Spain!

So I've now passed my first week here in Spain, and things are settling down into a steadier rhythm.  To my immense relief, most of the family speaks decent and very understandable English (much better than my Spanish) and the one who doesn't provides opportunities for me to try my halting Spanish and to work on my comprehension, which is terrible.  So the more practice, the better!

I've done a lot and tried a lot of new things so far.  The first day, I went to the street market with the parents to get the ingredients for paella (more on this later) and saw the normal (fruits, veggies, bread) and the not so normal of bloodied carcases hanging from the ceiling.  Though it's all very normal for the Spanish.  I actually watched as a butcher took the skinned body of a rabbit and carved it up into pieces, including the matter-of-fact finale when he split open its skull with his huge knife.  I couldn't help but wince, and the butcher and my Spanish family enjoyed laughing at my squeamishness.

Aside from the rabbit, we also got a massive amount of seafood for the paella.  Paella is a very Spanish dish, which has a bunch of kinds of meat mixed in with yellow rice.  When the mother brought it out, it looked so pretty I just had to take a picture.  Anyone who knows me, however, knows that I'm not that fond of seafood, though I'll always try anything once.  In this case, I had a little bit for lunch that first day and on Monday when I was left to my own devices and everyone else went to work or school.  The dad said that paella usually takes better the second day anyway, as the flavor can soak more into the rice.  I'd say that's true.  So a seafood paella isn't my favorite dish, but I tried and ate the clams, muscles, shrimp (yes, there were entire shrimp bodies in there) and even some of the rabbit (but not the brains) with my rice.  I really feel bad because I'm sure there are so many other seafood fans out there who would have appreciated the feast so much more than me.

There are a lot of things I've had to get used to that are a little different from back home.  The biggest is obviously the language barrier.  I've found that I can say a lot of things in Spanish, but not necessarily anything that's relevant to the particular situation I'm in at a given time.  It's hard to come up with Spanish on demand, but the mom came with me the first time I needed to explain what I wanted in a cell phone, and I've struggled by after that.  Comprehension is definitely my biggest hurdle, because I'll recognize words or phrases, but by the time my brain processes and translates them, the person talking is three sentences down the road.  Slower is definitely better!  The first night, I had no comprehension at all, but after a week I'm picking up on some of the spitfire conversation across the dinner table.

The other main difference is the meals and eating times.  The biggest meal of the day is lunch, which is usually a few courses around two o'clock in the afternoon.  And by a few, I mean three or four LARGE dishes, where you're expected to want seconds.  It's a good thing I'm left to my own devices for most of the lunches.  Dinner is a smaller meal, which I thought was typically going to be around eight or nine in the evening, but oftentimes it stretches until ten or ten thirty, like with tonight when everyone is busy. 

But when I say a smaller meal for dinner, I'm only echoing what the family has told me, because their smaller meal is still two courses and size of a normal/large dinner for me at home.  And that's not to mention all the snacking they do in between!  Tapas are always eaten throughout the day, it seems, and they don't mind having cheese, ham, and chips even right before dinner.  There's no such thing as spoiling your dinner here.  And right after dinner is dessert!  It can be sweets, but often it's just fruit.

So much food!  It's a good thing my new home is up a series of minor hills and on the third floor of a building without an elevator.

Dover

Dover might be my favorite little town in England. The entire time I've been here, people have been friendly and welcoming and going out of their way to be helpful. My kind of people.
I stayed at the Castle, a really nice pub inn in the middle of town. It's been around for centuries, and is perfectly situated between the train station and the trails to Dover Castle and the cliffs. I made friends with Dave, the bartender, who hung out and played darts with his son even when Paul, the owner, took over tending. Dave was in the army and had a bunch of buddies coming to town Saturday, and was sad I wouldn't be around long enough to join them. His son was going off to the army as well in January.

Paul was an interesting guy as well. He bought the place for a picture of Angelina Jolie smacking Brad Pitt during a tiff, apparently. Once we begged him enough, he played a lovely bit of piano for us as well.

Once I got in, I dropped off my bags and made straight for Dover castle. It was raining, but seeing as I only had a limited amount of time to explore, I was willing to rough it.

The castle itself has a fascinating history. It was built in medieval times, expanded and improved upon by Henry II, the father of Richard the Lionheart and John, both of whom feature in the Robin Hood tales. Later on during the Napoleonic Wars, tunnels were built into the cliffs within the castle to house soldiers in case of attack. Those tunnels were then used during WWII, both as a hospital and as barracks for the troops. Operation Dynamo was headquartered here, which supervised an impossible troop recovery from France once the Germans took over, and the castle served as the front lines for England for the years following. It was bombed early and often, causing the placement of massive guns with the range of up to 30 miles, 10 miles into France. They had a really interesting exhibition that showed what they would do under attack, and the processes and procedures that had to be endured before the big guns could fire, at planes or at incoming ships.

