48:00.001-07:00

The next day I decided to leave the coast and go up into the mountains. There is a region of Wales called Snowdonia, and this is where I was headed. The drive was amazing. England and Wales are truly beautiful countries. Everything is so green and lush, the hills roll gently and all the fields have amazing stone walls. The drive took about 3 hours, and after a bit of meandering I made it to Mount Snowdon. The weather was looking iffy, but I decided to climb it anyways. Of course I picked the most challenging route! It was called the Pyg path, and I chose it because it looked like I could get the best photos from it, but boy was it tough!

It took me about 2 1/2 hours to climb to the top, and about 1 1/2 hours to get back down. On the way up the weather cooperated and was sunny, but at the top it was complete fog and mist so I couldn't see anything! Then on the way down the heavens opened up and I got completely soaked. Normally I would have taken my time climbing, but the parking people were tricky. Normally it takes 3 hours up and 2 down. HOWEVER, the parking fee is £5 for 4 hours, and £10 for all day- i.e. If you want to climb they want you to pay the full £10! I was determined not to fall for it though so I hustled and did the whole thing in just under 4 hours. It killed me though, and I could barely walk the next day

After my hike I drove the hour or so back to my next hotel, which was in Dolgellau. This hotel called Y Meirionnydd was very nice, and cheaper than the crap one in Swansea! I stayed here both nights and also ate dinner on the first night.

Wales Trip

2011-08-28T03:35:00.000-07:00

Well it has been almost a year since my last post! I did have two holidays in the beginning of the year, one trip to my sisters house in Florida which was great, and a week ski trip to Les Deux Alpes. The ski trip was great, but soon after my ex and I broke up so I didn't feel much like posting about it!

Anyways, I've been working hard at work for a long time and I had 4 weeks holiday left to take before the end of the year (we get 25 days holiday!), so I decided to take a last minute trip for a few days to Wales.

I hadn't really explored Wales before. I went to Wales briefly on a choir tour as a teenager, but I don't remember much of it, and I visited Cardiff for a weekend but that was it. One of my workmates had suggested the Three Cliffs Bay so I decided to check that out.

I started out from London early on Wed. It was a relatively short drive to the Three Cliffs Bay. Unfortunately when I got there it was raining! Typical Wales.... So I still checked it out, but after two hours I was ready to move on. I went on my National Trust app on my iPhone, and found a place called Stackpole about an hour away that looked interesting. So I drove to Stackpole through a beautiful countryside. Luckily when I got there it was bright and sunny! Stackpole is also on the coast, and it is gorgeous. Huge limestone cliffs plummet into the sea, and the wildflowers were beautiful.

After a long hike along the coast I drove back to the hotel I was staying at near Swansea. The hotel was a bit grotty, but oh well. I walked along the seafront toward the town center for dinner. I ate at "Eddie Rockets City Diner" which I suppose was supposed to resemble a 50's American Diner. The burger I had was good, but the Buffalo Wings were disgusting. They tasted nothing like Buffalo Sauce (more like a wierd chinese barbecue), and the blue cheese sauce was revolting. Oh well! The people were certainly interesting as well, lots of bad 80's big hair and tight bright colored clothes. I then went to go see the new 'Conan the Barbarian' movie, which I was looking forward to, but turned out to be pretty bad!

2010-09-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

The next morning we had their amazing breakfast buffet with custom omelettes, 8 different types of fruit juices, lots of fruit and pastries, as well as hot items like pork sausages, beef sausages, bacon, pancakes with maple syrup, etc. What was even better is that when we went to pay the bill the waitress told us it was included, even though we knew it wasn’t! A nice £44 breakfast complimentary.....

After breakfast we checked out but we stayed around for a while taking photos of the grounds. I let Katharine use my camera for a while, she really enjoyed using it and took some very nice photos of the birds around the grounds. That afternoon we took the bus back to Nairobi where we met up with Katharine’s friend who had been doing their elective in South Africa.

The next day Katharine left very early in the morning to catch her flight. I didn’t fly out until late in the evening so I spent the day with her friends walking around the market and going to the National Museum. What I thought might have been a wasted day waiting at the airport turned out to be quite nice!

All in all my trip to Africa was amazing, and one of the best holidays I’ve ever had. It was so varied, from beaches to safari, and from camping and backpacker hotels to a luxury resort in the shadow of Mount Kenya. I don’t know if I’ll go back to Africa, as there are still so many other places in the world I’d like to visit, but I’m so glad I went and experienced it. It truly was a once in a lifetime journey!

2010-09-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

The next day was essentially a very long travel day. We took a bus from Arusha, Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya which took about 6 hours on a very bumpy and dusty road. Actually, calling it a road is very generous, as 70% of it was under construction to create an actual road, and most of it was just a dirt track so full of bumps and potholes that only the slight line defining it from the bare countryside allowed it to pass itself off as a ‘road’. We were only in Nairobi for about two hours, as we stopped for pizza and ice cream before getting on the next bus to Nanyuki, Kenya. This was another 4 hour trip in a much smaller bus (essentially a van converted into a bus that counted for probably 99% of the bus transport in Kenya). After the equally bumpy and dusty trip, and a taxi ride from Nanyuki to our hotel we finally arrived at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club around 9pm.

Exhausted, dusty, and cold, we arrived to find that not only did they not have my reservation on file, the price I had been quoted previously did not include taxes, which adds on another 20% or so to the price! At that point, I didn’t care if it cost me the moon, I just wanted a shower, some food, and to go to bed. So, after signing my life away they nicely upgraded us for free and took us to our room. The funny thing was, they took us in a golf cart to our room, which was only about 500 ft from reception! Even funnier, they guy told us that if we ever wanted a lift to dinner just give them a call and they would come pick us up! The picture below shows just how far it was to our room....

After a series of small backpacker type hotels and campsites, the room was amazing. We had a suite cottage with a living room, fireplace, huge four post bed, and amazing bathroom. Katharine wasn’t very hungry so I ordered dinner room service and had an amazing meal of beef tenderloin, beef satay to start, and a dark chocolate tort for dinner. We also discovered a new favorite wine, Cronier Cabernet Merlot 2007 from South Africa that I need to try and find here in London.

2010-09-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

The last day of safari was just Katharine and I. We were quite lucky the whole holiday, private airplane, and now private safari! We drove just a few minutes from the campsite down into Lake Manyara National Park. At the front of each park we usually wait a few minutes while the driver goes inside to pay the park fees. This morning, as usual while we were waiting we popped open the roof to prepare for safari. Unlike every other morning though, this morning after opening the roof a few moments later a large male baboon jumped up on to the car and came in through the roof! Katharine was quite scared and so she jumped out of the car. I tried to scare it and push it out the door as well but it jumped into the drivers seat and opened the cool box next to the driver. It started to try and open a bottle of medicine so I took the top of the cooler and started hitting it. It put down the bottle only to pick up the box full of our packed lunches that was sitting on the passenger seat! I tried hitting it a few more times and telling it to put the lunch down, but eventually I lost as it picked up the whole box in its teeth and jumped out the door and into the forest. So much for lunch! It would have been great to have a photo of my daring fight with a baboon, but unfortunately by the time Katharine recovered from being scared it was too late to take a photo.

After the excitement of the baboon the rest of the day in the park was a lot of fun. We saw similar animals as Tangire and the Crater, but this time there were a lot more monkey babies. They are very cute as they cling on to their mothers for transport everywhere. We had a second hair-raising incident that day when we rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a large male elephant! He was about 10 feet away from us and started walking towards us. The driver turned off the car and told us to be very quiet. As the elephant moved towards us it was like I could hear him thinking ‘Hmm...should I destroy this car or not.....’. Luckily for us he decided against it, as he turned and literally brushed the car. At one point he was less than 6 inches from my face as he walked past the car and back down the road. Amazing.

After a great final day of safari we went back to Arusha, and after some nice hot showers had what was definitely the worst meal of the trip at the hotel. We both started with soup that was supposed to be cream of tomato but was so sweet it tasted like they had just heated up Ketchup and served it to us in bowls. For our main course Katharine had chicken that was burnt on the outside but raw inside, and I had spaghetti carbonara with no cream sauce and a very burnt smokey taste, and this is after having waited over an hour for the food! Ah well, I supposed every holiday has it’s downsides, and along with those aweful cocktails on Kendwa beach it was a great talking point!

2010-09-26T09:10:00.001-07:00

The next day we woke up early for a 6:30am breakfast. From the Panorama campsite on the cliff overlooking Lake Manyara, we drove to the Ngorogoro Crater. It took quite a while to get down into the crater, and we got a flat tire on the way so we had to stop and change it. Once in the crater it was quite beautiful. The animals were similar to Tangire, but we saw a lot more lions (some no more than 3 feet away from the car!), and also hippos, flamingos, hyenas, jackals, warthogs, and ostriches. Giraffes weren’t there as they can’t make it down the steep sides of the crater. Some elephants were there, but apparently only old males who can no longer fight to stay in charge of the herd, they come to the crater to live out their old age and die.

After another great day of safari we dropped off the 3 guys from England at a bus station and went back to the Panorama camp site. This time we asked for extra padding for the beds which made it a lot more comfortable. We had a relaxing afternoon sitting under the thatch covered tables on the cliff looking out over Lake Manyara. Dinner was very good (we brought a cook along with the driver who made our breakfast, pack lunches, and dinner), and although the Black Tiger group was back we decided to skip it and go to bed early as we were quite tired.

2010-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Our safari began at 9 the next morning. For the first 2 days of the safari we were going with 3 other people that we met that morning. All 3 were guys from England, who had just recently come from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Our first stop on the safari was Tangire National Park. It was an amazing place, perhaps the best of the 3 places we saw on safari. We saw lots of wildebeest, zebras, elephants, waterbucks, impalas, baboons, velvet monkeys, and lions. We traveled in a converted Toyota Land Cruiser that seemed to be the car of choice for safari companies. The room popped open so we could stand up and take pictures, and it was nice to have it open for air but still be shaded from the sun.

The road was extremely bumpy and dusty, but it was so cool to see all of the animals in the wild. Our guide and driver was very knowledgeable, having been to school for 2 years to study wildlife. One of the interesting things he told us was about zebras and wildebeest. They apparently almost always travel together because wildebeest have a very good sense of smell, and the zebras have very good eyesight so the compliment each other, with zebras leading the line and wildebeest sensing danger at night.

That night at the Panorama camp site we had an unexpected bit of entertainment, as the ‘Black Tiger’ troupe of acrobats and musicians played after dinner. Although I’m pretty sure at least 2 of the members were very drunk, it was actually a really great show. Following dinner we retired to our beds, which unfortunately were quite uncomfortable due to very hard planks and very little padding!

2010-09-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

On Friday we took a taxi back to the airport outside of Stone Town. We found a cheap flight from Zanzibar to Arusha with a small operator called Fly 540. I’m not sure they understand how business works, because when the plane arrived we were the only passengers! Katharine and I flew in our now private plane that is supposed to carry about 30 people, and we sat right behind the 2 pilots (who also had apparently not heard about the 9/11 rules as there was no door to the cockpit!

