Family Reunion

Certain members of my family have a tendency to show up in the oddest places. Jennie and I once met my parents in the Vienna airport, the beginning of a trip to a wedding in Eastern Hungary. Along with Josh, we met my parents in Kathmandu last August after spending some time together in Dhaka and Darjeeling, and last week we appeared on their Durham-bound train at Newcastle where we had to stand with all the long-faced rugby fans returning from the Scotland-England match.

Some families.

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My sister's trip to England overlapped by a day and a half with my parents', giving us the opportunity to enjoy a nice Sunday together. We had a cooked English breakfast, went to St Nic's church (photo below), and then headed to Durham's castle for a tour.


Josh and I had briefly wandered in the castle, but it's technically reserved for the students who live there (!!) during term. The castle was built around the same time as the cathedral in the 11th century, and it has some amazing Romanesque/Norman features, including a lovely little chapel, a few fantastically carved arches, and a great hall where students still dine. It doesn't look as impressive from the outside as it did a thousand years ago, though, due to the removal of a few stories of castle tower and the addition of a city and a few hundred trees.
The castle housed the Prince Bishops of Durham, an appointment begun in the late 11th century giving the ruler of Durham the right to exercise authority on the king's behalf in the remote and unruly North of England. A Prince Bishop was head of both municipal and ecclesiastic bodies (both the church and the state) and had the right to tax people, mint coins, raise an army, behead wives (not true, that last one, just checking to see if you were still reading), etc. When he wasn't busy finding new wives and starting a new church, Henry VIII greatly reduced the authority of the Prince Bishops in the 1500's, although it wasn't until the 19th century that the position was officially abolished and remnants of the system even remained in English law until the 1970's! The university was founded in the 19th century, and the castle became the home of its first college.
Aside from the funhouse-esque Black Stairway (settling has made each stair slant its own direction), our favorite part of the castle was this room down a back stairway. It was actually sealed up and rediscovered fairly recently. They aren't sure if it's a Norman chapel or an emergency castle exit, but the carvings are fantastic. The depictions of monsters and hunt scenes on the column capitals look animalist and pagan, not at all what you'd expect of a Norman chapel. While the cathedral is simply impressive in its mass and the castle has its moments, this little chapel felt like the oldest thing I've seen in Durham.
We ended the day by seeing Jennie off on a train to London. My parents spent the rest of their week taking us out for pub food and Thai, visiting York, and driving up the Northumbrian coast, including Berwick-upon-Tweed, Alnwick and Bamburgh Castle, before heading off by train themselves, this time to a few days in Edinburgh before flying back the States. Yup, I like family reunions.

Funny Photo Friday

This photo is of a sign hanging in a fire station that Megan's firm is working on. I like the image of half a dozen firemen checking the colour of their pee... Big burly men peeing into a little plastic cup and taking a look at it against the chart and thinking "Huh, looks a little dark to me, time to drink some more tea."

A visit to the Lake District

The next person up for the Come Visit Josh and Megan award is my sister, Jennie. In Durham, she spent a few days wandering about, visiting the city's lovely cathedral, tower (on a sunny day!), shops, and coffee houses. She did express the desire to head out for a bit of adventure, though, but as my other sister, Beth, is a bit 'home-bound' in Michigan by the whole four children thing and Josh is deep into end-of-term essays, Jennie and I were on our own.
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We decided to head West to the Lake District in Cumbria with a hired car. It wasn't a long trip, but we had a wonderful time.


We stopped at Raby Castle on the way. It was still closed for the season, but we wandered around it anyway. We decided it was the most castle-y castle we've seen in a long time. We also wandered through the pretty grounds and gaped at the large herds of deer in the deer park while they gaped back at us (if you look closely at the second photo, you'll see which way all those heads are turned).
The Lake District is England's largest national park encompassing England's tallest peak (Scafell Pike) and deepest lake (Wastwater), along with some nice mountains/hills (fells) and a couple dozen pretty lakes (usually called meres or waters). It sounds like it's quite a summer holiday destination (read: unending b&b's and towns full of tourists), but March was not quite high season yet. For one thing, the region gets a lot of rain. A LOT of rain. One village there gets over 20cm (8in) in December alone.