I was really impressed with how the underground exhibits were handled. They had lights at the top of doors, red and green, which displayed when it s safe to move on, just as they did when air raids were taking place. They had a briefing room that displayed videos on the walls and on a map on the table that showed the German offensive and the French and British reactions. There was also a large tunnel we walked through with a huge video display projected on the walls, which gave an idea of how news traveled and how tense things might have been underground. They also had examples set up in the hospital area of how the cots and meals might have been, and had a steady drone of chatter on in the background to demonstrate how it had been with a lot of people living down there. We were also able to see the message tubes that were used to shoot messages around and the morse code stations where they heard the reports.

After that, I explored the rest of the actual castle, which was decorated up from King Henry's time. I love exploring all the nooks and crannies of places like this, and so much of it was open to poke around in. The grounds were also fun to explore, even in the rain.

The next day dawned clearer, and my roommate and I went for a two mile walk along the white cliffs to a nearby lighthouse. The trip there was nice as we chatted, but the rain came up again briefly on the way back, and being at the top of the cliffs with the rain and wind wasn't the warmest thing in the world, but we managed. It was so quiet and peaceful up there, compared to the bustle of the port, which we could hear again once we rounded the last bend.

After a parting drink (or two) on the house, I left the lovely city of Dover for my home away from home for the last time this trip: Northampton.

Oxford

For some reason, going to Oxford or Stratford always requires fudge.  I don't know why, only that it does, and I obey.  And in this case, the first decent shop that I came across that had free samples was directly across from a free (tipping) tour that was starting up as I exited with my fudge.  Talk about perfect timing.

It was nice hearing about the many schools that make up Oxford and the various rivalries and assumptions made about each school from a local.  As per usual, the guide was charismatic and eager to please, happily pointing out the various locations they filmed the Harry Potter movies for those who asked (it wasn't me this time, I swear!  There were other fans abound).

Bridge of Sighs

We saw all the usual famous sights, like the Bridge of Sighs, the Sheldonian Theatre (anyone else thing of BBT?), and the outsides of a lot of campuses, who were closed for tour groups, but which I snuck back into later for a peek because I figured I looked enough like a student to get by.  The insides are gorgeous just like the outsides, with old style courtyards and quaint gardens.  Imagine studying history where that history actually happened!

Sheldonian Theater

One funny thing that happened in the middle of the tour was when three people came up to us and asked to take a picture with our group, as it was part of a scavenger hunt to get a picture with 10 or more people!  So I'm famous somewhere.

Oxford is another one of those places that just has so much history and the trod of so many famous names across its cobblestones.  After the tour, I went over and had a look at the Eagle and Child Pub, where the Inklings, a writing group composed of such names as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.  I also went down the alleyway where it was said Lewis got the inspiration for the first scene in Narnia, and in coming out of building into the new world of the street, the first thing you seen indeed is a tall lamppost.

After hitting up the Oxford Covered Market and enjoying a pasty snack and a new scarf, I headed over to the Ashmolean Museum and wandered for a bit.  It's kind of a strange collection, very ecliptic, with a bit of everything.  Old Roman and Greek statues, part of an Egyptian wall full of hieroglyphs that made me feel like I was in an episode of SG-1, ancient pots, a couple of Stradivarius and a collection of china dinnerware that could rival the Queen's.

And while looking through all that was pretty darn cool, the Museum of National History and the Pitt Rivers Museum was even better.  It had dinosaurs!  Does that make me sound like I'm five?  But really, it had an excellent collection of skeletons, from dinosaurs (though those were only plaster casts) to a bunch of species still around today.  They had examples of just about everything natural, rocks, insects, you name it.  And the Pitt Rivers Museum was just as unique, with all sorts of masks, tools, and items people have made and used from the beginning of our time.  Again, I don't know if it was just the layout or what, but the museums seemed very inviting and interesting.

When the museums kicked me out at closing time, I still had a couple hours to kill before catching my train back, so I enjoyed a quiet dinner at a place called Giraffe.  The fire alarm started going off continuously while I was there, and there was quite the to-do once they managed to get it turned off again.  But they had the best soy, chilli & mirin edamame there.  Yum!

Chocolate

Chocolate is different in the UK.  A Mars Bar is what we typically call a Milky Way, and what they call a Milky Way is a Three Musketeer.  Why the name change?  I have no idea.  But I've also noticed that instead of T. J. Maxx, they have T. K. Maxx as well. Strange.

A Smattering of London

The London Eye

London is an awesome place to just randomly be, as I was a lot this trip.  I went down for the day to meet up with JS and D when they were there, had a lot of half days in between catching trains and planes, and then stayed for another week before S and Spain.  It really feels like my home away from home, and I love wandering around in it.

