A view of Derwent Water from the top of Skiddaw (for a whole complement of pictures, view the Lake District album).

So, in my attempts to catch up with a whole back log of writing, I’m going to take you back to the summer. This will be a text heavy write up. Tomorrow, I’ll post a selection of pictures.

After our lovely trip to Ludlow, we weren’t done travelling for the summer by a long shot. Carolyn’s friend, Angela, was in town to visit the homeland of her boyfriend, Nick. We decided it would be a blast to travel north to the Lake District to enjoy the natural beauty it had to offer. We chose Keswick, a town in the northern part of the area, as our base of operations. Since everyone travels on bank holidays, we had a fun time getting up there. I arrived at Euston first and there were major lines to pick up tickets. On top of that, we weren’t allowed to book a seat, so we were at the mercy of the mob. When Carolyn showed up, we got some food and, just as we walked out of the food court, the track for our train was announced. The surging mob shifted towards it and then some people started sprinting to the train. Clearly, we weren’t the only people without a seat. Somehow, we not only got a seat, but in a first class cabin converted to coach for this trip. Sweet!
Now, there are mostly small towns in the thick of the beautiful hills and lakes that make up the Lake District and they tend to thrive off tourism. So, basically, every house is a B and B (the predominent mode of lodging). I’ve always been skeptical of them, but my travels from this point on have made me soften to them. We stayed in Grassmoor House. If you’re going to be visiting Keswick, I can whole-heartedly recommend them. Lovely rooms, great, filling breakfasts and a friendly couple running the place.

Now, one of the more fun things to do in the Lake District is to just take a walk. But this is a walk in the British sense. That means a nice hike up and down hills. We chose, for our first days hike, Skiddaw, which is about 3000 feet high and an 8 mile walk round trip from town. We teamed up with Melanie, a friend of Carolyn’s from childhood who was living up here (her family is British and spent a few years in NJ during Melanie and Carolyn’s youth). It has a nice path up to the top, but it’s still quite a bit of effort to ascend it. It also afforded some breathtaking scenes of the area, including the one above. We scrambled down the more treacherous path to come back and for those of us not in the best of shape, we beat ourselves up nicely. After a few pints and a some curry, it was time for bed.

We decided to be a little more relaxed on our second day. Angela and Nick had rented a car, so we had a change to check out the surrounding area. We started with the only Pencil Museum in the world (Keswick being the home of a pencil factory). Then we went back in time to Caselrigg, a well intact stone circle (like Stonehenge). It was a lovely spot, but people perching about on 3000 year old stone formations was a little annoying.

We then took a driving tour of the area. We had a roast at a nice country pub and drove along Derwent Water and over an amazing mountain pass. This area is such an amazing array of varying natural beauty. There are many lakes (although only one is officially a lake) surrounded by mountains with town nestled in the valleys. It was such a joy to spend a few days out of the city and amongst nature.

We concluded our trip with a road trip and a short stint in Birmingham. Twas a lovely trip.

New Year’s is not usually one of my favourite holidays.  It really bothers me that everywhere jack up their prices for the same thing they provide every other day of the year and any bar/pub/restaurant is packed full.  We started looking around for a place to go to ring in the new year that had 1)no cover charge and 2)a generally relaxed atmosphere.  Dina and Adrian decided to come up from Brighton to celebrate with us and we considered a few options.  We finally settled on heading over to the Salisbury Hotel on Green Lanes which has become one of my favourite London pubs.  It is an old Victorian pub that has been restored nicely.  It is always welcoming and relaxed and for New Years it met the requirements.  It was pretty full but we managed to snatch a table for the four of us and enjoyed some pints, good music and general merry making.  Great way to ring in the New Year with great friends!

In 8 hours (at least here in London), we’ll be ushering in 2009. That means I’m wrapping up my 2nd year in London. Lots of changes have happened and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more in 2009. I hope any one who reads this has a positive, yet eventful new year! I’ll wrap the year up with a photo from our Christmas in Paris. More to come, I promise! 🙂

We hope everyone has had a wonderous 2008. Ours has been event filled, mostly full of happiness but with the occasional sad moment. We’ve been making the most of our life abroad. We hope all the dedicated readers here (all 5 of you!) have an excellent and fun 2009!

From our honeymoon in Scotland. 🙂

I know this is supposedly bad form, but I’ve been very silent lately. I guess I’ve taken a little holiday from writing here. Needless to say, there’s plenty to add to it. We’ve reach year end and holiday, which will be spent in Paris. I’ll try to add a little here and there during my first real holiday since September. Then I’ll get back in full swing after the New Year as I hit my second year of writing on this blog. Woah!