Arriving in Arusha we drove to one of the hotels mentioned in the guidebook. It proved to be a very fortuitous choice as the owner of the hotel was also a owner of a safari company! We were able to book our 3 day 2 night safari with him for a very reasonable price, and due to Katharine’s near legendary negotiation skills he threw in a night’s stay at a hotel as well for when we came back.

Arusha, and indeed almost every town and city I saw in Africa, was old and run-down. Lots of dirt roads, no sidewalks, dirty buildings, etc. It was truly third world. Outside of the major towns it was even more so. Mud and stick huts with thatch roofs predominated, and the buildings they did have were either old and run-down, or painted garish colors with company logos on them like building billboards, most for either Coca-Cola or one cell-phone operator or another.

While we were there we went for a walk around town. I found it somewhat frightening to be in a place where people had so little and we stood out as white people like a sore thumb. Having been in the country for so long (9 weeks by that point), Katharine was much more used to it, and happily led us to some somewhat dodgy looking places, including a market alley where her favorite scarf was stolen. After it was stolen we made our way back to the hotel. When we talked about it later on she made a good point, which is that if you want to really experience another culture you have to go where they go, even if it’s not as safe as the touristy areas. You just need to be aware of the risks and accept them. While I agree with her I think I just needed some more time to get used to it to feel safer, and in general in developed countries like Italy or France I’m more than happy to wander around all areas of a town, but sub-saharan Africa is another thing....

Food was quite simple, lots of Indian influences, and loads of fruit available. I didn’t get to try any, but a popular local street food is raw sugarcane that they cut and chew. One local food I did get to try is called ChipsyMaiai (not sure of the spelling). It’s basically an omelette with egg, lots of oil, and thick french fries inside. It was very filling!

2010-09-26T08:44:00.001-07:00

The following day we went back to a resort Katharine had stayed at the previous week with her friends, up on the northwest side of the island, called White Sands in Kendwa. It was beautiful. Cheap rooms ($30 a night I think), less than 100ft walk from the beach. The ocean was much nicer on this side of the island, probably because it faces the mainland rather than the open ocean. The tide didn’t go out very far, and the ocean was much calmer and nicer to swim in.

Over the next 2 days we laid in the sun, swam in the ocean, went to the Mnemba Atoll to go snorkling off of a Dhow (an old African sailboat), and had dinner on the beach under the stars. With the exception of the worst cocktails I’ve ever had on the first night, the experience was amazing and certainly the best beach holiday I’ve ever had. I highly recommend the place for pure relaxation! I wish I had had another few days there, but it was time to move on to the next phase of the holiday.....safari!

2010-09-26T08:40:00.001-07:00

I arrived at the airport outside of Stone Town, Zanzibar after 22 hours of traveling from London to Dubai to Dar Es Salaam to Stone Town. Katharine was waiting for me at the tiny airport, where the baggage claim was just a counter where all the bags we dumped and you walked out of your airplane onto the tarmac and across into this nondescript mostly run-down building. It was thrilling to see Katharine again after the 8 weeks that she had been in Berega, Tanzania doing her medical elective in a very small missionary hospital there.

From the airport we drove into Stone Town to our hotel, the Zenji Hotel. We put our bags down and went down to the beach to meet two of the girls she was on the elective with, Ruth and Rachael for a drink. After a quick drink we walked to the outdoor market where everyone was celebrating ‘Eid’, the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy period. Lots of people were out in their best dress and the stalls had loads of fish, meat, chapati, and other delicacies. The four of us stopped at a stall and got skewers of shrimp, shark meat, barracuda, and tuna, along with a chapati and a local drink made from sugarcane.

The next day we took a taxi to the other side of the island, the east side, to our hotel in Pongwe. The hotel was beautiful. White sand beaches, clear blue water, spacious huts with lounge chairs outside. The tide went out quite far, so we didn’t do much swimming, but we sunned on the lounge chairs and swam in the pool. They even gave us beach towels and a little flag so if we wanted a drink while lying on the beach, all we had to do was stick the flag in the sand and someone would come and serve us!

We had to switch rooms from the first night to the second night, and the second room was even nicer than the first! I’m not really sure why they put us in that room as it was huge and originally meant for families, with 2 showers and 2 sinks, it also had a separate room with twin beds. Either way it had a great view and was very relaxing.

After 2 nights in Ponge we went back to Stone Town for 1 night. I felt ill in the afternoon so we didn’t do too much, but after a couple of hours rest I felt a lot better. We took a walk around town (a bit longer than expected, as Katharine’s direction sense is not the greatest and as she had stayed in Stone Town 2 nights prior to my arrival was quite confident in her knowledge of the area....) we got some souvenirs, had a drink at Freddy Mercury’s bar (yes, Freddy Mercury from Queen was from Zanzibar!), and then had dinner.

Loire Valley Trip - Day 4

2010-06-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

Our final day in France, we started the day off as we did the second day, with a breakfast at the hotel. After again filling ourselves with bread and jam, we packed up the room and checked out of our lovely little hotel. Our stay at the hotel was nearly perfect, with only a mishap on the second night to mar it (Katharine closed the large metal gate on her heel, creating a nasty bruise).

From the hotel we made our way to the final Chateaux, Chateaux Chambord. Before getting there we found a local grocery store where we picked up all the elements one needs for a lovely picnic - cheese, sausage, bread, wine, crisps, and chocolate!

Chambord was the largest of all of the Chateaux, and was interesting in that there was almost no decoration on the outside up until the roofline, and then the roof was incredibly ornate with statues and carvings all over the place. The Chateaux was set in the middle of a huge state park, reportedly bigger than the city of Paris. After exploring the palace for a while we moved down the river a bit to set up our picnic. The food was delicious and it was great to sit out in the open with a fantastic view of the Chateaux.

About 4pm we had to wrap up the picnic and start driving back home. We ended up getting stuck in some traffic and missed our first Eurotunnel train back. Luckily they just put us on the next one, and, with the exception of a very cruel GPS joke regarding a certain McDonalds that was incredibly out of the way and CLOSED, the trip home was uneventful.

All in all a fantastic trip that felt longer than the 4 days it was (in a good way), and as the first holiday together alone as a couple, all I can say is that if every holiday went as well as this one I will be a very happy man!

loire Valley Trip - Day 3

2010-06-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

Day 3 we awoke slightly later than usual, and rather than having breakfast at the hotel we decided to take a walk and get breakfast at the patisserie in town. Unfortunately, the patisserie did not serve coffee, but we did get a baguette, as well as a small strawberry tart and a meringue for later. We took a nice walk up and down the street along the river in this tiny town where our hotel was, eating our baguette and enjoying the river air.

We decided to just visit one Chateaux that day, and that was one of the prettiest, Chateaux Chenonceau. Chateaux Chenonceau spans the river Cher, and is a beautiful palace. Katharine and I explored the gardens and the palace for quite some time, and I got some really pretty photos of her here with the palace as a background. An interesting fact about this castle was that King Henry (I think the second), gave this castle to his mistress, Diane. The very large garden to the left of the palace was hers, while a significantly smaller garden to the right was dedicated to his wife, Catherine di Medici. However, when the King died, his wife Catherine asked for the castle back!

Following the Chateaux visit we headed back home, stopping off at a winery for a wine tasting. We sampled some very nice sparkling wines and bought a few bottles to take back home. That afternoon we took it easy, with Katharine studying for her exams, and me reading about Tanzania. In the evening for convenience more than anything else we went back to the little fast food/pizza place in Langais for a quick dinner then off to bed, ready for the final day!

Loire Valley Trip - Day 2

2010-06-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

Day 2, Saturday, began with a lovely breakfast at the hotel consisting of coffee and tea, pain au chocolat, and lots of bread with different jams. After filling up on bread (and secretly missing my full english breakfast), we got into the car and drove to our first Chateaux vist, Chateaux D'Usse.

When we arrived at the Chateaux, we were immediately greeted by some random French tourists, who nicely explained in very slow french (to Katharine primarily as my french is pretty rubbish) that if we went in with them we could get a group rate which was significantly reduced. Score!

Chateaux D'Usse was picturesque, like a fairy-tale castle. In fact, it was one of the castles that Walt-Disney based the Disney castle on. In addition, it is the inspiration for, and the location where the tale 'Sleeping Beauty' was written. Now, of course, this lovely fact has been turned into a relatively hideous tourist attraction at the castle, where the upper rooms have been invaded by awefully tacky manequins dressed up in the various scenes of the story that you can look through windows to see, all the while being bombarded with incredibly cheesy 50's movie music. However, with the exception of a bit of cheesiness, the rest of the castle was lovely, in particular the roses growing on the walls outside.

From Chateaux D'Usse we drove to our second Chateaux of the day, Chateaux D'Azay-Le-Rideau. This was another very pretty castle, set in a small lake. The grounds were quite pretty, and if I had the option of showing more than 5 photos per blog post I would show a lot more, as Katharine and I had some fun taking silly photos around the castle, sticking our heads out of random windows and such, but for posterity's sake I've kept the photos to those most appropriate...

After a full day of tourism, we decided to head back to the hotel. Originally we had planned to eat at the hotel that night, however when we got back we discovered that they only served breakfast. So, taking a bit of a chance we looked up a random restaurant using the GPS. It took us to a lovely little restaurant where no one spoke any English and we had a great meal. On to Day 3!

Loire Valley Trip - Day 1

2010-06-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well well well, I must say, my life is pretty good at the moment. Yeah, work is hard, yeah, I'm sure things could be easier, but I've got a great job, a great girlfriend, I live in a great city, and I get to go on great holidays! Last weekend Katharine and I took a long 4 day trip to France's Loire Valley.

The trip started off very early in the morning on Friday, with a 2 hour drive down south to the coast of England where we put our car onto the 'Eurotunnel'. Rather than being a tunnel you drive through, instead you drive your car on to this train, and then sit in the car for about 40 minutes while the train goes through the tunnel, and out you pop on the other side of the English channel in Calais, France!

From Calais we decided to stop by Paris for lunch on the way to the Loire. Once we got into Paris, we realized the traffic was going to be quite bad, so we parked a fair bit outside the center of the city and took the tube inwards. We didn't have much time, so we just visited the L'Arc de Triomphe and had lunch. Then, for a bit of fun, we walked back to the parking garage using my gadget that mom got me for Christmas, which is a hand-held gps compass. It worked well, but the walk took longer than we expected!

From Paris it was a 3-4 hour drive to our hotel in Brehemont, just west of Langais. The hotel was lovely. Really quirky with loads of little statues and interesting paintings similar to Picasso. Katharine really liked the wall paper which was a floral pattern with birds. While the town was pretty, to call it a town is a bit of a stretch. It was about 1/2 a mile of street with 1 pastry shop, a church, and a cafe, none of which stayed open past 9pm. So, we drove 3 miles to Langais to the local pizza place and had some French fast food!

Punting in Cambridge

2010-05-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, Summer has finally arrived in England. Sunday started out with me making 'american style' blueberry and chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup. We then packed the car and drove about an hour and half north from London up to Cambridge. The first thing we did was hire a boat.

