Stir Crazy

Seem to have a lot more free time on my hands, which can be nice and boring. Come weekend I am ready to get out of town. Bought a new car (named Jack), so a road trip seemed in order. Went to Salisbury -- old catherdral, lots of shops, fun to walk around.

Here's a view of the cathedral from

the river walk below

Welcome to England!

We can say that now since we’ve finally been properly introduced to English weather. While our family and friends are roasting in the hot, Kansas June, we’re here in long sleeve shirts because it’s not even 60 degrees and it’s rained all day. Like a lady at work said it’s the first day of Wimbledon. It’s almost guaranteed to be crummy weather. I’m glad it’s summer. Getting thrown into months of this kind of weather could really depress a guy.

Since I’m not above stealing gimmicks from other people, I’m going to start doing a For and Against section in my posts. I got the idea from Michael Davies, who is writing a rather entertaining blog about the World Cup for ESPN’s Page 2. So here’s what I’m for and against today:

For: British weather (at least for now)

Against: Not taking a jacket to work

For: Finding the same orange juice that I like back home

Against: No kosher salt

For: English sausages

Against: Puddings that aren’t pudding (black, Yorkshire, etc.)

For: Our apartment kitchen

Against: British plumbing

For: Being within walking distance of restaurants and pubs

Against: Paying for parking anytime we drive somewhere

There are sure to be more in the future, but that’s the list for now. Wife and I are off for dinner at a friend’s place tonight.

Cheers,
Frog

Rick Steves is my Beatch

Or what Aaron wanted me to call my blog.

A couple of pics of the new apartment, including our new sofa.

The only place to sit for at least a month.


Evidence of the lack of seating.



The view from our apartment.

And so it begins...

Touring that is. Wife and I had our first taste of touring since we arrived. On Sunday we drove to Salisbury to see the cathedral and check out the town. It was a sleepy, overcast day and the town showed it. About half the shops close on Sunday, so nothing was busy. From the car park we wandered along the river walk for a short time, then down some shop-lined streets to the cathedral close.

When you approach the cathedral it really is an impressive site. It’s gothic in nature with a spire that stands out from all the surrounding landscape. In fact, as you drive into Salisbury from the south you can see the spire well before you can see the rest of the town. According to our guidebook the spire is so impressive that it is having a rather detrimental effect on the supporting structure.

It was proven to be an old church (built circa 1250 A.D.) by the scaffolding that covered the north side from the transept to the back of the church. As we approached we couldn’t believe how big it was. From the outside it looked comparable to the duomos in Florence and Milan. It was only when we went in that we saw that while impressive it really wasn’t as large as we had thought. With nothing around it to offer scale, the cathedral appears much larger. The only thing that can give any sense of scale are some chestnut trees that grow in the close, but these aren’t very large or very near either.

Unfortunately this cathedral has gone the way of supposedly so many others in England. There’s a donation box at every corner. Luckily we were there on a Sunday so without many tourists about there was no one present to hound people to make the donations. We were only able to stay in the cathedral for a bit as there was a service going on and we felt awkward walking around during it.

After leaving the cathedral we wandered to the market square which was rather disappointing. It is probably very nice on market day, but as there was no market on Sunday it was being utilized as a parking lot. A bit depressed by this we headed to find some lunch.

Having had a decent lunch in a pub we made for St. Thomas’ church, which was built shortly before the cathedral for the workers building the cathedral. There is an interesting mural of the Last Judgment here, though it is a bit faded. The church itself felt rather cozy and had the requisite number of memorial stones on the floor which had been worn down from centuries of people walking on them.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon when we finished at St. Thomas so we decided to follow the river walk along the Avon. This proved to be a very nice path with various water fowl on the river and water clear enough you could see the fish. After a decent distance we turned around and headed back for the car.

Overall we thought that Salisbury is definitely worth a visit, especially for some shopping. There seemed to be a good number of unique shops and some quality restaurants for lunch. Combine that with a trip to Stonehenge and you’ve got a good day of sightseeing.

Cheers,
Frog

Long overdue update

It’s been way too long since I gave an update, but I’m going to blame that on packing, travel, and sleeping on an air mattress with no pillows or blankets.

