Christmas in the Country

We had a lovely Christmas week out in the English countryside. There were a few things that Laura and I realised once we got settled out in the cottage for a few days.


First, having space is AMAZING. It wasn't just the wide open fields (filled with sheep!) and hilly farmland that surrounded the house, although that was pretty spectacular. More than that, it was having more than one chair to sit on and more than two rooms to be in that was so lovely.

Second, when left without the internet for a week, I turn into a super-reader. I burned through 5 books during the week we were there, and it was fantastic. Sitting in a comfy chair, feet up, next to a roaring fire, reading a good book. There are few things better than that.

Third, cottages in this area were apparently built before modern humans became normal sized. As you can see from this picture, the house is not appropriately "Bob-sized." I bumped my head on the beams, doorways and ceiling more times than I care to remember. Laura was perfectly contented to walk upright through the doorways and then laugh at my misfortune.


Fourth, proper footwear is important. When stomping about on the hillside chasing sheep, it is vital to wear waterproof shoes. Laura remembered to bring her wellies, but I did not have any, and didn't bring my hiking boots. Luckily, we went into the nearest "big" town on the second day and I bought a pair of wellies for £7 that worked wonders.

Laura, doing her best to catch a sheep

In any case, it was a great week to rest and do just about nothing. We're back in London now and enjoying our second week away from work and the craziness of the city (by staying in our flat and napping as much as possible).

Here are some pictures from our week in the cottage.

We wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2009 is even better than 2008 has been.

Happy Christmas!

We continue our streak of seeing how long I can go without a trip home while simultaneously suffering from severe homesickness by snubbing our friends and family and not coming back to VA for yet another important holiday. But really, how many times in my life will I be able to celebrate a British Christmas? Probably not many, so we’re trying to take advantage of it.

In that spirit, Bobby and I have rented a traditional British cottage out on the Welsh border for Christmas. The cottage fulfilled my two requirements for being “traditionally British:” 1) It has a fire place 2) There are lots of sheep around. It is, in fact, on a sheep farm. So bobby and I will be spending the week of Christmas sitting by the fire, reading some Dickens, going on walks through the Welsh hills, looking at sheep out the window, and trying to figure out what people do without internet.

We’ve rented a car to get out there, so wish us luck as we attempt to drive on the left (aka wrong) side of the road!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas, as the Brits would say) and a wonderful new year.

PS- Thanks to my mom who sent us some canned cranberry sauce! I will save it for Christmas day.

Things I Love About London, Part II: Cadbury Eggs

As i'm sure you're all well aware, you can buy Cadbury Eggs in the states as well. But one thing I love about London is the period of time during which I can buy this, my favourite of all candy, in this country. I believe that, perhaps only rivalled by Mac n Cheese, the Cadbury Egg is the single greatest culinary invention of mankind. This Sunday, December 7th, I bought my first Cadbury Egg of the season. I will be able to purchase them until well after Easter.



In the states, Cadbury Eggs are purely an Easter Candy and you can, therefore, only buy them for maybe two months of the year. In London, I get to enjoy them for nearly 6!! It has always bothered me that I cannot buy Cadbury Eggs year-round. Like Girlscout Cookies, I think that if they were always readily available, I would, infact, always be buying them. Hopefully one day the British will recognize this and start selling Cadbury Eggs for the additional 6 months of the year, but, until then, i'll appreciate the extra time I get to enjoy them here.



If you do not know what a Cadbury Egg is, shame on you. Please let me know and I will send you some.

Bruges

So, in our long backlog of blog posts, I haven't mentioned a trip to Bruges a few weekends ago. It was a short trip, and the major focus was drinking delicious Belgian beer.

I hopped on the Eurostar Saturday morning with some work friends for Brussels, then a short inter-city train onwards to Bruges.

The whole city felt so true to itself more than anything. There are some European (and American) cities that will play up their touristy areas: setting up a antiques market, restoring a castle or church, marking up food prices by 300%, etc. When we were walking through Bruges, the whole town simply felt old and inviting. There wasn't one part that was dressed up over the others, it just all seemed so uniformly perfect.

And then there's the beer!

I had researched a bar that was supposed to have 300 different beers available ('t Bruges Beertje ... which quickly became "The Bruges Beetle"), and we luckily stumbled that way early Saturday afternoon. We weren't quite ready to dive into all 300 just yet, so we had a few pints and then headed to dinner. After dinner we found another bar that served over 400 different beers! What luck.

Sunday was much more relaxed. We found the Brouwerij De Halve Maan, and went on a great tour of their brewing process. We ate lunch at the brewery, enjoyed some of their delicious liquid offerings, then headed for the Eurostar back home.

It was a very fun weekend, and a great excuse to get out of London for a short little trip to "the continent."

Here's the recap of pictures (I tried to take a picture of each beer I had, but that became more and more difficult as the night wore on).