The boats you go 'punting' on are basically really long flat versions of the gondolas in Venice. To move, you stand on the back and push this really long pole (it must have been at least 8 feet long) into the bottom of the canal and then use the pole as a big rudder to steer. The day was gorgeous; sunny, relatively dry, and in the upper 80's. Since it was so sunny, the canal was packed with boats, making steering very difficult! Needless to say, we had our fair share of bumps into other boats, but after a while I got the hang of it. I only lost the pole once, and luckily they give you a paddle as well so you can move the boat to retrieve the pole!

We managed to get the boat down the river and back in about an hour and twenty minutes, so after punting we decide to have our picnic. We had brought sausages and hot dogs, tomato and mozzarella salad,and some nice white wine. We also brought this little disposable grill that worked brilliantly! After a lazy afternoon picnic we took a walk around the town center. Unfortunately all of the colleges were closed for exams, but it was still nice to walk around the outside and we topped it off with some very appreciated ice cream.

After ice cream we headed back to London where we went to another barbeque at a friend's house, followed by yet another outing at a pub by the river for a different friend's birthday party! All in all a perfect day, and one what will be remembered fondly for weeks and months to come.

Flaine Ski Trip

2010-03-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

Well, last week I took a week off from work to go skiing in Flaine, France. Early Saturday morning we drove to Gatwick, where we flew to Geneva and then took a bus about an hour up into the mountains to Flaine. Flaine is a town that is only used for skiing. It sits in a big bowl-like mountain, and several other towns are also accessible by the same ski pass.

We arrived pretty early in the afternoon, and got the keys to our self-catered apartments. There were 8 of us in total, 5 med students, a couple, and me. We split the apartments in two, 4 to each. I don't have much time to write about it, but suffice it to say that I had a great time. There were tons of runs, mainly reds and blues (reds are like single diamond blacks in the states). It snowed twice while we were there, so there was great snow most of the time. The people I went with were great fun, and all in all it was one of the best holidays I've had in a while!

Euro Road Trip, Day 14

2009-07-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Second to last day of the trip, and last real day of sightseeing! I woke up early and got out of the campsite by 7am. It was a 6 hour drive to Switzerland. Other than the tolls (another 40 Euros later....), the drive was fine and once I got in view of the Alps it was beautiful. My first stop of the day was in a small town called Montreux. This beautiful town on a lake with the Alps surrounding it is home to a wonderfully romantic castle called Chateau de Chillon. This castle, visited and written about by Lord Byron, was a fun tour filled with interesting rooms, including a working clock from 1518!! I didn’t know they actually knew how to keep time other than ‘high noon’ back then. After a couple of hours touring the place, I set off for my final destination, Bern. After setting up camp, I set off towards the center of town to explore. Bern is a beautiful little city, and the walk from the campsite follows a wonderful bike path along a crystal green river. Something about the mountain water here must make everything exceptionally clear because both the lake at Chateau de Chillon and the river here were crystal clear. I walked around the town and took pictures and looked in the shop windows (being Switzerland, there a number of watch shops, which I of coursed checked out every one!). I didn’t get into town until the early evening, and most of the shops had closed so I missed the trendy underground shops, but I’d like to come back sometime so I’ll catch them then. Some of the highlights of the town, other than the general architecture was Einstein’s apartment, a fountain of an ogre eating babies, and a charming clock tower. When my feet started to hurt I headed back to the campsite for a good night’s sleep. Day 15 I won’t bother writing about, as all it was was an all day drive from Bern all the way up to Calais, France for the ferry! All in all, my European Road Trip was a fantastic trip, a great ‘taster’ of Europe so I know some places I’d like to spend more time in!

Euro Road Trip, Day 13

2009-07-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

So, after a nice nights sleep and a filling breakfast while looking over the ocean, I set out for the French Riviera, specifically Antibes, where my next campsite was. The trek took about 2 hours and wound through many small towns on the coast that were quite pretty. I went right by Monaco (which, amazingly is a sovereign country, despite the fact that it is basically a third of the size of Rhode Island), but didn’t stop in. After getting to my campsite I had to wait 2 hours to check in because apparently I had arrived during the 2 hour lunch break they take every day (French!). After checking in I had a bit of a debate. I could a) stay at the campsite and go to the nice pool, b) go to Monaco (about 30 mins drive 1 way), or c) go to St. Tropez (about 2 hours drive 1 way). At the advice of a friend who I’m sure meant well, and in a curiosity to see the famous vacation spot of P-Diddy and Jay-Z, I decided to go to St. Tropez. The drive there was fine, and I got there about 5pm. Once I got there, the frustration started. There were no parking spaces anywhere. Finally I found one on the outside of town near the harbour, and it was street parking that cost 2.50 Euros an hour! So, I parked for 1 hour, walked around a bit, and left. The city was nice enough, but not as nice as Cinque Terre or the other towns on the Riviera. Overall, I liked the Italian side of the riveria more than the French side. Although there is more to do on the French side, it is also more commercial and has less soul. The other part of my frustration of the day, was after my 1 hour excursion to St. Tropez, the traffic was so bad coming back it took 3 1/2 hours to get back to the campsite. So, following the somewhat less than stellar day I watched some James Bond in french in the lounge at the campsite and went to bed.

Euro Road Trip, Day 12

2009-07-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

Originally I was going to spend today in Verano, then head over in the afternoon to my campsite in the Italian Riviera on the west side of the country. But, after spending most of my time in cities so far I was a bit citied-out, so I decided to go somewhere one of my hostel-friends told me about: Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is south of Genoa on the coast of Italy, and is basically 5 small remote towns linked together by a railway and a footpath. All the towns essentially cling to the coastline right above the water. It is an absolutely gorgeous place where the mountains basically run into the sea. After some hassle getting on a train out of Venice, I finally got to Cinque Terre around 2:30. I wanted to hike the trail so I parked at the northern-most city, Monterosso. The whole hike from Monterosso all the way to the last of the towns, Riomaggiore, is supposed to take 5 hours. Unknown to me, by choosing to start at Monterosso, I started at the most difficult end! The hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was the hardest and longest of the entire hike, followed by the next hardest part which was Vernazza to Corniglia. By the time I got to Corniglia, although the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, I was completely knackered. I think I sweat my bodyweight twice over. So, rather than hike another hour from Corniglia to Manarola, I took the train from Corniglia to Riomaggiore and hiked back to Manarola from Riomaggiore. This is just a stunning piece of the world, and I’d like to come back here and take more time to really appreciate it. I finished my rather whirlwind tour of Cinque Terre around 7:30, and drove to my campsite about 2 hours away.

One comment about the Italian highway. While it was cool and I think I drove over more bridges and through more tunnels than I have ever been through (the highway cuts through a ton of mountains and over many valleys), the tolls were ridiculous. So far I’ve paid over 40 Euros in tolls. And, I don’t really have any other options because the region is so mountainous when I tell my GPS to avoid tolls it TRIPLES the time. So, my first housing problem occurred tonight. I got to the campsite at 10pm, and reception was closed. The only person around was this old italian guy who kept saying it was closed in Italian, no matter what question I asked him. So began the mad search for a hotel at 10pm at night in a random city in Italy. First I thought I could drive to Monaco, about an hour away. Luckily I’d figured out how to use the internet on my tiny old phone, and I used google to search for some hotels. Unfortunately, the hotels I called either didn’t have rooms or were 300 Euros a night. I’d rather sleep in my car than spend 300 Euros. Next I tried an Italian town on the riviera, Ventimiglia. I’d never heard of it, so I was hoping the hotel was cheaper. After calling a few that were all booked, I finally found one that had a room and was relatively cheap at 110 Euros. Since by this point I was quite tired, really dirty from the hike, and more than a bit frustrated, I said ok and made my way to the hotel: La Riserva di Castel d’Appio. I’m lucky I have GPS because I’d never have found the place in the dark without it. It is at the top of a mountain using tiny one-way roads that wind up the hill. However, once I got there everything was great. The room was clean, the shower was nice, and when I woke up the next morning the view was stunning. My room has a balcony that looks out over the ocean and the coastline. I’m tempted to stay the whole day here, but there is just so much to see! Stayed tuned for Day 13!

Euro Road Trip, Day 11

2009-07-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty fun and relaxing day. I woke up late, around 10:30, got dressed and set out for the day. I started with a few churches near the hospital region before taking the waterbus over to St. Michael’s cemetery. A friend of mine from Connecticut told me Stravinsky was buried there. It’s an interesting little island, as the whole island is a cemetery. I looked around for a while but I couldn’t find stravinsky’s grave. After the cemetery I took the waterbus to the island of Murano, home of the glass makers. I got rained on a bit here, but the shower passed after about an hour, and being prepared as I usually am with an umbrella in my camera pack I was fine. After the shower I went to a demonstration of glassmaking and then walked around to a number of the stores. The glasswear was all interesting, but not really my style. I would have bought a few pieces, but the ones I liked were all 40-50 Euros plus, and I didn’t feel like spending that much.

After Murano I headed back to the hostel where I met up with the other 5 people who were staying in the same room as me at the hostel. We all went and got some pizza, and after went out to a couple of bars around Venice. Although I enjoy camping, and it is certainly far cheaper than any other option, it is nice being able to easily meet other people at hostels.

Euro Road Trip, Day 10

2009-07-12T06:37:00.001-07:00

To add insult to injury, I did not sleep very well as my air mattress, which faithfully served me for 11 nights, died. It developed a slow leak, which in many ways is much worse than a fast leak because they are near impossible to find. I woke up, it was raining, and I was basically on the rocky ground. Ugh. Not the best way to start the day, but oh well. I decided to go to Venice a day early, so I broke camp, paid the bill, and parked my car at the airport in Verona in long-term parking and took the train into Venice. When I bought my ticket I took the first train to Venice. Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to the ‘Eurostar’ name on the side so after 2 stops when the ticket lady came I had to pay a ‘supplemental fee’. Doh! Oh well. All in all it wasn’t that expensive, and I’ll pay more attention on the way back.

Once I got into Venice I headed to my hostel where I was able to book another night, because originally I wasn’t supposed to be in Venice until tomorrow. After checking into my hostel (which was surprisingly nice!), I started walking around Venice. I did the main square, several churches, and also took a water bus. All in all I was underwhelmed by Venice. Perhaps I had built it up too high in my expectations as a very romantic city, but I found the narrow streets confusing and dirty rather than romantic and exciting. I think if I had to pick a city with canals I’d choose Bruge over Venice. But, nonetheless I’m glad I was able to go here before it sinks into the ocean.

Tomorrow I’ll be exploring some more of the churches, as well as taking a trip to Merano and seeing the glass factory before heading back to Verona.

Euro Road Trip, Day 9

2009-07-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

I woke up relatively early and took a shower. This campsite in Schwangau was the best campsite so far! Several restaurants in walking distance, really clean facilities, and free showers! Not bad for 10 Euros. After breaking camp I drove the 10 minutes to the parking outside Schloss Neuschwanstein. Actually, there are two castles right next to each other: Schloss Hohengau, and Schloss Neuschwanstein. Schloss Hohenschwangau was the original castle and summer residence for the Kings and Queens of Bavaria. Schloss Neuschwanstein is newer, known as the ‘Cinderalla’ castle in the States it is reportedly the design that Disney’s castle is roughly based on. Castle Neuschwanstein was build by Mad King Ludwig II, and the whole thing was actually dedicated to Wagner and his operas. I took the tour of both castles, and they were both very interesting. It was cool to see a piano that Wagner actually played!