Before heading for the hills, we stopped at William Wordsworth's last home, Rydal Mount. It was a nice place with beautiful gardens, but, goodness, that hill up there was steep. And, goodness, our rental car had no gumption.

We decided to spend the last few hours of daylight heading out into the hills. Apparently, the Lakes are the place for fell walks. They don't call it hiking, like I would, or trekking, like I would perhaps expect, but simply walking. Never mind that you are walking up and down mountains and along ridges, usually in the rain. We knew that people usually began their walks from the towns, but with a cloudy sky and not much time, we thought we'd try the roads. It didn't take long for us to realize why people walked.

The road quickly went down to one lane, while maintaining its two-way status, judging from the number of land rovers we met. Honestly, it was just a swath of pavement between two side-mirror-scraping stone walls. When we met someone, one of the two of us had to carefully back up (slower scraping of the mirrors makes for less gouging I figured out) to a passing spot; then there was lots of breath-holding and near-panic (at least on my part) while we centimetered past each other. Boy, it was fun. Really. It was!

All the sheep herds and stone walls lent the already stunning landscape a bucolic friendliness that kept causing us to involuntarily exclaim, 'it's just so lovely!' (Ha! I can't help but leave that horrible super-cheesy sentence in.) It felt a lot like Vermont, Scotland, and Ireland all rolled up into one. We had just made it over a bit of a pass from a beautiful valley to another beautiful valley...
...when I rolled over a rock-like item (hey, you try driving on narrow, stone-lined roads and judging your width with a left-side drive car). It didn't seem too bad until a cattle guard a few feet later made a noise worth stopping for, and when Jennie got out to check the car, well, this is what she saw:
We kinda chuckled forlornly, then I scared a few sheep running up a hill to try for mobile phone reception and promptly fell in, well, poo while Jennie hauled out the owners manual and the spare tire (thank goodness it was there), and we decided I would walk the mile or so down the hill to the next farm for a phone. It was going to get dark soon, the sky looked threatening, and we didn't have a place to stay that night yet, but being on a hill and having never changed a tire, we thought the AA might be our best bet. Just as I was starting off, a car drove up (the only one we would see the entire ordeal), and an Irish couple spent 15 minutes of their holiday changing our tire. God bless them.
We relaxed that evening, sitting in the same chair that Gordon Ramsay sat in (not why we chose the place) and spending the night at a quaint b&b in the equally quaint Ambleside (I love English city names). After a visit to a bookstore to search for postcards showing our tire episode spot (we found some), we drove north towards Keswick. We succumbed to the shiny brochures Jen had picked up the day before and ended up at the Cumberland Pencil Factory Museum. We were sorely dissapointed that it didn't include a factory tour, but despite the ancient displays and tiny size, we had a pretty good time. Nice pencils. We have a tendency to find museums like that together. A few years ago, we visited the Blue Bunny Ice Cream museum in Lemars, Iowa, another cute museum greatly lacking in factory touring.
We also stopped at an ancient stone circle, Castlerigg. With no one else around and 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains and valleys, it was almost eery and surprisingly worthy of our round about way of getting there.
We ended the tour with the obligatory stop at Hadrian's Wall (windy!!) and arrived back in Durham just as I was getting the hang of our car, which, by the way, was a four door monster compared the Ford Ka I was expecting and almost looking forward to. Ah, Brad and Kimberly, we rented on the wrong day.
And that is the story of our trip to the lovely Lake District. (Again, highly recommended.) I apologize for my long windedness. It simply cannot be cured.

Newcastle is cool.

Or at least the Millenium Bridge is. We did all the Newcastle-upon-Tyne tourist stuff on Jennie's last day with us: the covered market, the Baltic art museum, the Baltic art museum's store (arguably more interesting), Earl Grey's monument, the beautiful Georgian buildings, the shiny new Sage music venue, but our favorite part of the day was happening to be around for the 'blinking' of the Millenium Bridge. Of Newcastle's lovely seven bridges, it is the only pedestrian one, and the entire thing rotates back 40 degrees on huge bearing to let ships through (or to impress tourists like us).

Heartily recommended.

If you're going to leave me...