So we received some very sad news today. Charles Hyson, known as Pop to many,  passed away. He was 102 last Monday. He was a wonderful human being, father, husband and grandfather. I feel very honored to have had a chance to meet him, even if he sometimes had trouble understanding me. 🙂 I was always struck by his intelligence. Even at 102, he still had perfect recollection of the town he had spent 70 years in and the world around him. I hope to be as sharp mentally in 20 years.
I’ve never been very good at eulogies, but I wanted to pay just a little tribute to this kind man. Here’s a picture of him at our wedding. We were so happy he was able to share it with us.

Well, consider this a political neutral election day entry. I really truly don’t care who you vote for, as long as you vote. What about us ex-pats? Well, we (Carolyn and I) voted absentee in the last state we resided in. Carolyn had a chance to vote for this guy. I won’t say if she did or not since that’s not ethical. Alas, Illinois only has boring choices.

Since this is a blog about my life abroad, it has been interesting to view the whole thing from afar. There has been intense interest in the outcome of this years election. It makes you realize how much power and influence the US has and how important things like this are to a lot of people who have no choice in the outcome. It’s also a little weird being able to vote for positions in government 5000 miles away while I can’t even choose the mayor of the city I live in.

Anyhoo, just wanted to post a quick message to tell all 4 people who read this to take the time today and vote. If you have to, write in Mickey Mouse if you think the US should be run by an animated mouse. I’m planning on drinking a shitload of coffee today and trying to stay up through as much of the election returns as possible (keep in mind the first polls close at midnight in my neck of the woods). And if ever there were a reason to vote, it’s because your neighbours are probably lunatics and your lunatic vote will cancel them out. See here:

Update: From the UK, the BBC is giving a generally good overview. It’s fun to watch where the Electoral College needs to be explained. But, holy shit, they have John Fucking Bolton for their commentary. It’s soooo soooo painful. He is a complete asshole. I know it’s 315am here and I’m probably tired, but this man is a disgrace to all Americans. Anyway, things look good for partisan Democrats and Liberals in the US. Keep your fingers crossed.

So, Halloween in London is not quite the same as in the US.  Most people generally ignore the day and if you do partake it is all about ghouls and gore and scary costumes.  No pumpkins or cute animal costumes here.  Needless to say, Halloween is much more about trick and not very much about treat.

Halloween happened to coincide with one of my (Carolyn’s) co-worker’s last days of work. She is taking a career break for 6 months to travel to India to work with a charity organization, Roshni UK, providing physiotherapy services for children.  So, we coordinated a leaving-do/Halloween bash to send her off in style.

Here is a photo of some of my coworkers decked out for the night.

And here is a photo of our feeble attempt at dressing up (Matt does have devil horns on).

So the two monumental buildings in Ludlow are its church and castle. Both are the center of the reason for Ludlow’s existence. As it was an administrative center and then social center of the region, there was much money flowing around. And, this being a time where religion was one of the foci of life, it was common for wealthy people to show their devotion by giving money to the church. It’s still done today, but not nearly on the scale as the Middle Ages and Early Modern Europe. As a result, a town the size of Ludlow is able to have a church like this:

Here’s what it looks like from the interior:

Quite large for what is now a small rural market town. That big bell tower can be walked up, which we naturally did. We accidentally timed it for the noon bells which were quite lovely to listen to from above them. Now, I used to have a lot of fear about heights. As I got older, I overcame most of my fears, which one exception: spiral staircases. Alas, they usually lead to some pretty nice places, so I always go up them, but by the end, I’m usually sweating and completely freaked out. This was no exception. Keeping in mind that I’m not a small person, look at Carolyn as she’s about to descend to earth again.

Small and you have no idea where the end is until you fall down them and die or make it on your own two feet. 🙂

From the top of the bell tower, you can catch a glimpse of the other monumental building in Ludlow, the castle:

The castle was originally a Norman garrison for the nobleman that William the Conqueror chose to lord of the land in order to keep control of the newly conquered island. It expanded over the years until Ludlow was controlling the Marches and Wales. As Ludlow declined in importance, the castle feel into decay. However, castles that end up as ruins can be the most fun to explore. This one was quite impressive. It wasn’t a complete shell of a building which meant there were tons of corners and rooms to explore. And the owners of the castle have left it all quite accessible. I enjoyed it so much, I took about 70 photos just of it. And here they all are!! I mean, here is a small sampling of them.

Here is the main exterior of the castle. It’s perched on a cliff above the river (and Mr. Underhils) so it was well placed to ward off any attacks.

This is a view from inside the castle itself. The cool round building was a Norman chapel. It was possible to check out all those rooms off the inner courtyard.