After the two castles, I began the 4 hour trek through the Alps to my campground just outside of Verona at Pacengo. The Alps are absolutely beautiful, and probably my favorite part of the trip so far. I stopped everywhere I could to take pictures. Once I got to my campsite I set up camp and went down to the water. Compared to the Schwangau campsite which was the best, this was probably the worst campsite. It was expensive (double the cost of all the other campsites), the pitch was all dirt with ants, and the toilets had no toilet paper and were the squatting kind. Ahh well. The one thing it had going for it was that it was on the water. I watched the sunset on the lake with the Alps in the background and it was absolutely gorgeous!

Euro Road Trip, Day 8

2009-07-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Luckily when I woke up things weren’t too wet. After breaking camp and placing my still wet tent into the car (I know this is a no-no, but I didn’t have a lot of choices), I began the 3 hour journey from Munich to Salzburg. The trip there went fine, albeit with some traffic, but the weather was fine and as I got closer to Salzburg the Alps became into view. There is just something amazing and calming about mountains. Perhaps it’s the perspective they enforce on you by their sheer size. Either way I love them! Parking in Salzburg was an experience. I pulled into the Aldstaat Garage, which was basically a massive garage inside a mountain. Pretty cool and made me feel like I was inside some WWII bunker. Once safely parked I made my way into the city of Mozart’s birth. There was a lot going on today with an open-market on the main street with vendors selling everything from jewelry and souvenirs to fresh cherries and strawberries. After perusing the wares I went into the large Dom or cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful with a lot of intricate plaster moldings, but by far the coolest thing about it was that it had 5 organs!! The church is shaped like a cross, and in the center part of the cross on all 4 pillars there is a small organ, and then at the foot of the cross there is the 5th and largest organ. I don’t know if anyone has ever written an organ piece for 10 hands, but it sure would be pretty cool to hear one in that church! After visiting the church I walked around the town a bit. Seeing the kind of shops there made me wonder, what do people do for jobs here? The whole town is like an ultra-rich shopping mall: Hermes, Tiffany’s, several high-end designers, a Ferrari dealership. Crazy. After window shopping for a while I decided to go up to the fortress that overlooks the town. There is a tram ride that takes you up the mountain and into the fortress. The fortress was fun just because it gave an awesome view of the city from above. The actual tours and the fortress inside wasn’t really all that impressive. The other thing that was a bummer was just as I was about to go on the tour that ends in the observation tower (the highest point with the best view), it started raining and thundering again so they closed it. Ah well. I waited out the rain for a bit and then just went down and looked around the shops a bit more. I also walked past Mozart’s house, but didn’t go into the museum.

Finally, about 3pm I decided to get back on the road to get to Fussen where I would be staying the night. The drive took about 3 hours, and there was intermitten rain all the way there. I hope it doesn’t rain too much tonight! Originally I was going to do Schloss Neuschwanstein tomorrow morning and then stay the evening in Innsbruck, but I think instead of staying in Innsbruck I’m going to drive all the way to Verona, Italy tomorrow. I’ll still stop by Innsbruck, and I’ll take my time going through the Alps, but I’m considering staying 2 days in Venice, and maybe taking the train in. I haven’t figured it all out, but that is what adventure is for!

Euro Road Trip, Day 7

2009-07-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

I woke up fairly early and after brushing the sleep from my eyes I put some suntan lotion on and headed into the center of Munich. The day started out wonderfully, sunny and bright. I toured the Residenz (palace), which was pretty interesting. I also saw the treasury with more jewels and bling than you can shake a fist at. Again, the Residenz was an interesting site because much of it had to be reconstructed after it had been bombed to pieces by the Allies. Following the Residenz I toured a few of the churches, went up a church tower, and then headed over to the ‘English Garden’ which is the main park of the town. Now, I find it somewhat ironic that the Germans named the main park in their town the ‘English Garden’, not least for the fact that one of the things they allow there the English would be mortified by: nude sunbathing. Other than walking by the odd nude old people, the park is very nice. I stopped by the beergarden by the Chinese tower and had the biggest beer and biggest pretzel I have ever had in my entire life. The beer was in a massive mug, and I think it was about 1 liter of beer. The pretzel was bigger than both of my hands put together, actually it was probably bigger than 3 hands put together.

I lazed around the beer garden for a while before deciding to go to the Science Museum. On the way to the Science museum, the weather gods decided that my lucky streak of nice weather was over and the heavens peed on me. I got to the Science musuem ok, as I had a small umbrella with me in my camera bag, but I kept worrying about my tent while I was there. Another day, another time and I would have really enjoyed the museum. Despite the fact that not everything had English translations along with the German, the museum had so many different sections, from engines to electric power to old ships and planes to rocket science. But today I was just tired from being on my feet, and thirsty for water after drinking too much beer. So, after I walked around enough to feel I got my money’s worth, I headed back to the center of town. I waited out the rest of the rain in a coffee shop and then walked around the town a bit more. I had dinner in a old Bratwurst house, and had the Bratwurst, so I can say I’ve had my traditional German fare! Once back at the campsite the tent ended up being mostly ok. The tent is definitely NOT completely waterproof, as there were 2 puddles inside the tent, but overall I think it worked out fine. All in all a good but tiring day.

Euro Road Trip, Day 6

2009-07-12T00:49:00.001-07:00

Today was the long trek from the Black Forest to Munich. The drive took about 4 1/2 hours and was fairly uneventful. You gotta love driving on the Autobahn. Cruising along at 100mph, every so often having to pull into the right lane so a Porsche going at least 150 can blow by you on the left. Rather than going to the campsite first I decided to go to the BMW Museum just north of Munich. The building itself is really stunning, and the cars of course are beautiful. I think my favorite one that I discovered was an old BMW 507. It reminds me of the car I want to build, the AC Cobra Roadster. Some of the concept cars were pretty cool too. Following the museum trip I headed to the campsite. After setting up my tent I headed to the canteen where I purchased a ‘currywurst’, which I thought was going to be some interesting type of sausage I’d never tried, but ended up being a hot dog with ketchup and curry powder on it. It was tasty at least! After that I happened to meet 2 Americans from Houston, a brother and sister pair who were travelling Europe via EuroRail for 2 months. Oddly the sister knew someone I know at Frito-Lay! I chatted to them for a while and then headed off to bed.

Euro Road Trip, Day 5

2009-07-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

After waking up in a nice dry tent, I decided that the first stop in the Black Forest would be the legendary spa town of Baden-Baden. After a bit of searching for parking, I stopped at Friedrichsbad, also known as the Roman Baths. This was quite an experience! There are 17 steps that they take you through, with seperate men’s and women’s sides except for some of the last stages and on certain days of the week when couples are allowed to go together. The whole process is supposed to last about 3 hours or so. The first thing you do is take off all of your clothes. They then give you a white towel to wrap around yourself as you go to the first step which is a warm air bath. Basically it’s a room with wooden lounge chairs and the air temp is a dry 90 degrees or so. You spend about 15 minutes there and then move to the next stage which is basically the same as the first stage but a bit hotter, maybe 110. Stage 3 is a quick shower. Stage 4 is optional, and it is a soap massage. I decided not to do this step. Normally I would have, and when I did a similar thing in Turkey called a Hammam, I got one there and it was great, but this time I was pretty sunburned, and the thought of someone rubbing anything in a forceful manner on my sunburnt skin was not exactly my idea of fun. So, I skipped stage 4 and 5 (which is a shower after the massage). At this point a word of caution for the faint-hearted. Every stage from this point on you go completely nude. That includes stages 10 and 11 where the men and women are mixed.
So, stage 6, 7, 8, are basically steam saunas of increasing heat and intensity. You spend about 5-10 minutes in each and by the time you are done with them you are thoroughly hot and sweaty. Stage 9 is a quick shower to rinse off the sweat and then into the pool! Stage 10,11, and 12 are pools of decreasing temperature. Stage 13 is a very quick dip in an absolutely freezing pool, then in stage 14 they dry you off with warm towels. Stage 15 is the ‘creamery’ where you apply body lotion to yourself (thankfully no one is trying to do this for you). Stage 16 they tuck you into a very comfy bed for 30 mins. And finally Stage 17 is a lounge with reading material (unfortunately all in German so I could only really look at the pictures). All in all a really good and relaxing experience in a beautiful setting (all the pools and stage areas are in marble with statues and artwork everywhere).

After Baden-Baden I drove all around the Black Forest on this tiny road. The name Black Forest is a bit misleading. They should have called it the Black Mountains because it was very hilly! Lots of winding roads back and forth. I stopped a few times to take pictures and did a detour in this tiny village with a cool waterfall before driving to my final destination of the day, my hotel. This would be one of only 2 planned hotel stays. My room was very nice, and after going to the gym and the pool I had a very nice dinner as well. Finally having a proper internet connection I finished off some e-mails and drifted off to sleep following a great day.

Euro Road Trip, Day 4

2009-07-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

Woke up pretty early and began the long trek from Amsterdam to Wurzburg, Germany. The fun part about this trip was driving on the Autobahn in Germany. The Autobahn is basically what they call the highway with one important difference. Except in certain designated areas (like roadworks), there is no speed limit. None. I tested out my Golf GT and got up to 125mph! That was about as fast as I dared, because the steering was starting to get a bit light and I thought the front end of the car might lift off. The other cool thing about the drive was the toilets at the rest station. Now, I know that sounds really odd, but the cool thing was when you flushed this robotic arm came out and turned the seat 360 degrees while cleaning it! How cool is that! Robo-toilets. Other than that though, it was just a long drive: 5 1/2 hours. I got to the campsite about 3:30pm, quickly set up camp and went in to the city. I parked in front of this massive palace called the ‘Residenz’ and I went inside. It was quite beautiful, although I was slightly annoyed that they didn’t allow pictures inside, it reminded me of Windsor Palace: lots of gold gilt everywhere, highly decorated inlayed furniture, and cool parkay floors. The most impressive thing about it actually was not all the gold and plaster ceilings, but the fact that the Allies had bombed the crap out of the whole town in WWII, and they had completely restored the place to look just as it did in the 1700’s.
After taking a tour of the palace and a walk in the gardens out back I took a quick stroll around the town, mainly taking pictures of the 3 massive churches that dominated the skyline. Aside from the churches it was a normal town, lots of department stores and small shops. The interesting thing that I stumbled upon is that Wurzburg is a major wine producer, and I happened to arrive during a wine festival! The wine festival was actually being held in the palace gardens on the side, so after my walking tour of the city I went back to the festival for dinner and some wine. The wine was excellent (mostly white), and although my german skills leave a lot to be desired, I managed to procure a lovely dinner and 2 excellent glasses of white wine. At the end of the evening I drove back to the campsite and took an hour or so to write this all down, and now I’m going to read a bit more before going to bed and getting ready for tomorrow’s trip to the Black Forest!

