For Spring Break this year we flew to London and did a 10 day, 1500 mile, counterclockwise driving tour of the UK. This was our most ambitious trip yet after almost two years of traveling Europe. We felt like we had to pack in as much as possible on this our one trip together to the British Isles.
The trip would not have been possible without the generosity of our gracious hosts Tim & Morgan Keuhne. They picked us up at Stansted airport, fed us, took us to Cambridge, and let us borrow their car and drive it all over Britain. All this just three days after their 5th child - a boy! - was born. He was still nameless and remained so until he was about 10 days old. His Chinese-speaking older sisters called him "didi", which means "little brother" and would be what they would call him in China anyway, since you do not refer to your siblings or close family members by name but rather by their relationship to you. By the time we returned the car he did have a name, Brodie. Which is a combination of "brother" and "didi", of all things.
Our first stop was the British Museum, home of the famous Rosetta Stone and many other relics from lands conquered by the British Empire. And like all serious buildings in the West, it is built in the Roman style.
Ashley and Georgie with an Easter Island statue. Georgie does not like taking pictures. This is fairly obvious throughout the photos from this trip. She could be in a great mood, but ask her to pose for a picture, and voila.
Isaac interpreting the Rosetta Stone. In the upper section you can see the Egyptian hieroglyphics and in the lower section the Greek writing.
In the Louvre you have to pay an entry fee and go through a multi-level, 45 minute maze to find the one Egyptian mummy in the whole place. In the British museum, within 5 minutes of entering you can see more mummies and sarcophagi than you thought possible. For free.
That evening we walked along the Thames from London Bridge, very modern and boring, to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, which is the famous one. The Tower of London is the original castle stronghold, but unfortunately like all things in Europe it closes at 6 o'clock.
Except restaurants! We ate some fantastic pub food that evening. The kids had fish 'n' chips while Ashley and I had vegetarian Wellington, which was fantastic.
The next morning we set out for the main tourist sights of London, stopping on the way to take the obligatory red phone booth picture.
Isaac posing in front of the Parliament building (Westminster Palace) and a statue of Richard the Lion-hearted, the one from the tale of Robin Hood.
Big Ben!
Eating ice cream in front of Westminster Abbey. As opposed to the Notre Dame, which is free, the entry fee is something ridiculous like 10 pounds. Funny the differences from the continent.
The tulips in St. James' Park where in full bloom. Juliet may be almost four, but having her in a stroller was a life saver. She is great traveler but a terrible walker.
On the way to Buckingham Palace we passed the palace guards drilling. They proceeded directly from this practice ground to the palace grounds, where there were HOARDES of people surrounding the gates. So no pictures there. At one point we were stuck in a mass of people for like five minutes without moving.
After Lebanese food for lunch we wandered over to Hyde Park and found this fantastic climbing tree with all sorts of horizontal, low-hanging branches a dozens of kids climbing all over it.
From there we rode to tube to our one Beatles tourist spot - Abbey Road.
Isaac and I in front of Abbey Road studios, where the Beatles recorded. The roof is slanted and I couldn't figure out where they had played their famous roof-top concert of the Let It Be album.
Juliet is John, I am Ringo, Isaac is Paul, and Georgie is George (perfect). It is really difficult to take pictures here. There are a lot of people trying to do it and there are no stop or yield signs anywhere. Cars just come flying through here, obviously miffed at the obstructing tourists.
We made our way back to Victoria Station near our hotel and caught a train to Stansted Airport, where Tim and Adayla picked us up and brought us to Mildenhall. Reunions with the Keuhnes are always a blast, and after overstaying our welcome that evening we made plans to journey with Tim and the older girls to Cambridge the next day.
I drove Tim's car to our hotel room on RAF Mildenhall that night, my first experience driving on the right side of a car and on the left side of the road. Tim gave me good advice. Always be saying to yourself, "Keep left, keep left." When you come to a roundabout, you say, "Yield right, turn left, yield right, turn left." The most difficult aspect was not knowing how much vehicle you have sticking out on the left side, and I caught the curb a little bit that night. Foreshadowing of events to come.
For lunch we had Cornish pasties in a place overlooking the main square. Basically a savory stuffed pastry. Not sure why they drop the "r".
More telephone booths! From the left you can see Tally, Georgie, Juliet, Adayla, and Ryann.
Here we are at King's College, home of the famous chapel which was closed.
This guy was sitting inside of a trash can playing his guitar and singing for change.
This is the entrance to Trinity College, the most famous because it is the alma mater of Sir Isaac Newton, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Francis Bacon, Niels Bohr, Bertrand Russell, James Clark Maxwell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, William Wordsworth, Prince Charles, and six prime ministers. The alumni have among them 32 Nobel Prizes, more than any other university and more than any other nation except France, Germany, and the United States. The statue of a king on the facade is holding a wooden chair leg in his hand rather than a scepter. Over 100 years ago a group of students replaced it as a prank one day and never put it back. They didn't fess up until their 50th reunion and by that time the scepter had been lost.
The courtyard inside Trinity College.
The touristy thing to do in Cambridge is to go "punting" on the River Cam. It is ridiculously expensive and crowded, but the sights are fantastic and the unintentional humor provided by the "self-hires" is worth the price of admission. The boats guided by professionals are larger than the self-hire boats, and when a self-hire gets sideways in the river, which happens often, the professional just rams them and straightens them out. We saw three different people lose their punting sticks, either getting stuck in the mud or on the low bridges that you pass under. One professional punter hit his head on one of the bridges but had to forge on as his tour was just beginning. And of course there was one intrepid father who was punting with his family, lost his balance, and went for a swim in front of hundreds of tourists both on the water and on the shore. Tim and I had briefly considered the self-hire, because it was cheaper, but were very satisfied with our wise choice to leave punting to the experts.