So, now you know that Ludlow exists and that it has some beautiful places to stay and eat. But what about the town itself? Well, while we were there, we took a walking tour with a local architectural and historical society and there was much to be learned. Ludlow is a border town. It’s in a region called the Marches which essentially means a border. This would be the Welsh border and, when the UK absorbed Wales in the 15th Century, an administrative body call the Council of the Marches was set up and Ludlow was the administrative centre. Originally just a castle, Ludlow was suddenly something of a capital now and a town sprang up around it. It is also a market town, meaning people from the country sides came in weekly to buy and sell goods in a central location.

In the 17th Century, the Council of the Marches was abolished, but Ludlow survived by being a fashionable market town and, since it took 27 hours to get to London from Ludlow at the time, it retained an air of cosmopolitanism. However, with the arrival of the train in the 19th century, which connected the far-flung (relatively) reaches of Britain, Ludlow began a quick and steady decline. If it helps, you can now get from Ludlow to London in 3 hours.

Now, the decline of any place is not a good thing, but in this case, there’s a silver lining. While much of old England got torn down in the mid-20th century and was replaced by some horrible modernist concrete architecture (some of it by choice, some because the Germans bombed the shit out of many English cities), Ludlow laid forgotten. And this meant that a slice of English architectural history was perserved so, when the preservation movement sprung up, there was a town with 400 examples of English Architecture. Half-timbered buildings are all over the place and a gigantic cathedral towers over it all, a sign of the former power and money that used to flow into this small market town. Let’s take a look.

The Feather’s Hotel is a classic, and Ludlow’s most elegant example of the half-timbered building. A timbered frame is erected and the gaps in the timber are filled with things like mud or, later on, concrete. Typically, the white parts you see were likely painted with some color and not white. The wood is oak which, when cut is still quite soft, but then hardens quickly and perserves very nicely.

Ludlow from above. The green and white striped tents are the market, which still is around today, 3-5 days a week. And people still come into to town to do their weekly shopping. Note the edge of the castle in the background (much more on that later).

One of the best grouping of old buildings. Note the large large bell tower of the church behind it.

Another view of Ludlow from the bell tower and some more examples of half-timbered buildings.

Next, I’ll show more of the church, the river Teme and the castle.

Hmmm, has it been a month? Well, let’s catch up. As you may recall, we didn’t take an official honeymoon after our wedding. Carolyn’s parents were most kind and gave us a couple of days in NYC in lieu of that, so we decided to just have a number of small honeymoons until we took the real one (more on the real one later). It was a lovely time. August was time for honeymoon #2, this time thanks to my parents. Since we’d done a big city US honeymoon, this time around we thought we’d try the English country-side. After a little hunting around, we found a place called Ludlow, which is the foodie capital of the small towns. At one point, it had three Michelin starred restaurants in a town of 10,000. We spent a weekend here, staying in and eating in one of those restaurants. Today, I’ll fill you in on that piece of the weekend and write about the town of Ludlow and the cool-ass castle in some other posts.

We stayed at Mr. Underhill’s, an inn and lovely restaurant on the banks of the River Teme in Ludlow. Ludlow is about 12 miles from the Welsh border surrounded by beautiful rolling hills. Mr. Underhill’s is at a perfect bend in the river with a man-made waterfall (called a weir) and an ancient one-lane bridge nearby that’s leads up into the hills. It sits right under the castle in Ludlow, which is perched above it. As a result, it had a wonderful feel of isolation, even if the town was just around the corner. And the inn and restaurant were in a private courtyard which gave a nice peaceful feel to it:

Our room was a cute, well furnished room that allowed us to watch the Olympics in the mornings. And the place included breakfast. This might not mean much except for the fact that the big draw of staying at this particular place was the food. Mr Underhill’s, while it might be in a small market town 4 hours from London, has a Michelin star. So we had breakfast in a Michelin starred restaurant (it was damn fine). I don’t think either of us had eaten at a place like this, so we were curious to give it a try. And, when we booked the room, we booked dinner for our second night there. A nice romantic dinner along a beautiful river.

Dinner was everything we expected. It was about 9 courses, most dishes being smaller taster dishes with a main course that was a little bigger. The restaurant itself was very unpretentious. It was a husband and a wife who ran the place and the wife was always out in front chatting with people and happy to answer questions. The dress was casual-ish and their cat would wander in and find a comfortable place to chill out with all the folks eating their dinner. The menu changed daily and you didn’t know what you were going to get until you sat down. Whatever they could find in the markets that day went into the meal. Here are our main courses:

Fancy and delicious food, but none of the “we have a Michelin star” pretension. Dinner took about three hours, at which point we were full and content. I have the menu scanned, but I need to dig it up. I’ll post it when I find it.

