Rivers and Mountains (or hills)

I am in an unusually good mood tonight, not sure why.  May have something to do with the fact that Aaron comes to visit in a little more than a week or maybe just that the weather is absolutely beautiful here.  For the past 4 days it has been perfectly sunny, not a cloud in the sky and around 65-70F.  This is definitely not standard English weather.  While I havent been able to use my rain boots yet, I cant complain if get this weather instead. 

Since the weather has been so beautiful, my coworker offered to take David, Diana and I out on Sunday afternoon and again on Tuesday night to show us the countryside around Chester.  On Sunday, we met around noon to go out on the river.  His wifes family has a 150-year-old rowboat that is absolutely beautiful.  It definitely doesn’t have the same luxuries that a modern rowboat but it was neat to be in something that old.  After rowing out of the city, we stopped so they could teach me how to row.  I had never rowed before and trying to work the oars was a little difficult.  There is a little rectangular piece that sticks out of the oar and you keep that between the two wood pieces to row (see u shaped wood pieces in picture below).  In a modern boat the oars would be fixed and you wouldn’t have to balance them so it’s a lot easier.  After about 5 minutes or so I finally got the hang of it.  Not to boast too much but my coworkers wife said I was very good, even said it came very naturally to me! yay finally a sport im good at!! The one sport we probably don’t have it Texas – love it. 

Me trying to figure out how to row

The journey was about 2 hours down the river to where we docked and then walked a ½ mile to a local pub.  The beers were delicious as always and I tried out a cheese plate.  Oh the cheese in England, they are so amazing.  After leaving the pub we rowed back and they left David and I row, just the two of us.  We were doing pretty good, definitely had a rhythm going.  I was quite impressed with ourselves.  I was the rower in the back so I had the harder job of following David and while it was tricky at first, I really enjoyed it.  Maybe I should join a rowing club?  I do live on a river so it could be fun, right?! 

Can I live in that house?

 Enough about the boat trip though.  Tuesday night, my coworker took us out to his home town, Helsby, which is about 20 minutes from Chester.  There is a hill in town that he offered for us to go walking around and again then go to a pub for drinks.  Well he first asked how we would like to go up the hill, either by the face or take the long way around.  I should preface this story that when I looked at the face of the hill, it looked like it went straight up and there was no way to get up there without having rock climbing gear.  Then my coworker tells us that his young nieces and nephews have climbed it so of course we say sure we can go up the face.  What we couldn’t see at the bottom was this little gully that went to the top.  It definitely wasn’t easy though!!  It was quite steap and several points I was a little worried we were going to fall backwards.  Poor Diana is only 5’2” or so and at several points here little legs couldn’t reach.  Luckily David was nice enough to give her a boost! 

It doesnt look as frightening here but it was quite steep!

Im glad we went up the hill though because the views were amazing, you could see Liverpool and beautiful farmlands.  I still cant get over how green everything is and they apparently are in a drought right now.  For those of you reading this who are from Texas, when we think drought, we think everything is brown, not green!!  After making it to the top, we walked down the back side and started making our way to the pub.  Apparently, there are designated footpaths all throughout England.  You could be on someone else’s land but the side of it is some designated footpath.  Kind of neat, but when you are following someone who takes you into the middle of a potato field, you begin to question.  Needless to say, we made it to the pub after several questioning remarks of “do you know where you are going?” and “are you sure we are going the right way”. 

Liverpoool on the horizon and Helsby below

All in all, I am still amazed at how beautiful the countryside of England is.  Lets just hope the weather stays this nice for me to enjoy it.  Well that’s all for me now, im off to heat up my leftovers.  

York for the day!

Well I did it, I finally travelled somewhere on my own, just me, myself and I.  I went to York on Saturday morning to walk around the town for the day.  Traveling by myself definitely had its ups and downs.  One the one hand, I could do WHATEVER I wanted and didn’t make anyone wait for me when I wanted to go shopping.  But it would have been nice to have the occasional conversation with someone especially when I saw something funny.  O well, it was definitely a fun day! 

