One of the places I remember best from my first visit to the UK (in college) is a day trip to Cardiff, Wales and, more specifically, to Cardiff Castle’s the Arab Room. Which is unequivocally the most beautiful space I have ever seen. For our last weekend excursion before Sweden and I start working, we went there last Saturday to see it again, Matt probably only agreed so I’d shut up about it…

Cardiff Castle is very strange to approach because it really is just you walk down the main promenade and tons of shops and very modern and then the road ends and your at crazy tall medieval stone walls and then once inside there is a castle in the middle of town. It’s wonderfully close to a real-life time travel feeling. The castle has been around since pre-Roman occupation times and has seen all sorts of history, but let’s get to the less bloody parts. The house part was built by a rich family a few hundred years ago or so and it’s pretty crazy – they had an en suite bathroom about two hundred years before most people even had an inhouse toilet. That’s how much money they had. For real. They also had a table that was designed with a hole in the middle of it so a live potted grape vine could be brought in and arranged in it so you could puck your breakfast fruit right off the vine. There is also an incredible rooftop garden room with a sunken floor that essentially made up a wading pool surrounded by little fountains and planter boxes and I can’t even imagine how gorgeous it must have been when it was in use and in bloom. But, most importantly, the Arab Room. The Arab Room is just one of many little parlour-y rooms, it’s not even the biggest deal one, it was supposedly built to be a ladies sitting room. Apparently they used it as an occasional guest bedroom. It is a fairly small square room with a fireplace on one wall and smallish windows on the other three. The room is considered one of the architect/designers greatest works, inspired by his obsession with Arabic and Moorish design. The ceiling is the focal point, and I don’t know how to describe it. It is everything you could want from the following description, gold, light, fluid, geometry. I’ve read it described ad jelly molded or honeycombed. But, really there just aren’t words. Something about the way it is carved and gilded makes it seem like it makes it’s own light. Come visit us and I will take you to see it, but in the interim, this is a link to a 360 degree view of the room: http://www.360cities.net/image/arab-room-cardiff-castle-by-jon-rowley

I would stayed in the Arab Room all day, but that would have meant nobody else got to go in (as they only let two or so people stand in the entry corner at a time, the rest of the room is roped off) and Matt told me that might not be considered ‘polite’ or ‘the right thing to do’… So, we left and walked the ridiculous trek up the stairs to the Roman keep aka where your fear of stairs is born. The stairs up the various levels alternate between worn and sloping, to backless and overly tall, to spiral and exceptionally narrow. And, there are a lot of them. But mostly there are just A LOT of people on them and not enough room for two people on any given stair. It was just ridiculous and awkward enough to keep it from being genuinely frightening, but as a bonus, had you fallen, you would have been saved from a long fall by all of the other bodies behind you… So, that’s something? Ish? The views up top were well worth it though, lovely panoramas of much of Cardiff and the sea beside it.

Unfortunately, there was not time for much after the castle if we wanted to make it home in time to let the dogs out before a length of time that could be classified as cruel.

So, home we headed, but fantasies about becoming a squatter in the Arab Room still dances in my head.

That’s the thing about having brought our pups with us here, they may not be as inconvenient for travel planning as, say, children, but they definitely aren’t easy. No days longer than 8 (maybe 10, but only with incredible guilt) hours away from home. No weekends away without arranging for a kennel, and no one night in a kennel, because kennels are never open to give you back your pet on a Sunday. Also, no kennel because they cost a fortune. It’s like doubling our own lodging budget.

I love our demon spawn and I don’t think we would have felt good about this move if we had left them behind, assuming we could have even found homes for them for a few years (as, they aren’t exactly popular with anyone who isn’t us), but, man, they get in the way of adventuring. It is becoming a frequent frustration already, especially as it is exacerbated by the also present mass transit hassle.

In theory, when we buy a car some of this will abate, though obviously not the weekend part, or the travel part during hot weather, but any diminishing of inconvenience sounds pretty good to me right now.

More to come.