Euro Road Trip, Day 2/3

2009-07-12T00:30:00.001-07:00

I woke up around 10 or so, checked out of the campsite and made my way from Brugge to Amsterdam, about a 2 1/2 hour drive. The campsite in Amsterdam was great, really cheap (22 Euros for 2 nights plus parking), and well located as it was easy to get in to the city from there. I got to the camp site in the early afternoon, and after setting up camp I went on foot into the city. This first day I decided just to explore without my camera, so it was just me walking around. I think I walked for about 7 hours, and man did my feet hurt at the end! I checked out the main sites, the sex museum, the red light district, the cafe’s. Just about everything is legal in Amsterdam, and if I wasn’t scared of the possibility of a drug screen at work, I probably would have tried the pot offerings in all of the cafes, but as it was, the smell was in the air everywhere. Amsterdam also has a lot of canals. Driving on the way there the Netherlands could have easily been mistaken for the Mid-West: flat with lots of cows and corn. On the second day there I did the more touristy things. I rented a bike, and after some initial problems (I got about 20 mins from the campsite when the pedal sheered off, had to walk the bike back and get a new one), I biked all around the city taking photos. Amsterdam is probably the easiest city I have ever been to to ride a bike. Everyone has one, and every road has a dedicated bike lane on each side, usually with a concrete divider between it and the cars. I went to the Van Gogh museum and the Rijks Museum. I rode past the Anne Frank house, but is was getting late and there was a massive line so I decided to skip it. I biked all around the Jordaan, the central part of the city, and back. Once back at the campsite I had an early evening, drinking beer at the bar and reading ‘Truth, Lies, and Advertising’ by Jon Steel. Great book.

Euro Road Trip, Day 1

2009-07-12T00:27:00.001-07:00

Woke up early (5 am) and was out the door by 6 am. The drive from London to Dover took about 2 hours and was pretty uneventful. I was astonished at how easy it was to ‘cross the border’. No passport check, no visas, nothing, just drive onto the ship and drive off the ship on the other side. The only thing I had to do was purchase a few vehicle specific things: France requires an ugly yellow reflective vest and a warning triangle, and also I had to stick these reflective stickers in the right spots on my headlights so that I didn’t ‘dazzle’ other drivers (English cars being right-hand drive, Continental European cars being like American cars - Left-hand drive). I took a few pictures of the white cliffs of Dover before heading downstairs into the main cabin. On the other side of the channel, I drove off the boat and easily slipped back into driving on the right side of the road, even though I was in a English right-hand drive car.

The trip to Brugge was pretty quick, I got to the campsite in about an hour and a half. The campsite was pretty sparse. Centrally located, but there was no toilet paper in the toilets. I don’t mean they had run out. I mean they had never stocked any to begin with. Good thing I brought a roll for emergencies! After setting up camp I took the bus into the city. Brugge is very pretty, a kind of medieval northern european version of Venice, with canals running everywhere. I found it hard to get orientated at first, but soon found my way. I checked out the church that had a Michelangelo sculpure of Madonna and Child, went to the Chocolate Mueseum (Belgium is famous for chocolate and beer), and I had a beer in the oldest tavern. This tavern has been serving in its original location and furnishings since 1517, that’s before America was colonized! After a day of walking around the city I retired to the campsite where I read for a while then went to bed.

Dave and Amy’s Scotland Extravaganza

2009-07-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

So, before I post all of the details from my European Road Trip that I just took, I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about the great trip I took at the end of May in Scotland. My sister Amy flew in to London from Pensacola, FL where she lives with her husband. This was her first time to the UK. I picked her up from Heathrow airport and we drove straight up to Edinburgh, Scotland (8 hours). For 1 week we drove around Scotland, staying in hostels every night except the last night. We stayed first in Edinburgh for 2 nights, walking all around the city, exploring the castle and hiking up to ‘Arthur’s seat’ where we were lucky enough to see a rainbow! After Edinburgh we drove to Stirling Castle and then on to Loch Lomond. The castle was fascinating, and the hostel in Loch Lomond was amazing! It used to be a manor house and it was beautiful. From Loch Lomond we travelled up to Glen Nevis where we climbed Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK. There was actually still snow at the top, so Amy and I hiked to the snow line (without waterproof boots Amy wasn’t going to make it to the top in 10 feet of snow! Besides we made it high enough after 4 hours straight up.)
After Glen Nevis Amy and I travelled to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, the Isle of Skye. A small remote island with gorgeous mountains and almost no people. Amy and I visited Dunvegan castle in the north and hiked the mountains near our hostel in the center of the island. One the way back to the mainland the next day we stopped off at a famous castle, and probably the most beautiful castle I’ve been to, Eilean Donnan. From there we went to Loch Ness, taking the boat tour and visiting the cheesy museums. After Loch Ness we went east and explored Grantown-on-Spey, the region of our ancestors of clan Grant. We also took a tour of the Glenfiddich distillery, run by the Grant Clan. Although I tried a few Scotch whiskeys on this trip, no matter what variety I tried I just don’t like the stuff! Can’t say I didn’t try though..... We also tracked down and took pictures of the outside of Castle Grant. However, we couldn’t see the inside because it is now a private property owned by a non-Grant. The castle had apparently been run-down and abandoned when an International Financier, a Scotsman from the lowlands bought it and refurbished it into a private residence.
After exploring our ancestry, we went to our final destination, Boath House. Boath House is a small, privately run 5 star hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant near Inverness. This was the big splurge of the trip and cost more than all the other nights at the hostels put together! We had our own little cottage, complete with living room, claw-foot separate bath and shower. The dinner was mostly courtesy of Pepsico, as I had won an award that allowed me to expense a certain amount. Dinner was exquisite. The last day was just a straight drive 10 hours from Inverness all the way back down to London. Amy and I had a wonderful time, and it was also great to spend time with Amy. I don’t think we’ve spent that much continuous time together since we were very little! Amy and her husband Dan are hoping to come to the UK sometime this year to experience England, as all Amy saw of England was Heathrow airport and my apartment.

Paris in April

2009-06-20T03:11:00.001-07:00

Alright, so it's been a really long time since my last post, and a lot has happened on my travels, but I figured I need to catch up before I go on my next trip in a week so here we go! Over Easter Weekend I decided to take my first trip to Paris. I had been waiting to go to Paris until I found someone to go with, but I decided that if I kept waiting for that to do things I'd never do them. So, I went on my own and had a great time.
I took the Eurostar train from London right into the heart of Paris. it was somewhat expensive, but very convenient. From Garde du Nord (the train station in Paris) I walked to my hotel near Monmartre. Over the next two days I probably walked 30 miles, but I saw just about everything: the Louvre, Notre Dame, L'Arc de Triumphe, Eiffel Tower, Les Invalide, the Rodin Museum, The Opera House, and Sacre Coeur. It was a great trip and I highly recommend it to anyone, just make sure you have good walking shoes!

Kew Gardens

2009-04-14T14:51:00.001-07:00

On my next adventure, I took the tube from Baron's Court which is near my house, down towards Richmond and stopped at Kew Gardens. Kew Gardens is just what it sounds like, a massive garden. There are several greenhouses and then just lots of paths and flowers all over the place. It was a great place to practice my skills at macrophotography, which is something I am really starting to enjoy a lot. The day was really great and peaceful, walking along wooded paths and inside misty greenhouses with exotic plants. The one thing that marred this idillic scene was that some idiot decided to put a landing flight path into Heathrow Airport directly above the gardens, so every 5 mins you get this thunderous sound of a 747 not too high off the ground as it comes in to land at Heathrow. Other than that it was great!

Trip to Cambridge

2009-04-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

The second fun thing I've done this year was to take a day trip up to Cambridge. It's about an hour or so drive north of London, and it's one of two really old and nice university cities in England (the other being Oxford). I visited a lot of the city in the day, from King's College to Clare College to St. John's College. I wasn't able to get into Trinity because there was a Master's ceremony going on. I also went to a very interesting little museum. One of the most interesting features of Cambridge is the river that runs through it and alongside the colleges. This area is very nice and many people go 'punting' down the river. Punting is essentially the activity of pushing a small boat along the river with a long pole, just like Huck Finn or one of the Italian gondolas in Venice. There are students everywhere, and while the attitude is more relaxed and fun, and while King's College Chapel is absolutely amazing, pound for pound I'd actually have to say I prefer Oxford. All in all, a fun day out though!

Recording with Noah and the Whale

2009-04-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Hello All-

Well it has been a crazy last few months and I haven't posted anything in a while, so at the insistence of my mother I figured I'd update everyone one what I've been doing. I won't really comment on work, although that is what I have been doing 99% of the time, I have done a few things for fun.

The first thing I was able to do was to sing back-up vocals with 8 other choir members for Noah and the Whale's new album out later this year. I think we are on 2-3 tracks and we feature pretty prominently which is cool. We certainly are better heard on this album than on the Snow Patrol album I sang on last year. The guys in the band are really down to earth and cool, and it was a blast to do. Below you can see me with 2 of the guys from the band, Tom Hobden and Charlie Fink, as well as pics of the recording studio.

Tallis Festival and other musings

2009-02-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

Well, once again it has been some time since I have posted. This is mainly because I haven't travelled anywhere in Europe or the UK for some time, although I did go back to Connecticut for my 30th birthday and Christmas which was great. Back in the UK, the last few weeks since returning from holiday have been a blur. Work is going well, but is crazy as always. On a fun note, I've had a lot of choir things recently. A couple of weeks ago I sang in an Octet from Exmoor on 3 tracks of the new 'Noah and the Whale' album. They are a british indie rock band that has already had a major hit with '5 years time'.

My latest choral experience happened this weekend. This weekend was the Tallis Festival, which was hosted by my choir, the Exmoor Singers of London. This year we had 165 singers participate, coming in from choirs all around the UK and Europe. The weekend consisted of a night rehearsal Friday night, all day from 10 am to 7pm on Saturday, and again from 10am to 6pm on Sunday culminating in a concert sunday night from 7:30-10pm. Our program included a number of great works, from the 40 part piece of Tallis' Spem Alium, to the 16 part Martin Mass. Also included was a crowd favorite 'When David Heard' by Eric Whitacre, and 'Hear O Lord My Prayer' by Purcell and David Sangstrom (two pieces). The Whitacre was especially amazing given the wall of sound that comes from 165 singers. Although it was a lot of fun to sing, I wish I could have sat in the audience for that one!

Anyways, not much else is going on at the moment. I'll post again when I go on another adventure!

A Saturday Walk on the Thames Path

2008-12-06T08:52:00.001-08:00

Today was the first weekend in many weeks that it hasn't been raining, so I decided to go for a walk along the Thames River. I took the Tube from Baron's court to Embankment, and then crossed the river and walked along the river path all the way to Tower Bridge. I passed St. Paul's Cathedral, the Globe Theatre, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and the London Eye. On the way back I stopped at Borough Market, which is an amazing covered market near London Bridge. There, I weaved among the crowds and sampled french cheeses and welsh sausage, tried an Ostrich burger and sipped mulled wine with apple and ginger spices. On the way back I also passed many street performers pretending to be statues, which then moved or danced when someone put money in their hat. There was also a very interesting sand sculpture in the little strip of beach along the river. All in all I probably walked maybe 10 miles, and it reminded me of just how cool and wonderful this city is with it's mixture of old and new.