Morning started out a little rough.  Friday night I had met up with some of Davids friends for dinner and drinks.  We joked that it was a United Nations dinner because of the 12 of us at dinner, we were from 10 different countries.  There was only 3 guys at the table so it was so wonderful to have female interaction.  I had a great time meeting all of the girls.  I just hope I get to see them again soon.  They took me to a bar afterwards that was right on the canal and it was pretty cool.  Thank goodness I didn’t get too drunk or I may have fallen in the river when trying to walk on the cobblestone.  J  I went home around midnight since I knew I had to be up for my 8am train. 

Saturday morning was a bit hectic because I felt like I was going to miss my train.  Luckily I made it on time after a short sprint (and intense speed walk) to the train station.  The train ride was 3 hours so I watched the country side go by.  Its so beautiful, just luscious green grass everywhere.  I tried to take a picture but the glare off the window was no good. 

When I finally made it to York, I went to the cathedral in the city centre.  It’s a pretty famous church and definitely beautiful.  I was told to climb the tower to the top of the church.  I was warned about the number of steps but it was definitely much worse than warned.  It was 275 steps to the middle level and then easily double or triple that to the very top.  I was the first one to start up the steps so I felt I had to go as fast as possibly, bad idea!! 

Middle Level - how did they build these?! 

By the time I made it to the very top I was definitely.  The views from the top were pretty cool but due to the fog you couldn’t see very far.  Once I walked around the top, I had to head back down the stairs.  I don’t know what was worse, walking up or down.  The stairs were so narrow, you couldn’t fit your foot on the step straight on.  By the time I made it down, my legs were shaking and wouldn’t stop!  (My legs still hurt 2 days later!!)

Ahh those stairs!! 

View from the top
 

 

After the tower, I wandered around the city to see what I could find.  I went to the Clifford tower which was part of the Castle (Castle isnt there anymore) and then headed to lunch for a proper British meal.  I had beef rib pie which is shredded beef under a puff pastry.  Oh my goodness, it was so good!!  And the craft beer made it 10 times better.  After lunch, I satisfied my need for some shopping and picked up a few things.  Oh yes, I picked up some chocolate truffles and they are delicious. 

Cool Band Playing in City, love that they all wore kilts

                         Clifford Tower

I ended the day on a brewery tour and picked up a 4 pack of some local beer.  Oh yes and walked around the city walls.  York is similar to Chester in that it has the remains of roman walls around the city.   I probably could have skipped the walls but I felt i should compare the two.  Chester is better!  I headed back to the train station a little early but I was exhausted after 6 hours of walking around and just wanted to sit.  I guess I was pretty tired because I fell asleep on the train and had to be woken up by the guy cleaning the train.  Pretty embarrassing to have to be woken up by a guy my age with my mouth open and possibly drooling.   

That’s it for now but I will have more for you Wednesday.  I am scheduled to go on a walk through the countryside Tuesday night so I will fill you in then.  

Stonehenged

Part 2….the rest of the weekend

After leaving Bath, we made our way to Stonehenge.  It was only about an hour drive so not too bad.  It really is in the middle nowhere though.  Just a bunch of rocks in the ground in the middle of the field, crazy right!?  I paid £7.50 to get in but also got a free audio guide, which explained the history, the types of rocks, and the theories about what it may have been used for, etc.  Getting the audio guide definitely made it more interesting but I really wish it would have been warmer out.  Towards the end of the circle around, I started fast forwarding because I was so cold and just wanted to get back in the car.  As Aaron said, it gave me the true English experience - cold, cloudy and partially rainy.  It is amazing that they still don’t really know what these stones were used for and that they have been there for close to 7000 years!!  In two of the locations the sun sets through the rocks during the winter and summer solstice, so one theory is that it was used to tell the seasons.  You also have to wonder where these stones came from and how they raised them up?!  Some of the stones weight as much as 45 tons or roughly 7 elephants.  I don’t think they just lifted the stone up. 

yep im freezing! 