With JS and D, I hit a lot of the classics in the Westminster area, such as Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament before making our way past Downing Street, a lot of monuments by the river, and the parade grounds, where I always feel sorry for the guards on duty who have to be photographed with every tourist.  Then Trafalgar Square, where a large screen was set up for viewing the Paralympics.  After that, we met up with one of JS's friends in a pub and heard some great stories about their travels together in Africa, including about how JS's nickname became something close to 'Rat Boy,' before I had to go catch my train back to Northampton.

The Regent's Garden

I spent another half day in London before catching the Chunnel to Paris, mostly walking through Regent's Park and enjoying the gardens.  Things might have gone a lot smoother had I realized I didn't need to travel all the way to Victoria to make my train, but luckily I figured out I was at the wrong station in time to still make it to Paris.

Buckingham Palace

The start of my week in London, after all the excitement of traveling around with everyone, was pretty quiet, but I visited a lot of the sights again, walking along the river and taking in the London Eye, the many bridges, the Tate Modern and the Globe Theater.  I went to the National Gallery one day and sketched some pictures, and went to see The Magic Flute at the London Coliseum another.  I spent another day in Greenwich, and saw them taking down one of the Olympic stadiums where they had apparently hosted dressage as I walked up the hill to the Observatory and wandered through their science collection and the Maritime museum.

Trafalgar Square

One of the best things about a lot of museums in Europe is that access to them is free.  They ask for a donation if you can spare it, but people who can't necessarily afford it can still come and soak up the culture and history of the cities.  The exhibits are a lot more family friendly and...can I just say cooler in general?  I don't know why.  Maybe I'm just so familiar with the offerings of American museums that the European take is refreshing.

I naturally chose the rainiest day to do one of the free tours of London, and though it was freezing and everyone was soaked by the beginning of the hour and a half (yeah, the beginning) I still had a really good time.  I think I've said it before, but the concept of the free tour then tip as much as you think is appropriate at the end is dynamite.  The tour guides you get are so much more outgoing and willing to please because of it.

The Australian War Memorial

And although I'd seen all the sights before, as I'd hoped, the stories were fantastic.  I learned a lot of history about the statues in the area, which I hadn't known before, and other little things about why the police in the UK are called Bobbies or Peelers (they were created by Robert Peeler).  Taking this tour also made me seem super smart when I went to a lecture at the Maritime Museum, as I was able to answer one of the questions from something I remembered a few days earlier from the tour about the battle of Trafalgar and Lord Admiral Nelson.  It was an interesting history.

I also picked up a week long London heritage pass for overseas visitors mainly for my trip to Dover, which definitely made it worthwhile.  The other little things to be seen around the area were okay, but nothing special, although there are a ton of things you can use it on if you're good about it and are able to travel.  I would definitely want to have one if I was living in England again for a while and had decent access to a car to drive to a lot of these places.  But I went into the Jewel Castle, which was neat but not much, and figured out that I could get into some of the back rooms of Westminster Abbey if you go in the back entrance by the school for boys.  They're very much on the honor system there, which is a nice change, and I was honest about it and didn't go into the Abbey itself, which would have been easy.  But I've seen it before.  :)

British Supreme Court

And the best thing was that it was chocolate week!  Free samples of chocolate everywhere, and I made the most of it.  Yum!

I also randomly walked into the justice building (okay, so you can't randomly walk into there, they have security and a metal detector like most justice buildings) and found out that it was the headquarters for the British Supreme Court, which has only actually been around since 2009.  Finally something we have in the US that is older than the British version!  Part of the building is older, but they do have a nice new room as well.  The security guards were really nice, too, and kind of told me a few things about the rooms when I asked.  I liked the crest, which brought together the flowers of Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England in a classy way.  But it was kind of hard to tell the Welsh one, because it's more of a plant than a flower.

The British Library

I had one more half day in London before I headed to Spain, and I spent it at King's Cross Station and at the British Library.  I'm really glad they made Platform 9 3/4 a permanent part of the station with the renovations, even if it's not where it's supposed to be or where they filmed it.  It is a working train station after all.

And the British Library is always fantastic.  It's impossible to get a pass to view the really old texts of course (it's only if you're a student writing a thesis on something that you're able to get in, and only after filling out exhaustive forms) but they still have a nice collection of important works on display for the public, such as the oldest version of the New Testament known to exist, which is where we take all our translations from.  They also had a lot of works written in the hands of their creators, such as Jane Austen, Mozart, Bach, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, and people that only English majors would appreciate, like John Dryden, Chaucer, Malory, and Virgina Woolf.  And many others.  Definitely my kind of exhibit.  They had old Shakespearean folios and the Magna Carta too.