Nickel Creek (one of my favorite bands) has broken up (tear). The members of Nickel Creek are all simply amazing musicians and write some great stuff... I'll miss them (as a band; they are continuing their own individual work).

And, in light of that, I wanted to post a song that... well, I've rather grown to enjoy. Its recorded live from the house board in the format I have but blogger won't let you post songs, unless there is a video attached and I'm too lazy to make it a movie. So you'll have to live with lower sound quality on you tube.

Additionally, if anyone would like a copy of their farewell show in DC, let me know and we can work something out, its a great show and has some interesting songs I wasn't familiar with, including covers of Britney Spears and the Jackson 5. What kind of bluegrass band covers Britney Spears and the Jackson 5??

Funny Photo Friday: Sleepy Time

We found that people on our Asia trip had a great ability to sleep in public places. Here are some of the better sleeping photos we got...



Happy Easter!

Some of you may have lately noticed post after long-winded post by megfeen while joshwall remains suspiciously silent. Don't worry; there've been no broken fingers, illnesses, or marital blogfights. No, joshwall is just busy right now writing his weight in essays. If you'd like to help the situation, please mail to 36 Albert Street at your earliest possible convenience 500 words on one of the following topics:
1. Religious sectarian models as applied to New Testament Interpretation
2. The role and function of Mormon initiation rites in regards to ritual, persuasion, and social formation
3. The function of magic as a social marker within the community of Khirbet Qumran
4. An analysis of sectarian development within the Damascus Document and the Book of the Law and comparing how the groups that wrote these texts (Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Strangites, a Mormon offshoot group) function as social agents vis-a-vis the broader world.
5. What is the point of studying theology after all...
6. Why my wife is so wonderful.

In the Summertime...

Yesterday someone at work gave me an extra diary he’d found in the crevices of his desk (that’s a planner, you Americans). I paged through the non-calendar parts, as one inevitably does with a new diary, to check out what random things this company might think I need to have in an easily accessible location. While sizing charts were conspicuously missing (which for the first time in my life might actually be handy), the London Tube, airline reservation numbers, notable dates, UK road distance chart and international direct dialing codes all made the cut. I found myself pausing at the Notable Dates 2008 page, checking to see if the late-May bank holiday had a larger purpose as it coincides directly with our American Memorial Day (it doesn’t), when I noticed the heading under March 30: English Summer Time Begins.

Read about English Summertime...Wow. English summertime begins. It seems a bit forward to me to think of making such a claim so early in the year, but as the daffodils are already blooming, who am I to say? I thought maybe I’d stumbled onto a lovely English holiday where elderly, blue-haired women fret that their flowers won’t be blooming in time this year as they fret every year, and everyone watches the weather report to see if it will be sunny for the annual festivities, which I imagine includes a trip to the beach and an ice cream cornetto (cone) and maybe even some frolicking in fields of flowers or the Yorkshire moors. I mean, who uses the word ‘summertime’ besides song writers and children’s book writers? It really does conjure up happy thoughts.

I was crushed when a neighbour told me that it is, in fact, my very least favourite day of the year: the day we ‘spring forward’ an hour, as my mother says, thereby having a full hour of sleep cruelly stolen from us. We call it Daylight Savings Time, they call it Summer Time. Alas. I like my plans for the 30th of March much better.


(And while I am on the topic of holidays and traditions, how come no one told me before Christmas that a pantomime show is a well-loved English Christmas tradition? I missed seeing Aladdin at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle by a matter of weeks. Any show my co-workers affectionately call ‘The Panto’ is worth my attention. I am so disappointed.)

Crisps

For the last few months, I have allowed myself the weekly treat of a packet of crisps from the convenience store around the corner from my office. I'm not actually the potato chip craving type, but I decided that it was a cultural obligation to check out the local fare, and I have yet to repeat a flavor. You see, Americans may be experts at junk food production, but when I last lived in the country ten months ago, our potato chip selection was significantly less creative. When traveling through Asia, we quickly learned that our favorite chips were American Style (which we were pleased to discover was akin to sour cream and onion) rather than the other odd combinations we never grew to appreciate, and I somehow assumed that what I would call weird flavors were limited to Asian (and perhaps Mexican) grocery stores. Not so.