After the trip to Stonehenge, we headed to a town called Leatherhead, which is one of the suburbs of London (zone 6 on the tube map).  David had left some of his stuff at his buddies house from when he used to live there so we swung by to pick it up.  Because it wasn’t too far from Oxford, we stayed the night as well.  Nothing too exciting in leatherhead, just had a little too much Irish fun.  I did manage to get one of those Guinness hats (the floppy ones they give out for St. Pattys day).  A guy dropped it on his way out of the bar and I managed to grab it, I also didn’t tell him I had it when he came back in looking for it.  Oops J 

Sunday morning we headed to Oxford to check out the college.  David was nice enough to drive there so I could close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t hungover.  Oxford University is much larger than I thought it was, it’s actually split up into several different colleges that are placed all around town.  We toured around Trinity College, which seemed pretty small.  The dining hall (which they still use) only held maybe 100 kids.  The campus was really pretty though and I got to see the library they used for the Harry Potter films.  I learned that a lot of the school filming for Harry Potter was done in Oxford, but the castle stuff was filmed up in Newcastle.  Plan to make a trip up there as well. 

Harry Potters Library - and they still use it!

can i be an Oxford Student?

We left Oxford after our quick tour and grabbing a bite to eat.  We were all worn out of checking out a bunch of old buildings and tired from the night before.  Don’t get me wrong the town seemed quite nice, but seeing old building after old building, they are starting to look the same.  And we weren’t in the mood to pay £7 -£10 to tour the insides. 

That’s it for me now but I have made plans for next weekend.  There is a town about 2 hours away called York and im going to head up there for the day to check it out and do a little shopping.  But sometime between now and then I need to figure out what to do for the Easter weekend.  They have a four day weekend so im thinking about heading to wales but I need to figure it out soon before it gets booked.  

Time for Bath

I finally went on a proper adventure last weekend, I drove to Bath, Stonehendge, Leatherhead and Oxford.  Since that’s lots of places for one blog, I decided to split it up into two parts.  Plus I don’t want to write about everything tonight! Haha

Friday afternoon, my coworker David, his GF Diana and I all went to the rental car place to pick up the rental car.  Since work is paying for the rental car as part of me working over here, I rented the car in my name, which meant I had to drive on the wrong side of the road.  To say I was a little nervous was an understatement.  The roads here are so much narrower than in the States and they are FILLED with roundabouts.  The first 30 minutes of our trip out of the city was filled with at least 15 roundabouts, they never end!!  After the first few, I got the hang of it but they are still a little nerve wracking. 

The trip down to Bath took about 3 hours and we made it there just as the sun was going down.  Similar to Chester, Bath is an old roman city so its got a lot of history to it and looked very pretty at sunset (wish I had pictures but I was the driver).  It took us a while to find the parking lot and a few just misses on hitting someone or getting into a wreck.  City driving is much more difficult than driving on the motorways.  We checked into our hotel and then went about touring around the city.  The one thing that is so strange to me about small English towns is that shops close at 5 or 6pm!! And then the town looks deserted, not a fan.  I did manage to get some good pictures of the cathedral with no one around so that was a plus.  

We grabbed a pint of Guinness at a local pub than headed to dinner at a south American restaurant.  It was Davids birthday on Friday so we let him choose.  The food was pretty good for Spanish food in England.  We got an appetizer of Mexican popadoms which I was hoping to be like chips and salsa, not even close.  It came with salsa and guacamole but it was a giant chip the size of my head and covered in parika or some seasoning.  We elected not to celebrate Davids birthday too much because we had to be to up early the next day to get in all of the sight seeing before heading out of town. 

Saturday morning we were out the door by 9 and touring the town.  We first went down to a pretty garden and then headed to the Roman Bath tour.  The city got its name because it has hot springs located in the city so the romans called it “Aquae Sulis” which translates to bath in English.  The tour was pretty neat but I really wanted to jump in the hot pool.  Its had the same water for the past 1000 years so I elected to be smart and forgo the dirty water.  The tour took us around what used to be a Roman spa.  It had 2 hot springs, saunas, massage rooms and a temple to worship the gods.  It is amazing to see what people back then could carve out of stone with the tools they had.  If I remember correctly, the baths were only discovered in the last 100 years.  Apparently they had been built on top of and so no one knew it was there. 

Old Sauna room minus the floor which the tiles held up.
It was just a giant room that you would splash
 water on the floor to heat the room.

One of the baths -
check out the lady dressed in Roman garb! 

