Teal, My Dear
scionofgrace said "Tell us everything!" so, well, here it is. Everything.
1. Up at the usual time, and I called the airline to make sure my flights were still going ahead; they were, but the operator noted that since there was wind and not much time between flights, she spontaneously offered to move my flight time from 3:27 to 12:50. Which I did. The transatlantic flight left at 7 from Newark. The plane had a screen in the back of each seat for movies, TV, games (!) and a neat map where you could see the plane's location, altitude, and things. I didn't really use mine; I ate the meal (mediocre lasagna) and tried to sleep. Couldn't. We arrived in Birmingham at 7 a.m. UK time. Somehow the customs agent let me in despite the fact that I could barely answer her questions intelligently; in the bathroom I marveled at my very, very dilated pupils. Then I took the train for 45 minutes to Derby, where I met Amanda and the second day began.
2. Derby is pronounced "Darby" and according to Rick Steves has "little or no tourist interest." We took the bus back to their apartment--very high ceilings, neat backyard/patio thing with high fences, cool combined kitchen/living room--where I showered and changed and we headed out into the street. Our first stop was a charity shop where I bought a hideous used purse to replace the one I'd brought because it came apart at the seams pretty much the moment I put it on. Then we stopped in at the cafe operated by their church and had tea. So far, so British. We chatted with her friend Walter and headed out.
England, apparently, is thick with walking paths. This is not the case in America. Where I live there are distressingly few sidewalks, let alone offroad paths. So we took a path past a graveyard, just to see it, and spent a while winding around the town. Toward the center of town we stopped at some kind of bake shop and got chicken pasties, which I loved and am pretty sure I can replicate at home. We poked around some more charity shops, stopped at a chocolatier, and went to the market for cloth. The market is large and enclosed, very much like the Central Market in York, PA. We examined the goods and then set off. On the street we stopped at a Dinky Donuts cart for a dozen mini donuts that were just unbelievable: we ordered them, he squeezed them into the oil, shook them in a paper bag with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and thirty seconds later they were in our mouths. Completely fantastic. Then we stopped at some kind of tiny silk museum, which was attached to some kind of Rolls Royce museum, which was hosting some kind of exhibit of Dinky miniatures (unrelated to the donut), which was pretty awesome actually: hundreds of tiny die-cast cars and planes and trucks. Then we went home, stopping at the grocery store, and soon Jason was home. We ate, we played a British version of Trivial Pursuit with questions none of us had the faintest hope of answering, watched the Top Gear episode where they cross the Channel in aquatic cars, decided our Saturday plans, and went to bed early.
3. Wales day began with a hunt for breakfast on the go; we found an expensive rest stop and just decided to stick with it. The trip was longish but had very interesting scenery; the highways looked like racetracks and the hills were covered with sheep and rapeseed plants. We drove to Conwy, and first stopped in at the castle, where they convinced us to get tickets to an Elizabethan town house as well. The castle was in good enough shape to walk around, a beautiful view. Afterward we got lunch (I had a ploughman's on tahmthelame's recommendation) and headed out to the town house, Plas Mawr, which was in amazing shape despite being multiple-hundred years old. We went through the audio tour, interrupted by very talky tour guides, finishing in a wonderful upstairs exhibit of medieval medicine, where I learned a new way to tell if someone is bewitched, got a new source for the Oscar the Cat case, and discovered that the symbol for physicians was at one point the urine flask. The house is famous for being well-preserved and containing loads of plasterwork which showed a lot of severed heads. We left to stroll around the city--and then the city walls. We saw the smallest house in Britain and the bay. By then we were pretty tired, so we headed down to a waterfall (passing by a place billed as "the ugly house" which wasn't particularly ugly) and then tried to find a pub for dinner.
Pub 1 was full. Pub 2 was full. Pub 3 had a place for us, but took so long getting our food that we were within five minutes of abandoning the place and hoping our pocket change covered the drink tab. I got a steak-in-ale pie, which was admittedly awesome, although it would have been better about an hour and a half earlier. Then home and to bed.
4. Sunday we went to their church, which, to my slight disappointment, was built six months ago and Methodist. We had tea afterward and got a frozen pizza for lunch. Then we headed out to Sherwood Forest.
Now, Jason had been there with work and he claimed it was barely commercialized, mostly just a forest with insanely old oak trees. That sounded fun. We got there to discover that it was thoroughly and hilariously commercialized, so we went through the ancient Robin Hood exhibit and into the gift shop full of suction-cup arrows, and then headed off to the oaks, which were as insanely old and weird as advertised. The largest, the Major Oak, is between 800 and 1000 and held up by metal rods. The photo I linked doesn't really show its size. It's 33 feet around.