And that was it for my time in London!  Until next time....

US v UK

Things for Americans to know about British things:

Big Ben is not the clock tower you typically see when people are talking about Big Ben.  Big Ben is the bell inside the tower.  So you should never say, "Look, Big Ben!" because you can't see it.

The 'h' in Buckingham Palace is silent, while the 'h' in herb is sounded.

'Shire' is pronounced 'shur', not 'shire' as in Lord of the Rings.

Things for Brits to know about Americans:

Just because we're 'Americans' doesn't mean you should say we live in 'America'.  While strictly speaking it's true, we prefer to say we live in the US.  It upsets the Canadians (as well as Mexicans and South Americans, who are ALL technically Americans) a lot less.

Buddies USA is not really an American dining experience.  We don't usually eat mac and cheese on our burgers.  Really.  Even if it was pretty good.

Bohemia

The Charles Bridge

 

The rest of my time in Prague is a bit blurred, considering I was there for about a week and a half total, and got a bit behind on my writing. I stayed with B&T for another couple of days before they left to go back to the States as well. We still did a lot, like hiking up to Petrin Hill and going up the Eiffel Tower look-alike to see 360 views of the city.

We also crashed some sort of University Battle of the Bands going on nearby, with cheap beer and those cinnamon cuffs that Prague is apparently known for. They were kind of awesome. Soft dough with a crisp cinnamony outside, yum.

Then that night for my birthday, we went to this amazing gelato place that I'd found online. When we got to the doorstep, it didn't look like much, but luckily I knew to go upstairs, where the real goodies were. Gelato scoops were only an American dollar for us (which is about 20 Czech dollars) so we took full advantage. Their specialty seems to be a cookie flavor, which is amazing, but their fruit flavors are fantastic as well. B wanted to come back again to get the lime he had, and I did come back a couple of times to try the orange and watermelon, which were also lovely (wow, that's really British of me). They also had really cheap little sandwiches, which made this my favorite hang out spot in Prague.

Birthday yummies

B&T left early in the morning, and had an interesting adventure when they were trapped in the corridor between the stairs and the sidewalk. Luckily, the car sent to pick them up to go to the airport was driven by a Czech spy, who sprung the lock with a spare pen without much trouble. Which was a good thing, because I was totally oblivious to all the drama happening downstairs until I woke up a few hours later.

The Changing of the Guard

I checked into a hostel for the remainder of my stay and got to know Prague pretty well. I found most of the tourist sights I'd read about by accident just by walking by, including the amazing tower of books in front of the Prague library and the building painted and carved to seem to be in 3D. I saw Don Giovanni performed by marionettes, saw the changing of the guard, visited the Lennon wall, watched the Astronomical clock circle around on the hour and strolled through parks and the town, soaking up the culture and the people.

The Lennon Wall

I noticed a few interesting things while I was here. For example, everyone has a dog and goes walking it at night.  That's just what everyone does.  They also wait really patiently for the bus.  There's very little messing about with phones, mp3 players or books - most people just stand and wait for their bus, and stand and wait to get to their stop once on board.

Another thing is that during the week, the kids are always out on field trips.  I don't know if it was just the particular two weeks I was there, but it seemed like wherever I went, there were little kids in school uniforms invading.  I wish we had so many field trips when I was at school.

The Prague Library

People in Prague do tend to speak a lot of English, which is great, but I still always feel badly when I have little or no knowledge of the native language of a place.  It does make it difficult when at stores too, because the labels aren't always totally clear.  I bought a bottle of what I assumed was chocolate milk, with a happy cow and a block of chocolate on it, only to taste it and find that it was a horrifyingly sour yogurt.  I didn't find any milk the whole time I was in the country, though at restaurants they did continually try to ply me with bread baskets that weren't free, something sneaky I'd read about in the guidebook and knew to refuse.

Marionette Opera

The checkout line at the grocery store takes forever.  They haven't yet figured out what to do if an item doesn't scan or isn't in their booklet.  Which astonishes me, seeing that it happened to someone in line every time I was waiting to buy my groceries.  But there doesn't seem to be a set practice to solve this widely occurring problem.  Also?  Coke Zero costs more than Coke.  I don't know why.

The Astronomical Clock

One thing that I was surprised at was how often people lit up their cigarettes in the middle of a room, be it a restaurant or a museum.  I thought that I'd become pretty accustomed to there being smoking and non smoking sections in much of Europe, but it still felt odd to be in the middle of a museum presentation and smell smoke.  It's just different.

Overall, the people of Prague are polite but distant.  I did get into a few good conversations around town, but for the most part, people were very reserved.  But that also might have been due to my lack of ability in speaking Czech as well.  It'll be a bit of a relief to be back in London where I won't have to worry about picking a restaurant that has a menu displayed in English.