For the rest of the day we just walked around the city, went into a few shops and had an amazing pastry from this cute little bakery.  If there is one thing Brits can always get right, its pastry shops.  Oh my they are delicious and you can find one on every corner.  Thank goodness we walk everywhere or I’d have a problem. 

Well that’s it for now, im going to hold off on the last 3 stops until tomorrow.  

Me and my duck

Don’t really have much to talk about, its been a pretty quiet week and weekend.  It had been a while since I had a lazy weekend of doing absolutely nothing so I decided to do just that this weekend J Probably not the smartest idea since im in England but hey I have the next 6 months right? 

I did manage to go out on Friday night and that was pretty entertaining.  I met my coworker David and his girlfriend Diana at a local pub for a drink.  We chatted for a while and then went next door to one of the popular bars in Chester, but its more like a club with really loud music.  So loud you are screaming at each other just to have a conversation.  We didn’t do much talking but more people watching.  I was SOO intrigued by the outfits the girls wear out at night.  First off, this is a really old town, complete with roman walls all the way around the city and cobblestone streets everywhere.  Even with the cobblestone, these girls wear sky high heels at night!  It is amazing to watch them walk and not fall everywhere.  Of course, the really drunk ones do but they do that in the states too.  But the strangest thing to me is that these girls wear teeny tiny dresses to the pubs but never bring a coat.  It could be 10degrees outside and that doesn’t matter, they are not wearing a coat.  Me bundled up in a jacket, scarf, cardigan, and jeans definitely stood out.  I believe David said I looked like a kindergarten teacher in comparison to the girls around us.  Apparently girls DO NOT wear jeans out at night either, only skirts and dresses.  Looks like I will be sticking out for the next few months.  It was definitely a fun night of people watching though.  The bar we went to was called Revolution and it’s a prohibition themed bar with the staff dressed in 30’s attire.  Thought the American prohibition seemed to be an odd theme for you bar but it works for them!

Just a portion of the cobblestones

Today I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed but at about 3, I headed into town to pick up a few things.  I did manage to clean the apartment a little so I wasn’t a total waste of space all day!  I walked around the cathedral and got a few good pictures (see below) and even spent some quality time with a duck.  On my way home, this lady and I saw a duck pretty far from the river.  She had some bread with her so we fed the duck for a while, she was quite cute.  The town is pretty neat, quite a bit of shopping and it’s a big tourist attraction for England and the rest of Europe.  During the weekends, the main square is packed with people.  So much so that it’s hard to maneuver between all the people.  I am always amazed at the number of people.  Come 5pm though, all the people clear out and the shops close.  Learned the hard way that if you need to do shopping you better do it early, or else nothing is open! 

My duck! 

Last random comment…im amazed that even with the cold weather there are BEAUTIFUL daffodils around town.  So bright and colorful, its quite amazing.  Glad to see England isn’t totally dreary J

This is the canal i walk to work on everday, its about a half mile walk, not bad as long as its not too cold.  

Cheerio with a bow full of fiascos!

Hello everyone! Rather than sending the same email repeatedly, I decided to follow in Kelly’s wonderful footsteps and create a blog to detail all of my entertaining adventures (or misadventures).  This is my first blog so bear with me, as it may be all over the place. 

I arrived last Wednesday morning and it has been a mess of adventures since then.  To start the trip off, I arrived and had no phone service.  I do not know how we survived years ago without phones, I felt naked without one.  Luckily, our taxi driver had phone numbers for my coworkers here so he could call them to meet me and pick up the apartment keys.  Once in the apartment, I unpacked my suitcase and took a nap since I maybe slept for 2 hours of the 7 hour plane ride (on a side note, ides of March is an interesting movie….not at all what I expected).  After my nap, I met up with a coworker and went to the bank to set up a UK bank account and to the UK phone store to get a UK sim card for my phone.  This is where messes 2 and 3 start. We go to the UK phone store after seeing the bank is busy.  I tell the gentleman that I need to purchase a UK sim card for my phone.  I brought over an older iphone that I was planning to use over here with the UK sim.  Before this, David had been playing around with my US phone, trying to get it to work, he inserted his sim card, and it said there was an activation error.  We were a little afraid that the UK sim card may not work but were hopeful the phone people would know more about it.  They knew enough to tell me that my phone is locked and I would have to go to the apple store in Liverpool to get it unlocked.  Since Liverpool is a 40 minute train ride and home of the Beatles, I figured I could go check it out on Saturday, not a big deal. 