– a

Matt & I spent a recent Monday bank holiday in Bath, which Brits apparently pronounce Baaah-th, but I feel weird and pretentious when I say anything other than Bath, but I digress. It’s a pretty long train ride to Bath from Didcot, which is the nearest major train station to us and is in itself a 30+ minute bus ride, so, like all of our day trips, we started early on a 3ish hour commute, but, like all of our day trips it was totally worth it. Bath is a Georgian city that became big and important and rich when a leporous shepherd discovered that his leporous pigs were being healed after bathing in the local river, and then he started bathing in the river and his leporousy improved? was cured? I don’t know, but history happened and then there you go, every started coming to ‘take the waters.’ Matt had already day tripped to Bath before my arrival, but as I wanted to go for Austen and he is allergic to spending an entire weekend without a major excursion from our house, off we went. The Georgian city part references a particular style of architecture and Bath has maintained that style rather strictly, which has allowed the entire city to qualify for some sort of English/world heritage site, which is pretty impressive, considering that means all new construction has to at least appear period appropriate. Which is probably why I’ve seen their grocery store in an Austen adaptation… Just kidding. Probably.

Our first stop was for food, which turned out to be every kind of breakfast food possible stacked into a sandwich, I think it was called ‘And then your arteries gave up and you died’. But, it was delicious and cheap and kept us from having to spend real money on meals out. This is our touristing goal, to eat as little as possible for any given meal/snack time, because eating out is really pricy here. So, we do a lot of little half-meals on these trips, just enough to keep us in walking energy. We ate said heart-stopper in Queen Square Park, across the street on one side from one of the homes Jane Austen resided in and across on the other side from the Jane Austen Centre, which was our second stop. The Jane Austen Centre is more historical/educational facility than museum, it doesn’t necessarily have much of hers personally, but plenty of exhibits and articles about her life and times. Plus, the staff is all in costume. I WANT THIS JOB, those dresses are fantastic! Although, I hate a bonnet. Anyway, our tour guide gave us an introduction to her family and her relationship to Bath and then directed us to the rest of the house which all just lovely walk through- look at stuff. We stopped by an exhibit on the history and importance of tea at time: it used to be kept under lock and key and would be used up to three times (family, servants, then the poor) as it was such an expensive and precious commodity. To which I say, WHAAA??? Seriously? We dropped by the dress up area where Matt gamely dressed up in the vest and jacket and cravat, though, obviously neither of us knows how to tie a cravat, so it was used more in a scarf like capacity… He also rocked the top hat and walking stick, my own personal literary hero. In that capacity, he also bought me the most amazing souvenir ever. It’s a small bust of Austen and will sit on every desk I ever accessorize for the rest of forever, I’m so excited about it. Next in the Austen house was writing a note with ink and quill, which was easier than I expected, and every bit as messy. The ink was red and it appeared as though I was actively bleeding from my middle finger for the rest of the day. It freaked Matt out once and myself, at least three times. Last stop in the Centre was to visit the life size wax figure of Jane herself. Designed by a forensic archaeologist or something, it is based on a couple of existing portraits and any surviving accounts of Jane Austen’s appearance. It was honestly a little weird, she has cleavage and freckles and that wax model skin that always kind of creeps me out, but it was also pretty cool. They made her a bit beaky, much like the only image they’ve got of her mom, which is a silhouette with what can only be deemed a witch’s schnoz. It’s a nice detail.

