Gone a long time!!

Sorry about the whole "I've been gone a long time" thing... DH and I got back from a two week tour of the UK about oh... three weeks ago. The only claim to sucky posting I can make is that my new (1 year) job eats ALL MY TIME and when I get home at night I'd rather knit than post (can ya blame me??) .


Anyway, we had a great time and we were really ready to come home. We flew into London on the 11th of May and drove to Bath.


We spent three days in Bath (which was really only worth two). We saw the Roman Baths (shocking, I know) and on our first night there we were able to go to a concert at the Cathedral of something Handel, and something Purcell. It was beautiful, but after an overnight flight with very little sleep on the plane; well let's just say Jen looked like a bobble head on the dashboard of a car on a bumpy road. It was warm and close and I just couldn't keep my eyes open.


Next we spent one night in Stratford on a total crap shoot. We knew what was playing at the Royal Shakespeare Company, but were weren't able to get tickets in advance. The show was completely sold out. On a chance, we elected to spend one night ther in hopes of getting returned tickets or standing room. We got VERY lucky. We got to see Sir Ian McKellan in the title role of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Incredible. Did I mention there's nudity in the play? Yeah, Ian McKellan? Hung like a horse. (We were in the back of the upper balcony and we did-not-need-binoculars... you do the math).


Oh yeah, and the actor who plays Argus Filch from the Harry Potter movies lives in Stratford and I spotted him! We tailed him into the grocery store but we were reasonable enough not to take an unsolicited picture of him. You know that gaunt, sallow, kind of unwashed look? Yeah, it's not make up....


Then on to Conwy in northeast Wales. The countryside is breathtakingly beautiful. If I was going to relocate to somewhere in the UK, that's totally where I'd go. But then, I'm all about SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and DH was kind enough to point out that what with all the rain I'd probably be swingin' from the rafters after one winter.... thanks, Dear.


From Conwy, we drove (or I should say I drove, Hubby was too freaked out about driving on the wrong side of the road) to Edinburgh, Scotland. It's always been a dream of mine to see Scotland (seeing as how that's half my heritage), but I must admit; I was sorely disappointed. Edinburgh Town Center was filthy. The rest of Europe has cleanedup their historic buildings but in Edinburgh everything was covered in black soot. Yuck. We went to see Edinburgh Castle and the Honors of Scotland (their equivalent of the Crown Jewels)... all three of them. Again with the disappointment. But we did find a lovely Thai restaurant that was run by a very nice Thai family. We ate there both nights.


Oh and fish and chips?? :( yuck. Food in general? Yuck. I'm very picky about my food. I don't like food where I can't identify that the ingredients originated from the earth in some way and there was a fair share of processed or creepy combinations. I'm just not going to eat a Bacon, Cheese and Butter sandwich on Whole Grain bread. No matter how good the locals think it is... call me small minded, but there it is.

From Edinburgh, we were supposed to go to York, but by then we couldn't stomach driving to another town, lugging our ludicrously large American suitcases up to the third floor of another B&B, not having enough time to unpack, lugging them back down the stairs and reloading them into the car, only to drive away again 24 hrs later. So we didn't.


I called our hotel in London and asked if we could come early. Fortunately, we could and we wouldn't have to switch rooms half way through. So we did.


We spent 5 days and 6 nights in London. Sights that were seen were as follows:

The British Library (Treasures of.... and the special exhibition Sacred, check out the Turning the Pages link.) This was my favorite stop in London.

The British Museum
Westminster
St. Paul's Cahtedral
The Tower of London (oh, the Crown Jewels....)
British Museum (again. You can't do it all in a day.)
Windsor Castle
The Millenium Bridge
The Globe Theater (where we saw Eammon Walker of the HBO series Oz fame in Othello)
The Royal Opera Company (fromt he outside)
Picadilly Circus (not worth the effort)
Parliament and Big Ben


By Friday afternoon, we were ready to come home. So my dear friends, if you'd like a pictorial tour of our visit, follow the link to my Flikr pages for our UK Trip 2007!


Glad to be back!