The Fat Duck

2008-11-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

So, as a special treat, the brand team that I work with and I got a chance to go to one of the best and certainly most innovative restaurants in the world, the Fat Duck. The reason we got to go there is that we are currently running a promotion on Walkers where consumers get to send in flavour ideas, and we will choose a winner that will be sold as a new Walkers flavour, and one of the judges on our panel is Heston Blumenthal, owner of the Fat Duck.

The Fat Duck is located in a tiny village near Maidenhead called Bray. I think the village was built by hobbits because everything is really small! (see picture of really small door that I am standing near). The lunch itself was stunning, and certainly the longest lunch I have ever had, as we were there from 12:00 - 5:00. The most amazing dish for the senses was called 'Sound of the Sea' where they gave you an ipod that was inside a seashell, and the ipod played sea sounds while you ate this dish that looked like a beach yet was edible (see very blurry picture below). It was amazing! Although I think my favourite thing was actually something that was a small piece of a different dish which was these tiny little cubes of jelly flavoured like Mango and Douglas Fir. That's right, Christmas tree flavour! Sounds odd, but tastes really good. Anyways, below is the full menu (and wine tasting we had with each course). It was very expensive, but luckily the company paid for it! :)

Menu (in order)

- Nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse
- Orange and Beetroot Jelly
- Oyster, passion fruit jelly, lavender
- Pommery grain mustard ice cream, red cabbage gazpacho
- Jelly of quail, langoustine cream, parfait of foie gras
- Oak moss and truffle toast
- Wine: 2004 Collio Bianco, Lkin, Primosic, Fruii-Venezia-Guilia

- Snail Porridge
- Jabugo Ham, Shaved Fennel
- Wine: 2007 Chateauneuf du pape, Domaine de Beaurenard

- Roast foie gras 'Benzaldehyde'
- Almond fluid gel, cherry and camomile
- Wine: 2004 Pinot Gris, Rolly Gassmann, Alsace

- 'Sound of the Sea'
- Sake, Shiboritate, Tatsuuma0Honke, Hyogo

- Salmon Poached in Liquorice Gell
- Artichoke, Vanilla Mayonnaise and 'Manni' Olive Oil
- Wine; Quinta Da Leda, Casa Ferreirinha, Douro Valley

- Ballotine of Anjou Pigeon
- Black Pudding 'Made to Order', Picklin Brine and Spiced Juices
- Wine: 2005 Tokara, Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon/Petit Verdot, Stellenbrosch

- Hot and Iced Tea

- Mrs. Marshall's Cornet

- Pine Sherbet Fountain

- Mango and Douglas Fir Puree
- Bavarois of Lychee and Mango, Blackcurrent Sorbet

- Parnsip Cereal

- Nitro-Scrambled Egg and Bacon Ice Cream
- Pain Perdu and Tea Jelly
- Wine: 2006 Jurancon, Uroulat, Charles Hours, South West

- Petits Fours
- Carrot and Orange Lolly, Mandarin Aerated Chocolate, Violet Tartley
- Apple Pie Caramel 'Edible Wrapper'

Leeds Castle and Canterbury Cathedral

2008-11-08T04:33:00.000-08:00

Well, once again it has been a few weeks since I've posted, so at the prompting of my mother I figured I'd put a few more things on the web about what I've done. 3 weekends ago, in one of the very few weekends recently that it hasn't been raining, I set out in my car to the east of London to visit Leeds Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. It was a beautiful fall day, and while the colors may not be as vivid as they are back in Connecticut, they were beautiful nonetheless. At Leeds Castle I walked around the grounds, where they had an aviarium with many exotic birds, the castle itself was quite nice, but smaller than others I had recently been to. They also had a hot air balloon ride you could go on, but I didn't think it was worth 150 quid!

I felt very British at lunch, as they had a restaurant overlooking the castle (which is on a small island in the middle of a lake). I tried a very British dish called 'Toad in the Hole' which is very tasty and basically comprised of mashed potatoes, yorkshire pudding (which is like a puff pastry), and sausages with gravy. After a nice lunch and some Earl Grey tea, I got back in my car and headed about 20 minutes from Leeds Castle to Canterbury. Canterbury is a lovely town, with a charming town center full of little shops and restaurants. The Cathedral itself is quite nice as well, and there was a choir and orchestra rehearsing something while I was there. After a walk around the cathedral and grounds it was time to head back home to London. I would recommend it as a day trip to anyone looking for a bit of old English charm!

First European Holiday Part 4: The Amalfi Coast

2008-09-20T03:10:00.001-07:00

Well, what can I say about the Amalfi Coast. I loved it, even though I did the shotgun version. On Day 1 I took the train from Rome to Sorrento, and while I had originally planned to go to Pompei after dropping my bags off, I had a big headache, and having just seen a lot of ruins at Villa Adriana that I hadn't particularly wanted to see, I was a bit too ruined-out to bother. So, after a brief nap I just set out to explore Sorrento. Sorrento is set into a cliff on the coast, and it offers a lot of shopping, restaurants, and stunning views of the ocean and Mount Vesuvius. The next day was the shotgun portion of the trip. All in one day, I took the ferry from Sorrento to Positano, the bus from Positano to the Emerald Grotto, the bus from the Emerald Grotto to Amalfi, and the ferry from Amalfi to Salerno where I stayed for the evening. The coastline is amazing, especially seen from a boat where you can appreciate how these little towns cling to the mountain side. All of the towns were really cool, and I'd definitely like to go back someday for a more relaxing holiday. After staying overnight in Salerno, it was time to go home so I took the train back to Rome and the airport, and then flew back to London. Overall it was a great trip where I saw a lot of amazing sites. Next time though, I think I'll take some friends with me!

First European Holiday Part 3 1/2: The Vatican

2008-09-20T02:54:00.001-07:00

The Vatican is quite the all-day experience. in addition to the main things that people relate to the Vatican (the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica), there is a large museum full of Roman and Egyptian artifacts which are really cool. i went early in the morning and actually got there before I lot of the museums opened so I sort of did two loops, the first one where I saw mainly the Sistine Chapel, and then the second loop where I went to all the individual museums. It's hard to describe all that I saw in the museums (that's why I took so many pictures), but there was one thing that stuck out as odd to me. In the Sistine Chapel, in the ceiling painted by Michelangelo, all of the women are really really muscular. It was almost like he created all males in all the scenes first, and then decided to make some of them female by adding little boobs and slightly feminine faces. Very odd, but overall an amazing painting. After all of the museums in the Vatican I waited in line to begin the very long trek up to the top of the Cupola of St. Peter's. It is 570+ steps from the bottom! It was a really nice view from the top though. After that trek I wandered around inside the church which is beautiful. You'll notice a picture of Michelangelo's sculpture La Pieta below. There were a number of really cool sculptures in there.

I also went into the Vatican treasury where they have a lot of Reliquaries. Reliquaries are essentially pieces of Saints put into statues. They had things like the finger of St. Luke, or pieces of Jesus' cross. Pretty amazing stuff!

First European Holiday Part 3: Rome, Italy

2008-09-20T02:28:00.000-07:00

Rome is amazing. The buildings are stunning, the food is great, and the women are beautiful. Day 1 in Rome was exploring the Palatino Hill and the Colosseum, as well as a number of fountains, churches, and squares around the city. There is so much history there it is hard not to just stand there in awe. I practically made it my mission to eat pizza and gelato every day. For my fellow Americans who don't know what gelato is, it is basically the tastiest, smoothest ice cream ever. I'm not a big dessert fan in general, but if I could have gelato everyday for the rest of my life I probably would. Day 2 in Rome was the Vatican, which I'll talk about in my next post so I can post more pictures, and Day 3 was a trip to Tivoli. The trip to Tivoli was actually somewhat disappointing, mainly because it was a pain to get there, and when I got there I chose the wrong Villa to go to. Essentially there are two Villas there, Villa D'Este and Villa Adriana. One is an old Roman palace that is now ruins. The other is full of really cool fountains. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure which was which, and Villa Adriana is outside of the city so it's harder to get to. I picked Villa Adriana, thinking it would be the one with the fountains, but it wasn't. So, I walked around some more ruins, which were nice, but by that time I was a bit ruined-out. After Tivoli when I got back to the Hostel we had a nice hostel-wide dinner at a local restaurant that was a lot of fun. People who stay at hostels are usually British or Australian, young, and really nice, so it was cool to hang out with them. Following Rome it was on to the Amalfi Coast!

First European Holiday Part 2: Istanbul, Turkey

2008-09-20T02:08:00.001-07:00

So, vacation part 2 was Istanbul. In Istanbul I stayed in a hostel called the Bauhaus Guesthouse located in the heart of Istanbul, Sultanhamet, less than a mile from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia. When I first got there I was really tired and weak as I was fighting a case of Sultan's revenge, but after a day of rest and a lot of Ayran I felt a lot better. There was so much that I explored in Istanbul that it's hard to capture it all here. On my first day I saw the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, and the Basilica Cistern. Day two was Topkapi Palace and the Kuyuk Mosque, and Day 3 was a boat tour of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, followed by an afternoon haggling in the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul has such a rich history, with the shifts from early roman to Byzantine christian to muslim, it really is a meeting point of the East and the West. I'll suffice it to say that I took 301 pictures in Istanbul. It was amazing!

First European Holiday Part 1: Ankara, Turkey

2008-09-20T01:43:00.000-07:00

So, part of the reason why I haven't posted in a while is that I was away on vacation for 2 weeks to Turkey and Italy. My first stop was the capital of Turkey, Ankara, to visit my friend Okan. Okan and I went to business school together and after school we started a small furniture distribution company together in Massachusetts. Okan is Turkish, and his family has a lumbermill and chair factory there, so we were basically importing their furniture and selling it to dining room stores. Now, Okan has a similar business in Ankara, but he sells parts to other furniture manufacturers. Ankara itself does not have that many sights to see. It's mainly government buildings. While I was there I basically spent most of my time hanging out with Okan, meeting his friends and his fiance, etc. We did do a couple of cool things. The two main ones were the Hamum and the Museum of Anatolia.

A Hamum is also known as a Turkish bath, and basically what happens is you go in the Men's side (men and women are separated, for obvious reasons). You change out of your clothes and they give you a pair of flip flops and a large towel that you wrap around your waist. First stop is the steam sauna. It is exceedingly hot, and there was so much steam in there I couldn't see 2 feet in front of me. You sit in there as long as you can (I lasted 6 minutes), and then it's off to the dry sauna. This one was even hotter, I could barely sit on the wood bench as it was burning my bum! After the dry sauna, you go into this room that has several long marble platforms. The platforms are heated and have a little pillow on them. You lie down and an attendant comes in and with a sandpaper-like glove on they start scrubbing all the dead skin off of you. It's like a super-exfoliant. After the scrubbing, they then do combination of washing you with soap and massage. Then you are rinsed off and sent to the cool waiting room where you are given new dry towels and you lie down on beach lounge chairs and sip Ayran (a Turkish yogurt based drink). It was a very relaxing experience!

The other thing I did while I was there was I went to the Museum of Anatolia. I was surprised by the number of Egyptian and Roman statues they had, it was pretty cool. After the museum we went to see the Temple of Augustus, which is now ruins next to a Mosque. It was great to see my friend again after so long (5 years). Next stop, Istanbul!

