The reason we left wonderful Little Rock (wow do we miss our friends, our house, our lab Bailey, the River Trail, hot weather) was to travel and see as much of the UK and Europe as we could in these three years. Just like in the States it’s really expensive to make last-minute train or flight reservations, so when we decided on Thursday to get away for the weekend we were limited to places to which we could drive. We packed an overnight bag, splurged by booking a sweet B&B, and took off on Friday morning. First stop was regal Oxford. Chris risked his life to let me drive most of the couple hours there (still in the stupid rental car – we HAVE to buy a car today!)
Interesting story about Oxford – I was there more than a decade ago for my cousin’s ordination into the Black Friar monkhood. What?! For those who don’t know this, my dad was South African and as our family moved to the States one of my dad’s brothers moved to England. On Friday I spotted a familiar wrought-iron fence with the Black Friar logo from the window of the Park and Ride bus. Was that where we had been for the ceremony so long ago? Sure enough, when I asked the attendant if she knew a Peter Hunter she smiled and said I had missed him by a few days – he had been in town for a conference but was now back home a few hours north of Oxford. She gave me his address and number. I literally haven’t spoken to Padre Pete (or any of the ‘England Hunters’ ) in more than five years but may have to do some forgiving and give him a call at some point. It really was a really weird mix of emotions walking in there. Otherwise, walking around the town and its famous university was fantastic – lots of great shopping and smart people all together in a place steeped in history. Lovely. (oh, and the bottom picture is of Christ Church College where Harry Potter was filmed)
After eating some lunch we drove another couple hours to Stonehenge to get our super-tourist on. Stonehenge is really impressive. Parts of it are 5000 years old. Five thousand. And its rocks are not local, either. How the heck did they drag those monsters there? How did they bury a third of each stone? We laughed out loud a few times at the audio guide’s speculation on the purpose of Stonehenge – apparently saying “some experts believe” makes any crazy idea legitimate enough to include
From Stonehenge we drove a few minutes into the cute little town of Salisbury, best known for its impressive cathedral. Apparently the most intact copy of the Magna Carta is still housed there. It was built in the 1200’s. Geez the US is so relatively young! We checked into the Sedgehill House B&B and walked around town for a bit before eating some amazing pub food (no sarcasm), drinking some pints of the local beers (eh), and trying our first Pimms and lemonade. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Pimms is a British liquor that traditionally gets mixed with lemonade (sprite?) and cucumber, fruit, etc. Chris insists it smells like a box of fruit loops. Whatever it is, it makes for a great summer drink.
Our first full English breakfast was served at Sedgehill House Saturday morning. English breakfast is pretty good, but there’s something about bacon and eggs that beats beans and ham for us. The other family at breakfast was a Norwegian mother, father, and daughter. Like us, the family had recently moved to England for a few years with their armed forces. There was plenty to talk about because this was the morning after the Oslo bombing and shootings – the first violence of that scale in Norway since WWII. The family was obviously upset by the event but were relieved having just heard news that that their niece (who worked a block away from the bomb) was okay. It was definitely interesting to hear their perspective on the events.
We left Salisbury after buying our weeks’ worth of produce for practically nothing at their market. That evening, one of the other dentists (Russ) and his family hosted a “Med Clinic Barbeque” so we could meet everyone Chris will be working with. There must’ve been 20 kids and almost as many adults there. It was crazy, the food was delicious, and we only had to walk three houses down to get home.
We are missing home but making it. Hugs, Claire and Chris
No comments:
Post a Comment