The dining room was cosy (10 tables) and comfortable. The whole place has a nice intimate and friendly atmosphere. From the rooms to the food, it was very pleasant:

Now, we did more than just hang out at this inn, but that’ll be for the next post about Ludlow.

Uncle Traveling Matt and his traveling wife are off for our first true vacation together in 2 years. Technically, it’s honeymoon III. We’ll be spending a fun filled week touring some of the wonders Scotland has to offer. Full blogging (and pictures, of course!) will resume when we return. Have a lovely week! 🙂

People are very much about being courteous in England. So, when people behave like asses on public transport, everyone else gets pissed off. Seems like the biggest issue involves school kids taking the bus to school and being annoying. So, the transport authority in London came up with an ad campaign of cartoon people like the one above. There’s actually been talk about trying to ban “Smelly food”. How they would determine that (usually, it involves kebabs), I don’t know. Among the others are “remembering what it’s like to be 13” and giving up your seat for pregnant people (the pregnant cartoon character thanks you when you give it up). Hee hee!

Ooo. Here’s the website with all the characters!

Welcome to Cambridge. Home of — what?? Yep, that’s the sign on the train platform of Cambridge, home to one of the more famous university’s in the world, and not the one advertised on that sign. From King’s Cross (a 15 minute bus ride from our flat), it’s a fast-ass direct train to Cambridge. So Carolyn and I took our bikes and, an hour later, found ourselves there. Cambridge is an extremely bike friendly town. All the students have them and there are tons of bike lanes and good signage for getting around town.

That’s just one of the many bike parking areas around town. Bikes can be found locked up (many of them left forever). Though I must say, my crappy bike looks good compared to many of these. 🙂

The towns stretches along the River Cam and, particularly as hoards of tourists have begun to fill the town, one of the more popular activities is punting. This is a long boat with a person in the back guiding it along the river with a long pole. Think of gondolas in Venice.

Carolyn and I did not go on one. We found it more amusing to sit on the banks of the river and watch people banging into each other as they tried to maneuver between each other.

Now Cambridge is really a collection of colleges. You apply to study at a specific one of them and each of them have a certain character and many have specific fields they are best known for. They all have the feeling of an exclusive club. For example, even though they dominate the banks (both sides) of the river, the property they own is walled off, to each other and to the public. There is no way to simply wander along the river without going in and out the main entrance of each college. However, inside the colleges themselves, it’s quite impressive.

This is the courtyard to Trinity College. It’s been around since Henry VIII and has produced some obscene number of Nobel Laureates as well as where Issac Newton got his start. Needless to say, it’s got a lot of history and some beautiful buildings. The courtyard itself was where a legendary race immortalized in Chariots of Fire took place (they needed to run around it four times before the clock finished the 12 bells at noon time).

(Love that sky!)

King’s College is another one of the major historic colleges of Cambridge. It was started by Henry VI but not finished until Henry VIII (him again!). It’s obviously dominated by its chapel (all the colleges have a chapel), although a chapel would suggest to me a small church. 🙂 It is also home to the King’s College Choir, one of the more famous choirs in the world. As it were, we were there on a Sunday and they were giving their last performance before the summer break. I say performance, but it was technically a church service, open to all. In the end, it was really a performance of the choir wrapped with some religion. They were quite impressive and it was a treat to be sitting in this beautiful ancient church, listening to a talented and enjoyable choir.

Now, Cambridge, in the English speaking world, is only preceded by Oxford. So there have to be some older colleges at the university (King’s and Trinity only being around since the 16th Century or so), right? Well, that would be Peterhouse, the oldest of the colleges of Cambridge, although it was not the first.

Notice a pattern? Amazing courtyards with absurdly manicured lawns. Now, since school was out when we visited, I couldn’t tell you what student life is like, but I know I would just live on those lawns (I doubt they’d let me if I had the good fortune to go to any of these!). We really liked Peterhouse as it felt more intimate and less imposing and exclusive. We managed to actually get sort of lost in it and found some of the more modern parts of the school as well.

A couple of random thoughts. The pubs seemed to be almost entirely owned by Greene King, a large British brewer, which I thought was interesting. It makes sense since Cambridge is the closest city to the town where the brewery is based (Bury St. Edmunds). We did have a lovely lunch in one of their pubs along the river, giggling at the punters.

Let me throw in two negatives: first, too many freaking tourists. I realize that we were one, but tour and school groups of over 100 people is absurd and it made the town feel like a museum and not a place where people work, study and play. And second, the schools, while beautiful, felt so inaccessible with their impressive, but imposing architecture and the well-maintained lawns. Oh yeah, I wonder what it would be like to be a student at a school teeming with tourists. 🙂