Wife and I arrived safely last Wednesday despite departing on 6 June 2006, which, if you were watching CNN, was sure to have been the apocalypse. At least they were prepared to cover it if it had happened and even more prepared to say “We told you so”.

After an uneventful flight we came down to my office to pick up the keys to our flat. Once we went in Wife was a little shocked at the size. Going from a three bedroom house in the US to a two bedroom flat in the UK is pretty shocking. I was more prepared for it as I had seen how much smaller some of the other places were.

We stayed in a hotel the first three nights hoping that our air shipment would arrive so we would have our air mattress and some other necessities, but as the week went on it became more and more obvious that wasn’t going to happen. A lady at work was nice enough to let us borrow her air mattress so we’ve been in the flat since Saturday. It’s nice being able to have some food around, but we still can’t cook anything and sleeping without sheets and pillows is getting a bit old. I’m hoping we’ll have our air shipment by Friday, which would only be 11 days later than it was supposed to be.

Over the weekend we found a great deal on a couch and we also found some patio furniture. The neighbors are probably thinking we’re the weird Americans who eat on their patio all the time. Having the couch is definitely nice since we have someplace to sit inside. I’m thinking Wife and I may have to trade off for it and the air mattress since it is so much more comfortable.

Last night we got another major hurdle out of the way. We were able to buy a car, or at least put a deposit down to hold a car. It’s a black VW Golf GTi Turbo, so even though it’s small, it’s fast. Now I’ve just got to complete Wife’s manual transmission lessons.

Overall everything is going pretty well. We’re getting settled and have arranged almost everything. We’re within walking distance of shopping, restaurants, pubs, and movie theaters in town. Everyone at work has been very helpful and nice. I don’t know if it actually feels like anything other than a vacation yet, but I’m sure that will change soon enough.

I almost forgot. The craziest thing we’ve seen so far happened the other night while we were on our balcony/patio playing cards after having dinner. The parking people had been called to put a clamp (boot in the US) on an unauthorized car in the parking lot. After the guy had the clamp put on, the person whose car he had clamped started talking to him on one side of his van. While they were talking, the person’s friends pulled a clamp out of their car and clamped the rear tire of the parking guy’s van. We felt so bad for the parking guy. He’s doing his job and ends up getting his van clamped. The irony of it was still amusing, though.

That’s all for now. I hope to have some pictures of the car and the view from the apartment for the next post.

Cheers,
Frog

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming…

When we last left our intrepid honeymooners they had arrived in Siena and spent a nice evening exploring the town and relaxing. We rejoin them the following morning…

After waking up way earlier than we wanted to thanks to more church bells than any one town needs, we headed for the rental car office to pick up our car. Once in possession of our four door Smart car, we made for San Gimignano. The drive there definitely made me realize we were in Tuscany.

Every time we looked out over the scenery it looked like a postcard. Villas dotted the hills, and fields of grape vines and gnarled olive trees lined the roads. Basically it was everything I thought it would be and more. When we got away from the main roads it seemed like the only thing to remind us that it wasn’t one or two hundred years earlier was the car and the asphalt road.

We arrived in San Gimignano late in the morning. Since we hadn’t eaten much for breakfast we (or at least I) started looking for places to eat immediately. We wandered into the old walled part of town for a little bit, but in the end we returned to a small trattoria we had passed about 100 meters outside the wall. Mixed, grilled vegetables, ribolitta soup, gnocchi with a four cheese sauce, and grilled pork steak more than filled us up.

Our walking pace slowed by the good food and wine, we ambled through the streets, browsing in shops and enjoying the vistas around the edge of town. Feeling refreshed after a gelato we made our way back to the car having thoroughly enjoyed San Gimignano.

The next stop was Volterra. Volterra is a site of some of the earliest Etruscan artifacts. After a quick stop at a café for a coffee and to dodge the rain, we went to a museum with many of the artifacts that had been found in and around Volterra. At the very least we learned that the Etruscans were very adept at giving their citizens a very nice burial. It seemed like half the museum contained funerary statues and urns. Wife probably got a lot more out of it than me because she’s more knowledgeable about art history.

Feeling that we had covered Volterra we returned to Siena for a small dinner and a quiet stroll around town. We had to marshal our strength for Chianti was still to come.

Frog