We found a pub for dinner, where I got the requisite fish and chips. At home we sat around watching movies until bed.
5. Travel day started at 5; they carted me to the rail station and it was back to Birmingham, where I bought the only two souvenirs I wanted: a copy of The Sun and a Mars bar. Check-in went very quickly and smoothly. The plane ride, at 9, went less quickly. They fed us a half-decent pot roast at around 11 UK time and a terrible warm turkey sandwich around 11 US time. I watched two episodes of House and Edward Scissorhands, and played solitaire and Alchemy obsessively. We finally, finally landed, and I found my connecting flight, only to find it canceled due to weather half an hour later. The airline was able to put me on a flight to Cleveland and then back to Pittsburgh, the second leg of which was a commuter flight with a beautiful view, and I arrived not much later than I would have with the original flight.
And now I am here.
Worth it: Carry-on luggage only. I am never checking a bag again. It was lovely.
Not worth it: Those eye things for sleeping. They actually made it too hot to sleep, and didn't help at all.
Airline: Amazingly accommodating. Continental, incidentally.
Airline food: About on par with the average microwave meal. Am astonished to have gotten any at all.
Money: I am in love with the pound coin. Wish the dollar coin was that small, heavy, and accepted.
Weather: Beautiful start to finish. The vacation-weather curse must lie with my parents.
Nationalism: Did not take any guff for being American, thank goodness.
Driving: Did not ride in fear of being hit by the other lane of cars but sort of forgot which way right and left were.
Purchases: Universally cheap and silly.
The Sun: Even sleazier than I had been led to believe!
Mars Bar: No nuts! This was one of my earliest forays into concocting ludicrous explanations for weird news: a woman walked into a Woolworths and bought 10,000 Mars bars, retail, loaded them into her limo, and left. Discovering that they have no nuts was relevant because it implies a longer shelf life. I never came up with a solid explanation (best guess: drug smuggling) and consider this the one that got away.
I'm willing and able to elaborate on anything, if you want to hear more, but right now it was all about getting everything out before I forget. :)
1. Up at the usual time, and I called the airline to make sure my flights were still going ahead; they were, but the operator noted that since there was wind and not much time between flights, she spontaneously offered to move my flight time from 3:27 to 12:50. Which I did. The transatlantic flight left at 7 from Newark. The plane had a screen in the back of each seat for movies, TV, games (!) and a neat map where you could see the plane's location, altitude, and things. I didn't really use mine; I ate the meal (mediocre lasagna) and tried to sleep. Couldn't. We arrived in Birmingham at 7 a.m. UK time. Somehow the customs agent let me in despite the fact that I could barely answer her questions intelligently; in the bathroom I marveled at my very, very dilated pupils. Then I took the train for 45 minutes to Derby, where I met Amanda and the second day began.
2. Derby is pronounced "Darby" and according to Rick Steves has "little or no tourist interest." We took the bus back to their apartment--very high ceilings, neat backyard/patio thing with high fences, cool combined kitchen/living room--where I showered and changed and we headed out into the street. Our first stop was a charity shop where I bought a hideous used purse to replace the one I'd brought because it came apart at the seams pretty much the moment I put it on. Then we stopped in at the cafe operated by their church and had tea. So far, so British. We chatted with her friend Walter and headed out.
England, apparently, is thick with walking paths. This is not the case in America. Where I live there are distressingly few sidewalks, let alone offroad paths. So we took a path past a graveyard, just to see it, and spent a while winding around the town. Toward the center of town we stopped at some kind of bake shop and got chicken pasties, which I loved and am pretty sure I can replicate at home. We poked around some more charity shops, stopped at a chocolatier, and went to the market for cloth. The market is large and enclosed, very much like the Central Market in York, PA. We examined the goods and then set off. On the street we stopped at a Dinky Donuts cart for a dozen mini donuts that were just unbelievable: we ordered them, he squeezed them into the oil, shook them in a paper bag with powdered sugar and cinnamon, and thirty seconds later they were in our mouths. Completely fantastic. Then we stopped at some kind of tiny silk museum, which was attached to some kind of Rolls Royce museum, which was hosting some kind of exhibit of Dinky miniatures (unrelated to the donut), which was pretty awesome actually: hundreds of tiny die-cast cars and planes and trucks. Then we went home, stopping at the grocery store, and soon Jason was home. We ate, we played a British version of Trivial Pursuit with questions none of us had the faintest hope of answering, watched the Top Gear episode where they cross the Channel in aquatic cars, decided our Saturday plans, and went to bed early.