Chatsworth House

2008-09-20T01:26:00.000-07:00

Also back in August, one Saturday I took a nice 3 hour drive up from London to Derbyshire, to Chatsworth House. Chatsworth House was featured in both the movie Pride & Prejudice, and the new movie, The Duchess. The grounds and the house are absolutely amazing, and I think it ties with Castle Howard for my favorite place in England so far. Like Castle Howard they let you take pictures inside, and there are amazing paintings, sculptures, and furniture everywhere. But, the most amazing thing is really the grounds outside. It's really varied, from still rectangular lakes and tall fountains, to cascading waterfalls, to garden mazes and rock gardens. It's a great place to spend a bright summer day wandering around!

Doritos Collisions event

2008-09-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

Well, It's been quite a while since I've posted, so I'll try and catch everyone up on all the things that have been going on. It's been a bit crazy! Back in August one of the brands my friend Joe works on, Doritos, held a very unique launch party for a new product they are putting out called Doritos Collisions. Back when I was in the US last year Doritos Collisions was one of my first research projects when I got to Frito, and now it's launching in the UK. The thing is though, they don't have a lot of media money to spend on advertising, so they developed a kind of lower-budget viral campaign. This campaign was being launched by this event. Essentially each of the 4 flavours were turned into mascots, all of which wrestle each other. Kind of like a stuffed animal version of WWF. So, they rented out a bar in London that happened to have a large wrestling ring, and they filmed this event. I have to say it was one of the oddest, but fun events that I have ever been to. I mean, when do you get to see a man in a Green Pepper suit body-slamming another man in a Bull costume? Since it was in the evening, I also got a couple of good shots of the London bridge.

Blenheim Palace, Dinosaurs, and Big Ben at night

2008-08-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a bit dreary, but despite the rain I did manage to see a few more of Britain's sights. Although Castle Howard still ranks as my favorite, Blenheim Palace was lovely. The natural history museum was pretty good, but unfortunately extremely hot and muggy inside, so I didn't stay too long. One of the nights last week I was a bit bored so I tried my hand at some time-elapsed photos of Big Ben. That's it for now, a bit brief, but enjoy the photos!

Walkers BU gets competitive....

2008-07-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

As a celebration of our strong performance in the first half of the year, our general manager, Richard Evans, arranged an afternoon of fun and a dinner for all of the Walkers marketing BU. The evening included human foosball, Segway slalom, and a scrabble type game. We also played a kick-ass game of dodgeball (which unfortunatly I don't have pictures of because everyone was playing). We all got really into the games and got far sweatier than we anticipated, but it was all good fun. Dinner was great, and although I got home really late, it was an all-around good time!

Orford Ness and my new choir

2008-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Well, my big news of the last week or so is that I joined a new choir in London, the Exmoor Singers. (www.exmoorsingers.org) They are a relatively small chamber choir that is very good, and they seem to do most things a cappella. I just happened to join the week that they were going on their annual weekend trip away, so I decided to tag along. Their weekend trip was to a place called Orford Ness, which is on the east coast of the country, about 2 and a half hours north-east of London. Orford Ness has an interesting history. It is essentially a long skinny island, and although it is now a nature reserve, it was once a military base. In fact, it is the place where radar was invented! However, now basically all there is on the island is the small lodge we stayed in, a lighthouse, and a lot of old derelict buildings.

The weekend was pretty fun, it was interesting to get to know so many new people at once. The music was quite difficult, but interestingly enough I did get picked for a solo (however, it may have been slightly biased because the solo was for 'And so it Goes' by Billy Joel, and I'm the only American guy). Unfortunately, the piece got cut before our concert the next day due to the fact that the program was already too long. But anyways, I get ahead of myself. So, Saturday was basically non-stop rehearsal for 6 hours. Rehearse, break, rehearse, lunch, rehearse, break, etc. At the end of the evening we had a really nice dinner and played some games, including Twister (which I won one of the rounds). Oh, one other thing that happened that day is that we took a tour of some of the old military buildings. The car we took to see the buildings however, was meant to hold maybe 4 people. We fit 10.

On Sunday we traveled to Aldeburgh, where we sang a short 1 hour concert for a number of very nice old ladies in a church, who kindly served us tea and cakes afterwards. One very interesting thing to note is that the church we sang at is the final resting place of one of the greatest composers ever, Benjamin Britten. Following the concert, I drove back to London and drove a couple of my new choir-mates back as well.

A 4th of July party in London...

2008-07-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess there are actually 2 things for me to talk about that have happened in the last week or so. First, I moved into London! Finally! I now live in Hammersmith near the Charing Cross Hospital in a flatshare with 3 other people. Although I haven't spent a lot of time with my roomies yet, they all seem very nice. My room is nice and big, and I have my own balcony (which I am currently using as storage space for my luggage and hockey bags.... I've been here now a week and a half, and the past weekend I finished unpacking and also bought a bookshelf from IKEA. Unfortunately, I also uncovered 3 more losses that were in that fatal box that never made it over from the states (the one that contained my Playstation 3 that was 'misplaced' by the shipping company). The final losses were 3 sets of DVD's: the Lord of the Rings special edition set, the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th movies in the Star Wars series, and the Indiana Jones Trilogy. Oh well. It's only stuff after all!

The other thing that happened is that I was invited to a 4th of July celebration at the American Embassy in Regents Park in London. Despite the oddity of celebrating independence day in the country that we won independence from, the party was pretty nice. There was a TON of security, guards with machine guns, and metal detectors before you got in, but once inside it was very fancy. They had Sara Brightman (Andrew Loyd Webber's ex-wife) sing the English and American national anthems. Unfortunately, she is now really old and her voice has taken on the really old woman wobble. Nevertheless, I had a good time chatting with the head of legal from our company and some others.

Finally, I just joined a choir in London called the Exmoor Singers. They rehearse on Sundays at the Imperial College, and they seem like a pretty good group. In September when the other choirs start up I'm going to check them out as well, but for now this will do great.

The English version of a State Fair

2008-06-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been a few weeks since my last post. I've been busy working and also trying to find a flatshare in London, which I finally did. I'll be moving to Hammersmith in a week! So I haven't done a lot of travelling recently, but 2 weeks ago I went to the South Eastern Agricultural Society fair with my roomate, which is basically the English version of a state fair.

So, the food was less than stellar, and certainly no where near as good as most US state fairs, but they did have two things that were particularly British and interesting: Tug of War and the Cavalcade of Hounds. The Cavalcade of Hounds is a presentation of the time-honored british tradition of fox hunting. However, given that fox hunting is no longer legal here, it is basically a dying art relegated to State Fairs. In to the large show ring came 9 packs of dogs and their respective huntsmasters in their very british red and blue riding coats. After a brief presentation, they did a mock hunt around the ring. It was quite a sight to see over 300 dogs running around! The amazing thing was they were all really well behaved together, no barking. As the pictures show, it was quite an amazing spectacle.

The other cool thing I found, and my new favorite sport, was Tug of War. Now, this is not kiddie tug of war, but a proper sport put on by the Young Farmers Association (basically the 4 H club of England). They were syncronized and really powerful, and it made we want to find an amateur Tug of War league somewhere.

That's about it, the other interesting bit was that they had a tent with one side called "Fur", and the other called "Fowl" and inside had more different types of bunnies than I had ever seen, with the "fowl" side having some quite interesting kinds of chickens and roosters.

All in all a great day, and I'm looking forward to my next British adventure, London!

York, vikings, and bad hotels

2008-05-31T16:06:00.001-07:00

Well, this weekend I decided to drive up north to York to see the sights. It's quite a hike, being a 4 hour drive with no traffic, and a 6 hour one with, so I pre-booked a room in York for Friday night. I picked one that was cheap and close to the center of the city. Unfortuneatly, I got what I paid for. When I got into the little room with a single bed, it wasn't the fact that it was a single bed that bothered me, but more the fact that when I turned down the bedding, there was dirt and hair on the sheets. So, instead of actually sleeping in the bed, since I feared that dirt and hair were a sign of other potential things living in there, I instead slept on top of the bedding with the extra blanket from the closet over me. Before I went to bed however, I did go for a run around the city. Like a lot of European cities, given that they were built before cars existed, they are not that big, so you can run or walk around the entire city pretty easily.

The next morning, I got up nice and early and set off to explore York. My first stop was the viking center of Jorvik. Jorvik was the original name for York, and they have an exhibit there that details the archeological exploration that they have been doing at the site. I must admit, I was hoping for a bit more from the Jorvik center, being a Viking myself. The experience was a bit too focused on how the archeologists did there work, rather than really having people experience what it was like. However, it was still very interesting.

Next stop was Yorkminster, the largest cathedral in Northern Europe. It is huge! I took a ton of photographs, and I hiked up the 257 very steep and narrow stairs to the top of the cathedral as well. Although the cathedral is massive, I must say that of the English cathedrals I have visited so far, Salisbury remains my favorite. Of course, there are many more cathedrals to go....

After wandering around the town a bit more, and also walking along the outer wall of the city (yes, there is still a big stone wall around the city from medieval times), I decided to go to a castle on the outskirts north of York called Castle Howard.

Castle Howard turned out to be my most favorite thing I have seen in this country to date. It helped that it was a beautiful day out, but Castle Howard is amazing. Huge sprawling gardens, lakes, forests, an amazing interior with hundreds of statues and pieces of art every bit as dazzling as the interior of Windsor castle (and Castle Howard lets you take pictures!). it was truly an idllyic day.

The drive back to Reading was uneventful, save for the scenery. Overall, Britain is a very beautiful country, full of rolling green hills, splashed with vibrant yellow rapeseed fields. Despite being civilized for far longer than the US, it somehow seems less settled. Most of the land mass of the country I have seen so far is farmland, not cities or even towns, and all of it is beautiful. Well, it's late and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow!

Windsor Castle

2008-05-25T02:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I thought about going to Caterbury, but I was really tired so I slept in until 11 or so. Given that Saturday is my day for travelling around England, I decided to go to a closer attraction, Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is the largest castle still in operation in the world (i think), and Queen still holds parties and things there. Even though the wait was long (30 minutes to get it), the weather was great and I ended up in line next to a older American couple so we got to talking for most of the wait. Once inside it was very beautiful, although unfortuneatly they don't allow pictures inside the State Apartments. The State Apartments were some of the most lavish things I have ever seen with beautiful inlaid wood furniture, oriental pieces, gold gilt everywhere, there were also many arms displays, some dating back before 1800 that had jewels encrusted onto sword scabbards and hilts. And of course, once outside I got my picture taken with the iconic guards.. It was a great quick trip that was fascinating and fun!

Trip to Bath

2008-05-23T14:03:00.001-07:00

As a continuation of my so far solo day trips around England, I travelled last Saturday to Bath in the Southern part of England. Bath is best known for the Roman Baths that still exist there. The weather was not all that spectacular (as british weather is usually not), but all in all I had a very enjoyable day looking around the old roman baths, seeing the abbey, seeing the Royal Crescent which is basically a really low row of apartments, and generally walking around. One other cool thing I was able to do was see a demonstration at a glass blower's in town, and he let me give it a shot! Of course, my first try was less than brilliant, but it was fun!

Of Castles and Rental Cars....