Here’s the thing about taking day trips without a vehicle, we’re limited in how long we can leave the dogs home alone. Too many hours in the crate goes from unfortunate and unavoidable to cruel REALLY quickly. So, after the Austen Centre we did have a ton of time left. Matt, taking his role of gallant hero to heart, deferred to me again and we briefly peaked in the Pump Room, which is in the same complex/building as the Roman Baths and next door to Bath Abbey. It’s also a major featured setting in Austen when the characters spend anytime in Bath. It’s basically a giant room that they now use as a restaurant cafe where the cheap tea service is like £30, so all we did was peak in around the edges. We then strolled through Bath Abbey which is as lushly decorated as I’ve come to expect of these gothic English churches, and decided to spend what time we had left taking the hop-on, hop-off bus tours that are all over the place here. We rolled through the city route, which featured another couple of Austen highlights, as well as most of the famous spots, like the glorified terrace houses of Royal Crescent and the Fashion Museum and Circus. We then took the city view tour, which promised panoramic views of the whole valley and city from the surrounding hill drives. To this, I call bullshit. Most of the country roads here are small and windy and completely surrounded by foliage, they’re lovely in themselves, but they don’t offer much view beyond the trees around them, so we saw almost nothing of the countryside, we just got really cold and saw where the last fatal duel in England was fought. We did see a pint sized version of the large abbey we had already seen, which was pretty neat, but on the whole the tour didn’t offer much and I’m glad we didn’t have to pay extra for it. The whole hop-on, hop-off concept is actually pretty neat, especially since all tickets last two days, so if you’re visiting a place for the weekend, you really can use them to hit the major hotspots.

After the tour was the long commute home which was a little dicey as the train was slammed full and we had to ride in a couple of backwards facing seats for the first leg of it – not surprisingly, I of the ALWAYS carsick, do not do well in backward facing seats, imagine that.  🙁  Great trip on the whole, after the nausea subsided, and now I have Jane Austen in 3-D form to keep me company forever!

Observations: We saw a sign for a buffet on the way to Bath, the tag line was Eat as Much as you like, instead of All you can eat. I really love the differences there.

More to come,

– alaina

26-3-15

Let’s begin with the crap this time, so we end on a better note than another whine fest on how I feel about our bathroom. Which still sucks. We may have solved the leaking shower/tile/tub issue, but we weren’t able to hang out the various holders as we broke the drill trying to get a pilot hole into the wall. We think the problem is that there is brick behind some of the walls and sheetrock and it was just more than it could take. So, now we have to get a replacement drill to try again, and a special kind of drill bit to deal with it, although with our luck the bathroom walls will somehow be different and something else will go wrong. Is it really so much to ask that there be a place to hold toilet paper? I really don’t feel like I’m asking that much?

It is also still too cold to get the grass to grow in the back garden, so the dogs are constantly giving me dirty looks when they have to take a poop on pavers and as an added bonus, they are tracking in lots of mud from the few bits of exposed ground they can find back there. Poor things. It really will be nice eventually, but it’s pretty abysmal for them right now. I’d feel worse though if Asia wasn’t passive aggressively peeing in the house on a semi-regular basis and Ruffy hadn’t viciously attacked me last night. Yup, that happened. I’m not really sure what happened to set him off, but luckily all he got was my arm, so aside from a small puncture and a large bruise he couldn’t really get a good enough grip to hurt me very badly. And, the Asia peeing thing is improving. I think the curtain that covers the door confuses her, so she won’t scratch at the door as she is trained to, so we’re retraining her to give better signmals for us… and watching her like a hawk in the meantime.

Now, to the good stuff. My resume is freshly updated and I’m going to start looking for work next week, I think I’m also going to start looking for volunteer opportunities in the village. The charity shops are always looking for volunteers, so I figure at least that way I’ll get to get out of the house and expend some social energy. Which I miss, especially since online chatting is actually even difficult here, what with the time difference.

We went to London! This was our first big day outing since my arrival. And, no surprise, it was awesome. We took a bus and then a train into the City, then after a cheap and weird lunch in a little cafe, we visited the British Museum, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Trafalgar Square.

First things first, the funny lunch: The funny lunch was a hole in the wall cafe/restaurant a couple of blocks from the British Museum, it had a extensive menu and cheap prices posted, so we went in. It had 4 tables and a counter behind which they did some of the food prep (I think the kitchen was in the basement). Of the extensive menu, they didn’t have 3 of the things matt tried to order, so we both ended up getting chicken burgers and chips. The chicken burgers tasted weirdly middle eastern, like falafels. We have not figured out how, but we both agreed that was the flavor. They were also served without any sauce and with cucumbers instead of pickles, the latter of which was kind of funny. We asked for ketchup for the chips and we’re given a bottle of it. What came out of it looked and smelled like ketchup, but was totally as much pink as it was red – like somehow the color was hot pink mixed with red… It was crazy. I’m not sure if this is what UK ketchup is like, as we have only had it in one other place and they called it ‘American ketchup’ on the packet. We’ll keep you posted.