3. Wales day began with a hunt for breakfast on the go; we found an expensive rest stop and just decided to stick with it. The trip was longish but had very interesting scenery; the highways looked like racetracks and the hills were covered with sheep and rapeseed plants. We drove to Conwy, and first stopped in at the castle, where they convinced us to get tickets to an Elizabethan town house as well. The castle was in good enough shape to walk around, a beautiful view. Afterward we got lunch (I had a ploughman's on tahmthelame's recommendation) and headed out to the town house, Plas Mawr, which was in amazing shape despite being multiple-hundred years old. We went through the audio tour, interrupted by very talky tour guides, finishing in a wonderful upstairs exhibit of medieval medicine, where I learned a new way to tell if someone is bewitched, got a new source for the Oscar the Cat case, and discovered that the symbol for physicians was at one point the urine flask. The house is famous for being well-preserved and containing loads of plasterwork which showed a lot of severed heads. We left to stroll around the city--and then the city walls. We saw the smallest house in Britain and the bay. By then we were pretty tired, so we headed down to a waterfall (passing by a place billed as "the ugly house" which wasn't particularly ugly) and then tried to find a pub for dinner.
Pub 1 was full. Pub 2 was full. Pub 3 had a place for us, but took so long getting our food that we were within five minutes of abandoning the place and hoping our pocket change covered the drink tab. I got a steak-in-ale pie, which was admittedly awesome, although it would have been better about an hour and a half earlier. Then home and to bed.
4. Sunday we went to their church, which, to my slight disappointment, was built six months ago and Methodist. We had tea afterward and got a frozen pizza for lunch. Then we headed out to Sherwood Forest.
Now, Jason had been there with work and he claimed it was barely commercialized, mostly just a forest with insanely old oak trees. That sounded fun. We got there to discover that it was thoroughly and hilariously commercialized, so we went through the ancient Robin Hood exhibit and into the gift shop full of suction-cup arrows, and then headed off to the oaks, which were as insanely old and weird as advertised. The largest, the Major Oak, is between 800 and 1000 and held up by metal rods. The photo I linked doesn't really show its size. It's 33 feet around.
We found a pub for dinner, where I got the requisite fish and chips. At home we sat around watching movies until bed.
5. Travel day started at 5; they carted me to the rail station and it was back to Birmingham, where I bought the only two souvenirs I wanted: a copy of The Sun and a Mars bar. Check-in went very quickly and smoothly. The plane ride, at 9, went less quickly. They fed us a half-decent pot roast at around 11 UK time and a terrible warm turkey sandwich around 11 US time. I watched two episodes of House and Edward Scissorhands, and played solitaire and Alchemy obsessively. We finally, finally landed, and I found my connecting flight, only to find it canceled due to weather half an hour later. The airline was able to put me on a flight to Cleveland and then back to Pittsburgh, the second leg of which was a commuter flight with a beautiful view, and I arrived not much later than I would have with the original flight.
And now I am here.
Worth it: Carry-on luggage only. I am never checking a bag again. It was lovely.
Not worth it: Those eye things for sleeping. They actually made it too hot to sleep, and didn't help at all.
Airline: Amazingly accommodating. Continental, incidentally.
Airline food: About on par with the average microwave meal. Am astonished to have gotten any at all.
Money: I am in love with the pound coin. Wish the dollar coin was that small, heavy, and accepted.
Weather: Beautiful start to finish. The vacation-weather curse must lie with my parents.
Nationalism: Did not take any guff for being American, thank goodness.
Driving: Did not ride in fear of being hit by the other lane of cars but sort of forgot which way right and left were.
Purchases: Universally cheap and silly.
The Sun: Even sleazier than I had been led to believe!
Mars Bar: No nuts! This was one of my earliest forays into concocting ludicrous explanations for weird news: a woman walked into a Woolworths and bought 10,000 Mars bars, retail, loaded them into her limo, and left. Discovering that they have no nuts was relevant because it implies a longer shelf life. I never came up with a solid explanation (best guess: drug smuggling) and consider this the one that got away.
I'm willing and able to elaborate on anything, if you want to hear more, but right now it was all about getting everything out before I forget. :)