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It takes me a while to decide here. Will I be brave enough to try my first animal-flavored crisp in the form of Prawn Cocktail or T-bone Steak (I kid you not) or perhaps Roast Beef And Mustard or should I go for a more far-flung sampling like Chicken Curry, Oriental Ribs or Thai Red Chili? Perhaps the one with the most adjectives like Sea Salt and Balsamic Malt Vinegar, Sea Salt with Crushed Black Peppercorns or Soured Cream And Cracked Black Pepper. I did try Roast Chicken with Thyme and Rosemary last week and was exceedingly disappointed by its blandness, not to mention a bit turned off by the claim that they were the only chicken-flavored crisp that couldn't be eaten by vegans. Not that I am for artificial flavoring or anything, but I couldn't decide if that made me more or less likely to find these appealing.


One day a few months ago, I was standing in the narrow aisle contemplating that day's selection, when a concerned "Are you ok?" spoken into my ear shook me out of my intense chip-selecting reverie. I was embarrassed to have been found staring so forlornly at the junk food section by one of my coworkers. When I explained to him the overwhelming task of choosing something from the seemingly unending options (I was new to this back then), he gave me a brief Tour of British Crisps, highlighting his favorites and ones to avoid. He said I simply must try the Pickled Onion Monster Munch, but I didn't feel up for it yet. Too much, too soon, I thought as I reached past the Flame Grilled Steak, the Smoky Bacon and the Tomato Ketchup for a more benign Soulmate Cheeses With Onion (perhaps my favorite name yet).

Today, however, I was ready. I sit here at lunch snacking on Pickled Onion Monster Munch, something I have been building up courage to try for months now and decided to mark the momentous occasion with a post on potato chips. But honestly? I'm not so keen on the Monster Munch.

Stormy weather

According to the news, England just experienced two horrible winter storms, the worst of the season. I'll admit the radar images looked impressive- mildly reminiscent of Caribbean hurricanes- and the damage and inconvenience of flooding and high winds were certainly present in some areas, but WINTER storm? The winter storms I know are the kind that are apologetically predicted by forecasters with hushed regret a day or two in advance. They sweep slowly across the Canadian plains or the American Midwest before picking up the water over Lake Michigan that will fall as snow on my hometown. A winter storm would cause closed schools and dangerous driving conditions and would certainly last a day, if not days, before 'clearing' to flat grey skies. Sledding and shoveling ensue, and, in my family, the perfect opportunity to ignore warnings and test out the tires by going out to eat.

So when Josh and I were woken up in the wee hours of the morning by the driving rain and high speed winds on our attic apartment, we were a little worried that it would ruin my sister's chances of flying out of London that morning and my parent's chances of climbing the Durham cathedral tower in anything but rain.

Oops. Forgot where we live. This winter storm rolled past in a couple of hours, bringing blue skies and sunshine for a time in the morning before it clouded up again at lunchtime (and then cleared up to a sunny afternoon before raining on my way home). The winds were powerful, but I definitely didn't get a chance to go sledding. Jennie made it out, and Mom and Dad got sunny photos.

The weather here is weird. But, honestly, I love it. I think it's a good leveler of emotions- no use rejoicing at your good fortune of a sunny day, but also no need to get depressed at the rain…. It'll all change in ten minutes anyway! How socialist.

Funny Photo Friday: Bye Bye Bush

Calenders for sale at a bookstore in York. And you thought our president's popularity in his own country was low...

Enter lengthy Scotland travelogue with excessive photos, but including funny bits.

Brad and Kimberly headed up to Edinburgh via train last Monday, and Josh and I joined them by rental car a few days later for a whirl-wind tour of Scotland. We left Durham in the morning darkness and saw a beautiful sunrise over the Northumbrian coast. We also stopped, briefly, at Bamburgh Castle, a lovely fortress that I am sure was placed in its particular position with a mind to future photo-taking tourists. The castle is four long, winding miles from the main A1 thoroughfare, and while remote, it seems a popular destination, so the excessively narrow road closely bordered on both sides by tall hedgerows and the odd farmer warily watching us pass by was a delightful surprise. It was closed until Easter, not that that stopped Josh from driving right past the "deliveries only" sign on up to the front gate. I think he was still enjoying the thrill of being behind the wheel again.