2008-05-14T12:48:00.000-07:00

Well, although it is now Wednesday, I'm actually going to write about last Friday. Last Friday I drove from Reading up to Warwick, to visit a research supplier. The drive up was about an hour and 45 minutes, and all in all, went fine. However, after finishing my meeting at the research supplier's office, I then had my rental car (called hire cars here), decide to stop working. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to have the AA guy (AA not AAA as in the states), check out the car, decide it was toast, follow me to the local Peugot dealership right down the road, and then drive me 15 mins to the nearest National rental car place. All in all, an annoyance and a waste of time, but not a big deal.

Anyways, following the car ordeal, I decided to go to an attraction nearby, Warwick castle. The castle is currently operated by Madam Toussard's, so in addition to just being a cool castle, there are life-like wax figurines all over the place, dressed up in period costumes. Also, in addition to walking around the castle and the various exhibits, there was a large Trebuchet outside on the grounds, the largest in the world they claimed, and they did a live demonstration while I was there, catapulting a fireball about 300 yards. (I'm not great a judging distances, but it wasn't very far, I think so they could make sure it didn't set anything on fire!). Another interesting exhibit they had was called "Ghosts Alive", and was basically a college actor's dream summer job. In one of the towers of the castle, a man supposedly was murdered back in ancient days. So, in a very dim and smoky room, actors act out what might have happened that night, and while you walk from room to room, people jump out from hidden corners and yell out to scare you. Basically it's like a live version of some Disneyland ride. Rather amusing actually, especially since they only do the exhibit in tour groups, and the group I was with for the exhibit contained two Japanese women who screamed and giggled at every noise.

After 3 hours of walking up and down stairs and all over the castle grounds, I was pretty exhausted, but it was certainly a great place to visit!

A difference between US and UK roadways...

2008-05-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

For all Americans thinking of driving in the UK, there is something you should be aware of. I'm not talking about the fact that they drive on the other side of the road. Rather, there is a large difference in attitude and application between the two countries and how they deal with a favorite American pastime, speeding. In the US, we are all constantly looking for hidden cops on the side of the road with radar traps waiting to get us. The radar/lidar detector business is huge. In the UK, it is approached from a completely different angle. Perhaps it is because the roads are already really narrow, and there is generally little to no shoulder on the side of the road. But cops don't really set up speed traps here. Instead, everything is automated.

Britain is one of the most surveilled countries in the world. On the road ways there are two major types of speed checking devices. On side roads (and some highways), a camera is set up pointing at the road and a series of white hashmarks painted onto the road. During that stretch of pavement with the white marks if you exceed the speed limit, the camera takes a picture of your license plate and you get a nice ticket in the mail along with 3 points taken off of your license. You only have 6 points to begin with.... The other method is used primarily on the motorways. Two cameras are set up, one at the beginning of the section, and one at the end, sometimes several miles apart. The signs indicate that you must travel an average speed of whatever is indicated. That means that you can vary your speed over the distance, as long as the overall average is at or below the speed limit. Again, cameras take a picture of your license plate as you enter the section, and again as you leave, and if the time elapsed between the two is shorter than the time it would have taken travelling at the average speed limit, you get sent a ticket and a fine of 3 points.

All in all, it's not a bad system. At least all of the speed traps are marked, and actually most GPS units warn you of them before you get there so you can slow down. Perhaps that is why the penalties are a bit harsher than the US. They must figure, we told you it was there, if you don't slow down, it's your own damn fault!

A number of firsts....

2008-05-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend was what they call a "bank" holiday weekend. Today (monday) was a bank holiday which means everyone gets the day off from work. Overall, this weekend contained a number of firsts for me here in he U.K. In chronological order it was, my first withdrawal from my UK bank account, my first visit to a UK movie theatre, my first UK choral concert, my first UK fill-up of gas (petrol as they call it here), my first haircut in the UK, my first round of golf in the UK, and my first sunburn in the UK.

The weekend started out on Friday with me leaving work a little early so I could go to the bank before it closed to get money. Because of the rather backwards banking system that they have here, I was at that time still waiting for the PIN number for my bank car, so in order to get any money out of my account I had to call up customer service, tell them the bank branch I wanted to go to and the amount I wanted to take out, then they had to write up a form and fax it to the branch before I could remove any money from my account. Yikes! What a pain. Anyways, following the bank fiasco, I headed over to the Oracle (no not the ancient greek center of prophecy, meerly my local mall in Reading. There I went to see the new Iron Man movie, which was actually pretty good. I was not, however, all that thrilled by the 5 pounds (10 bucks) that parking cost me to park at the mall. Oh well.

So that was Friday night. Saturday during the day was rather uneventful, I started reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. About 4 pm I started driving to St. Alban's Cathedral to see Harry Christopher's "The Sixteen" perform. 'The Sixteen" are a small chamber choir (there were actually 18 at this performance), and they are one of the best choirs I have ever heard. For those of you who know choral music well and really enjoy it, you may know what I mean when I say "choral bliss". For me, choral bliss are those moments during certain pieces that are just so exquisitely beautiful, particularly when a good choir is singing them in really good tune, that just make your spine tingle and give you goosebumps. The Sixteen were able to do that several times, most likely because of their excellent soprano section that has nearly perfected the straight-tone style reminiscinent of boy sopranos but with a harder edge. Unfortuneatly, despite having bought 2 tickets and tried for a week to get someone, anyone, from the office to come to the concert with me, I ended up going alone. Not a big deal, but I do hate wasting good tickets.

On my way back home from the concert I encountered another first, that is, my first filling up at a petrol station. Now, the tank of my rental car was not completely empty, it had at least an 1/8th of a tank left, but still, to fill it up cost my ~50 quid. That's $100! I'm very glad that my company pays for the majority of my gas, otherwise I would be screwed.

So, to round out the weekend, Sunday I did basically nothing except get my haircut (at a Supercuts, apparantly they have conquered the world and are now everywhere!) and I also got some golf shoes. On Monday I headed out to Windsor to meet up with a couple of guys from work for a friendly round of golf. A little bit of pretext. 1) I am absolutely crap at golf, and don't really care enough about it at the present moment to try to get any better. 2) I am very fair-skinned and will burn in less than 15 minutes. So, although, as predicted I did horribly, I did have a good time walking around the golf course in the uncharacteristically beautiful day, which I then proceeded to give myself a nice sunburn. Ah well, perhaps it will fade into a nice tan. Either way, it was a pretty good weekend here in jolly ole England!

A Sunday drive in idyllic southwest England

2008-04-27T07:57:00.001-07:00

Well, after a rather boring saturday where I basically did nothing but visit a couple of car dealerships and watch movies, I decided to go for a drive today. I bought a satnav (GPS for us Americans) on saturday, so I don't have to worry about getting lost anymore.

I woke up around 9:00, and by 9:30 I was on my way to Stonehenge! Only 1 1/2 hours away from Reading is one of the oldest places around, dating back to 3000 B.C. (i think). Along the way on the highway every so often there are beautiful fields of brilliant yellow flowers, which I later discovered was a plant called rapeseed, which is harvested for it's oil. In the US it is known as canola oil. Anyways, I after driving through some rain I arrived at Stonehenge around 11:00. Luckily, the rain had stopped, and though it was a bit gray, it was still fascinating to see.

After I walked around for a bit, it was still pretty early so I decided to go see another nearby attraction, Mompesson House in Salisbury. That is the house that was used in the film "Sense and Sensibility". On my way there, I had no idea I would actually run into a massive cathedral! Salisbury Cathredal is obviously, in Salisbury. It has the tallest stone spire in the world (according to the random deacon I met), and overall it is just really impressive. Although I went to the Mompesson House, the cathedral was by far more interesting, probably because of my St. Thomas roots, but there is just something magical about being in a huge stone cathedral, especially when the organ is playing.

I knew I had to head back relatively soon, as my roomate told me traffic can get bad coming back that way as many people go down to the Southwest for weekends, so I started on my way back, but before I got all the way there, I stopped at Old Sarum Castle, basically the first location of Salisbury. It is very run down now, (being extremely old does that) but it was still neat to look around the old fort. Anyways, it was a great sightseeing day, and now I'm back home about to do a bit of work before the start of the workweek. :)

British-American Dictionary... the beginning

2008-04-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

So... as I am discovering, there are many differences in the English language between American English and British English. I'm going to put down as many as I learn here in this blog. Here are the ones I have come across so far:

British American

Knackered = Sleepy

Taking the Piss, or Taking the Mick = Making fun of someone

Snog = to french kiss someone

"isn't it?" = this doesn't mean much, but it is said after almost every sentence

First night out in London

2008-04-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight was my first night out in London. I really need to get a smaller camera to take pictures of these outines, my big camera is great and really detailed, but too big to carry around all the time. Anyways, I met up with a new friend from work in London today. I took the train in from West Reading (only 14 pounds, not too bad) and met up with my friend at Paddington station. From there, we walked around Maida Vale, which is a really pretty quiet residential area of London before we headed off to Camden to meet up with two of her friends.

Camden is a cool area, reminds me of Woodstock in the 60's (not that I was even alive back then, but it's like what I percieve it was like), although more punk rock than hippy. Lots of people running around with little shops and things. We headed to a bar overlooking the canal and we hung out there for a while. After the bar we went to Bayswater to a Malaysian restaurant for dinner which was very good. I guess people eat dinner much later here, as when we ate around 7:45pm. Food was great, and we went to a bar in Bayswater after that. All in all a great time, but my feet are killing me because 1) we walked a ton more than I am used to walking and 2) I wore my cowboy boots today and they are not completely broken in! Ah well, another day left in the weekend to recuperate.....

My first two days in the UK.

2008-04-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the beginning of my first blog, and also the beginning of my journey abroad Europe. Although originally from Connecticut, I was living in Texas for the past 14 months working in Consumer Insights at major food manufacturer there. I've now transfered to the UK office of the parent company. I'm currently living in a temporary situation in West Reading, looking to move to London in the near future, but I'm writing this blog for three reasons: 1) to keep a record of my travels and experiences here 2) to keep my family and friends back home up to-date with what I'm up to (calling with the 5 hour time difference is somewhat difficult) 3) comment on all the interesting idiosyncracies of life in Britian and how it compares to the U.S.

So, all that said, my first two days in the UK have been pretty good. In general, things are smaller here. The showers are a bit smaller, they have washer and dryer combined into one machine that does both, the cars are smaller. The smallest paper currency denomination is 5 GBP, so you end up with a lot of heavy change in your pocket. Hamburgers are practically non-existent, and fish and chips are EVERYWHERE! Along with my favorite, steak & kidney pie.

I don't have a car yet, because the forms are taking a bit to take care of, but they should be all set now, and hopefully I'll have at least a rental next week. I've been taking the train to work, and that has been fine for now.

My roomate for the moment is a nice 39 year old british woman who works in logistics. Without a car, and working off of cash until my bank account is set up, I haven't done a whole lot yet. About the most I've done is wander around Tesco (kind of like Wal-Mart), and set up my home wireless network (somewhat of a challenge due to a different type of network than we have in the US, it's called ADSL, and the jacks resemble regular phone plugs in the US).

I also took a picture of a funny sign near my house....