Trip to England...

We just got back from a wonderful 10-day trip to England...

We left the kids with Ryan's folks (who are home from Hong Kong for a month-long vacation), and away we went.


We've wanted to visit England for a while, and for several reasons... just a few:

1. We're fans of British literature- Jane Austen, C.S. Forester (who wrote the "Horatio Hornblower" series), C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, etc etc...



2. We're fans of British music - Keane, Coldplay, Annie Lennox, Beatles, etc. etc.



3. Family History Research - Ryan's side (Oakes), and my mother's side (Rowe) came to the US from England. We were interested in seeing where they lived.



We spent 5 days in London hitting all the usual tourist spots - my favorites:

• The British Library - which had a fabulous display of beautiful and fascinating items, from medieval bibles to Jane Austen's diary, as well as handwritten music from Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and the Beatles. :) Also Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, Shakespeare's first works, etc. etc... I loved this place!


(outside the library - that's Newton I'm sitting below)




• Tower of London


• Westminster Abbey


• Windsor Castle


• British Museum


• St. Paul's Cathedral


• We were able to see the musical "Wicked" - it was amazing!


• We ate lots of delicious food - my favorites - "local" Indian food, pub food (i.e. cottage pie, fish & chips), and chocolate. I don't know why, but the chocolate tastes better there. I'll bet I ate 10 Kit Kat bars while I was there. I brought home several candy bars to do a taste test.

(Ryan outside "Ye Old Cheshire Cheese" pub, rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire of London. The food was great. It was a favorite hangout of Charles Dickens)

(Do you like Big Ben coming out of the top of Ryan's head?)

(At Platform 9 and 3/4 from the Harry Potter film)

We took a couple of side trips outside of London -

• Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare country), and Warwick Castle


• Stonehenge - very mysterious


• Bath - an old Roman city. Also Jane Austen lived there at one point and it is the setting for two of her books, and Salisbury - amazing city with one of these oldest cathedrals in Europe.

(That's the base of Salisbury Cathedral behind us. Inside is the oldest working clock in Europe, built in 1386)


• Portsmouth - we were able to tour old British Naval ships (exciting for us given our interest in the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester), also where Jane Austen's Fanny Price is from. :)


• Birmingham - where Ryan's ancestors are from. This was a huge city during the Industrial Revolution - it was very intesting to see where Ryan's relatives would have lived (19th century low-income housing) and worked (factories).

I think one of my favorite things during our trip was talking with the locals. As unpopular as America is right now (specifically Pres. Bush), the Brits are still quite enamored with American culture. Will Smith is huge over there! Also, the upcoming Presidential election is very exciting to them.

It was fun to discuss the differences in accents and vernacular such as:

Rubbish = Garbage

Flyover = Overpass

Chips = Fries (they call potato chips "Crisps")

Bin = Trash can

Holiday - Vacation (We were asked several times "Are you here on holiday?")

Loo = Toilet

Whilst = While ("Please mind the gap whilst existing the train.")

Tube or Underground = Subway

We found we had to repeat ourselves a lot. We were talking with a local we met at a museum who explained to us that we're not hard to understand, it's just that folks aren't expecting our American accent. What? We're not the ones with an accent! :) My favorite was when we were buying some treats at a convenience store and the checker, who was Indian, asked if were American. We answered yes, and he then added, "You talk funny." He said this in an Indian/British accent mind you.

We had a wonderful experience, but by the end, we were anxious to get home. We missed the kids terribly, but Summer and Joshua had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa.

I must add that although I love all things British, I was very happy to return home to the good old U.S.A. When we arrived in Newark from London and had to go through Immigration and Customs, we handed the guard our passport. He stamped it and said, "Welcome home." There on the wall was this huge American flag. I saw it and said a quiet prayer of gratitude. What a wonderful blessing it is to live in this great country.

Cheers, mate!