Next, was the main event of the trip, the British Museum. I know some of you have already been there, done that, so you can skip this part if you’d like – I’ll catch you later. But for everyone else, read on. The British Museum is huge, like 17 acres huge, or something like that. It’s ginormous. It’s also apparently home to a collection of like 8 million objects from all over the world. Matt said he heard somewhere that it has a reputation for having the most stolen antiquities in collection of any museum anywhere, so there’s also that. We started with the Rosetta Stone, then went through the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman areas, including the Parthenon collection. We spent about 2 hours total in the museum, but at a fairly quick clip, we actually visited a decent chunk. Especially considering the crowds were were fighting. My favorite collection was of clocks/watches, it was so nifty. I assumed Matt’s fave was probably going to be the one on money… Until we made one last stop at a temporary exhibit named, “Bonaparte and the British: prints and propaganda in the age of Napoleon.” This exhibit was all about anti-Napoleonic propaganda in British media throughout his career. It was fantastic, and, let’s just say, not exactly politically correct. At all. Which is kind of refreshing at this point. If you can’t draw your political opponent taking a dump in a giant pot while being shamed by a tiny demon about the smell, then really, what is the world coming to… I liked the exhibit, but Matt totally loved it. You’ll have to ask him why for details.

Next, we made it over for our first ‘traditional’ English tea service at the Café in the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Martin-in-the-Fields). The cafe is really in their crypt and I had tea there when I was here for study abroad, the whole experience made a big impression, so I wanted us to go back there and do it again together. It is still such a weird and nifty place and thing to do, though I was disappointed in a few changes this time around. For one thing, we had our first encounter with a super rude Brit. And, imagine this, it was a poor, overworked guy in food service. Which is me saying, you can’t really blame the guy, but he was a total asshole. I’m really glad we didn’t have to tip him. So, their Afternoon/Traditional tea is a ‘homemade scone, jam and clotted cream, double chocolate fudge cake and lemon drizzle tea cake, served with a pot of tea or coffee’, and so that is what we got, but instead of it being a scone, with the cream and the jam on the side, it was a little pre-assembled scone sandwich, which was delicious, but it kind of subtracted from the experience of it, pre-assembled doesn’t exactly scream tradition or classic. Plus, I remember sitting there and assembling my little bites of scone and staring at the crypt walls and it was just better before that little, tiny streamlining (there. soapbox dismounted).

St. Martin church is in Trafalger Square so our last stop was to wander the square and take our selfies with the fountains, the lions, and Lord Nelson.  We had to wait in line and totally frame things carefully to actually get to be alone in the shot with one of the lions, but I think that is just how London goes most of the time, from what I gather and vaguely remember. From there, tube to train, to bus, to home. It’s about 2 1/2 hours to make it from Wantage to London, and unfortunately at least 30 minutes of that is wasted time due to poorly timed bus arrivals/departures, but it’s pretty great that we’ll be able to day-trip there when we choose, without having to kennel the dogs. I think I want to get us set up with a dog-walking/dog-sitting service here in Wantage, so then if we want to be gone longer than 8 or 10 hours we can, without it being abusive to the demon spawn. A few pics are up on Facebook, as I still can’t get wordpress to let me upload them here, but I am working on it!

Observations: The Tube used to scare me in a way that it no longer does after my time commuting in LA, I’m pretty happy about that. But, the Tube system also used to seem so impressive before LA Metro. But, now it seems a lot dirtier, smellier, and more expensive. 🙁 And, don’t get me started on the bus system.

The Brits are really into cake. There’s a whole aisle in the grocery store of breakfast/tea time/snack cakes and tarts and baked goods. It’s a big thing genre here. I still need someone to explain to me what clotted cream is!

Harry Potter (book two) is calling, so goodnight for now.

More to come.

– alaina