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After a bit of navigational confusion, we headed North out of Edinburgh, crossing over the Firth of Forth and up towards Pitlochry. Our wonderful driver (photo below) did an impressive job on the shoulder-less roads barely, if at all, wide enough for two passing Class A Mini Hired Cars, like our lovely Ford Ka. The left-handed stick shift was actually not the confusing part, but rather understanding what to do when and where with the multitude of roundabouts.
We made a quick stop at the smallest whiskey distillery in Scotland, Edradour, for a tour (which was my second, oddly enough for a non-whiskey drinker like myself. The first taken seven years ago with sister Jennie) and a sample before heading up to Inverness and then along Loch Ness. We decided not to pay to walk among the ruins of Urquhart Castle below, but it did provide Josh somewhere to flaunt authority by way of ignoring signs. Since he looked so nice in his new hat (purchased in York last weekend), who would say anything?

Eventually, we did find Nessie, who was also recently found by Dr Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo.
And after wrestling Bird away (Bird is quite tasty, as you will see from another animal encounter below), we spent the night in Inverness.
The next day was spent driving through the highlands, west and then back east. The scenery was fantastic and the roads even narrower and windier. Our road options were quite limited, making for an easy drive next to stunning loch (lake) after loch and even next to the sea for a bit. Of course, it being the west coast of Scotland and all, it up and rained on us. A lot. Still, what we could see of it through our rain-splattered windshield was quite nice.

We stopped for lunch and a nice view of the Isle of Skye (below).
And spent some time at the beautiful Eileen Donan Castle. It was incredibly windy, comically so, in fact, as I struggled to get a Bird shot without Bird flying away and Josh struggled to keep his hat on...
We spent the night in Fort William and headed through the lovely Glen Nevis (glen=valley) next to Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK. The valley was stunning, especially with the bit of clear-ish sky we got. As we drove down the road, we even encountered a few furry animals:

Since they were posing so well for us, we got out to get in the shots. Kimberly and I posed nicely:
And then the Hairy Coo thought, 'Gee, she looks yummy' and turned to take a wiff (noticed nervous look on face):
Before coming all the way over to check out what I had to offer:
No big deal, you might say? It's just a cow, for goodness sake? Well, look at those horns! And their thick bodies are nearly as big as our Ka! And they kept doing this to me. No one else seemed to be as enticing as I. Brad claims it's because I kept trying to get a photo with Bird, thereby looking suspiciously like I was a treat-offering tourist. There was that one time the coo actually did manage to get Bird fully in his mouth before I could extract his now gooey little yellow body from a surprisingly strong tongue (below), so maybe Brad was onto something. I take the above photos as proof, though, that offering or not, I am one attractive babe to a Hairy Coo.
Also, we encountered some charmingly stupid sheep whose heavy woolen bodies looked far too large for their skinny legs. Josh, having been holed up in the tiny Ka for 2.5 days, took the opportunity to stretch his legs in pursuit. Notice the top of a car in the distance? Poor sheep. Poor Josh. Both had a bit of a scare for a minute there.

From Glen Nevis, we headed through Glen Coe, an incredibly beautiful, desolate valley. I am skipping all the rich Scottish history in this lengthy post, so read this to find out about the valley's sad, bloody past. And, just as we were leaving the highlands, the sun came out. Go figure. We stopped at Doune Castle (below), filming site for much of Monty Python's Holy Grail, and did a quick wave at Stirling from the dual carriageway we were to get lost on in about 18 minutes. We intended to bypass Glasgow, but now we can all say we've driven through the city centre. Oops.
We made a quick sunset photo stop at Hadrian's Wall while cutting straight across the country back to Durham and were all exceedingly glad to peal ourselves and our stuff from the tiny two-door vehicle that served us so well.
One last shot: Brad, Josh, Kimberly, Megan, and (not quite on the picture) Baby Nydam

PS We took full advantage of the hired car and headed down to Barnard Castle and the Bowes Museum on Saturday. I took my turn at the wheel, thinking it would be easy having been riding for a while now and naturally looking to the right as a pedestrian. First thing, I pulled out into the right lane. Oops. (Trust me, I did fine after that...)