Now to the bank, in order to set up the bank account, I had to have a note from my office saying I was living here for the next 6 months and at what address.  Lucky for me, I was warned about this and came prepared.  When I hand over my letter and the woman starts putting in the details, David looks at my letter and says oh that’s the right postal code (apparently, his girlfriend had the same problem).  Next thing you know, she is telling me that I can’t get the bank account without the write postal code on the letter.  Doesn’t matter that it’s only off by 1 letter!  I proceed to crumple the letter right in front of her, I don’t think she liked that very much but I was having a rough morning.  I decided to give up for the day and go back to the office.  I did get a bank account the next day and am now waiting for my silly “chip and pin” card.  If you travel to the UK, be forewarned that a lot places don’t like credit cards, they want a chip and pin card, the equivalent to a debit card for us.  Most of them will take credit cards but you may have to fight a little for them to take it. 

Thursday morning my coworker from our San Antonio office arrived so I had another girl with me in the office which was quite refreshing!  I showed her around the town a little and Friday we went to the black tie dinner.  Dinner was fun and I even won a few rounds of black jack but learned I was a horrible craps player.  Better to find that out with fake money than real money in Vegas! We went out drinking afterwards and I was so afraid I was going to kill myself on the cobblestone street in my high heels but I survived.  Saturday we went up to Liverpool to check out the Beatles museum and get my iphone unlocked.  We were warned not to go until 1pm or later because there was a football match that started at 1 and it could be a nightmare getting up there with all of the Liverpool football fans.  We wandered around the Beatles museum and learned more about them then I never really cared to know (yes its hypocrisy but I was never a big Beatles fan).  Liverpool was really neat though, the museum in near a big dock in a pretty part of town.  Then we headed to the iphone store and straight into mess #5!  I had made an appointment there so I wouldn’t have to wait.  When I went up to the gentlemen to check in for my appointment he asks what I am here for and I tell him my story.  He then tells me that apple can’t unlock phones, only my US provided can do that.  I was so frustrated and defeated as this point.  I just wanted a UK phone!  We left and went to this pub called the cavern which is one of the original Beatles hang out places, it was pretty cool. 

                                                     Liverpool - Albert Docks

Sunday we decided to go down to London to show Jodi around, it was going to be a fast trip since we only had the day but it was just enough for her to see the important things like the London Eye, house of parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham palace and tower bridge.  It would have been much better if it hadn’t been freezing cold, rainy and windy but we survived.  After my umbrella flipped up twice, I gave up and just got wet.  I did get to do some shipping too and to those of you that know me well, I restrained myself and didn’t buy anything but a pair of gloves and earrings, no shoes!  We headed to the train station to go home and got there with enough time to head to a pub for some fish and chips.  We were staring at the TV screens for the longest time waiting for them to post the train platform when it got 5 till the departure time we went down to the main boards and say that the town of Chester wasn’t listed as a stop on the train.  We started freaking out and went over to the information desk.  Turns out our train was at 7:05 not 7:15, oops!  Luckily, there was a train at 7:35 so we were safe.  

                                           London Eye but upside down and with a bird 

Now fast-forward to today: mess #6….and attempt #3 to get a UK phone.  After calling AT&T and asking them to provide me with an unlock code, they tell me that there is the possibility my phone won’t be able to be unlocked for 5 years after my purchase date.  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!  I told my boss about it and he says he will just go down to the phone shop were they have a contract and put me on the BakerRisk plan.  I ask very nicely if he will take me now so I can get this off my list.  He obliges thankfully J  next thing you know we are spending 4 hours in the store trying to get a plan under the existing account.  Finally, a success and now I have a UK phone!!  Yay!!! 

Well that about wraps up my adventures for now….i will try to update this as much as I can but hopefully future posts will have fewer fiascos and more adventures.