Tim, Adayla, Juliet, Georgie, and Isaac enjoying the ride.
As are myself, Ashley, Tally, and Ryann. Our tour guide was a young kid just out of high school who dutifully repeated all the factoids that he had been instructed to give, but who admitted that his knowledge of British history was "crap." His dry sense of humor added to the whole experience. The irony is not lost on me: we have not been on a gondola in the Venetian canals, which are less than 90 minutes away, but we have been punting on the Cam.
Cambridge also has one of the best playgrounds in Europe. This swing was outstanding. The kids couldn't get enough of it. We saw one of the funniest things here. Some guy was waiting in line for a popular sing WITH HIS DOG. When he tried to put the dog on there, the guy waiting behind him with his kids lost it and they starting yelling and arguing. Who puts a dog on playground equipment?
Ahoy there, matey!
These swings were nothing special, but placing them in a pentagon so that the kids can see each other while they swing? Brilliant.
They can almost touch in the middle.
All good things must come to an end and that evening we had to say goodbye to the Keuhnes for the final time in Europe. They are headed to Rhode Island for a year and then who knows, maybe back to Altus! That would be hilarious. And sad.
The next morning we headed for York, the namesake of the Big Apple and those peppermint patties.
We had proper British tea with sandwiches and scones, which was fantastic. The kids loved the fruity herbal teas, while I particularly enjoyed the Earl Grey.
Cheers! Nice matching shirts, goobers.
We learned about the Viking history of York when it was called "Jorvik" and toured a museum that replicated a Victorian-era street, complete with open shops and stables. Particularly interesting was the pharmacy, with all of its glass jars of powders and liquids. Very different from the modern sterile white plastic containers with pills.
The exterior of the Abbey is quite stunning, more so than Notre Dame in my opinion. Juliet has a slightly different take. The inside is reportedly fantastic but was closed off for Easter services.
Here you can see the bell towers in the background.
This street is called "The Shambles", and these buildings are the best preserved in the city. They are crooked and cobbled together, giving you an idea of what this place looked like in the middle ages.
You can see how this building, at the end of the Shambles, bows in the center and looks like it might collapse at any moment. This was also the start of the "Cat Tour." You get a map at a glass shop on the Shambles and it takes you around to over 20 buildings that have cat statues on the outside. The Yorkers believed that the statues warded off rats and the diseases they carried.
That evening we split up so that the hungry ones (Isaac, Juliet, and I) could eat Chinese food while Ashley and Georgie went on an evening "Ghost Walk", touring all of the supposedly haunted buildings and houses.
Next stop, after a long drive up the eastern coast of Britain, was Edinburgh, Scotland. We had a great hotel on the newer side of town with a fantastic view of the castle. When we arrived the weather was perfect, so we strolled around outside and took in as many outdoor sights as we could.
Isaac with a piper.
The tall blackened monument on the right is in memory of Sir Walter Scott, the famous Scottish writer and Edinburgh native. This video gives a 360 degree panorama of the city and really captures the ambience:
These are the thoughts that Ashley wrote down later that night: "This place is amazing. The craggy castle on a cliff...every which way you look is a skyline with gothic towers and turrets. The shopping is unreal, the tulips even more so and the hip urban culture makes you feel 23 again. All of this set to the background music of bagpipes and chirping seagulls."
I let Ashley have some alone time in the shopping district while I took the kids to the most scenic playground in all of Europe, probably the world. Edinburgh castle stands above this large park where the kids played and met other kids from Scotland and Italy.
We ate at a vegetarian restaurant, which was fantastic, and turned in early. Our hotel had a full Scottish breakfast included, and we all tried a little bit of haggis, which is sheep sausage stuffed inside sheep intestine. Not as bad as you would think.
The second day was dreary and overcast (not everyday can be sunny in Scotland), so we headed up to the castle to take the tour, stopping along the way for a family picture.
We didn't realize it but we couldn't see much of the castle complex from down below, just a couple of buildings that housed the military museum. This was the stronghold of the Kingdom of Scotland, just as the Tower of London was for the Kingdom of England. When James, he of the Bible version and of Scottish blood, was anointed king, they joined the two and formed the United Kingdom.
Here is Isaac in the armory with some very Braveheart-esque blades.
The entrance to the castle. Inside are the Scottish crown, sword, and scepter, no longer used because they are united with England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. There is also a museum that displays a French flag stolen from Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo by a Scottish soldier. A cannon fires everyday at exactly 1:00 PM, which is a tradition that dates back centuries and allowed ships in the harbor to calibrate their clocks.
The construction ruins the shot but this is a statue of David Hume, the Scottish philosopher born in Edinburgh who wrote "A Treatise of Human Nature" and "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion". He laid the foundation for the Enlightenment and its scientific revolution.
Also Scottish is Adam Smith, the father of market-based capitalism. Behind Isaac is the Edinburgh Cathedral. Inside they have a monument to yet another Scot and Edinburgh native, Robert Louis Stevenson.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the old city, visiting a vintage clothing store with tons of wild old clothes, touring the Scottish Museum where Dolly the cloned sheep is stuffed for eternity, and eating Indian food.
The next morning we left Edinburgh and headed back to England down the western coast this time. Our destination was Wales, but our route took us temptingly close to the Lake District, so we decided to pop in and see what we could see. The main town of the northern lake district is Keswick, and on the way there we stopped at an ancient stone circle.
The countryside of Scotland and northern England seems to be covered with sheep pastures divided by stone walls. Ashley could not get enough.
This is the great thing about random stone circles. The kids can climb all over them and really have a blast. Can't do handstands at Stonehenge.
Family picture. We love the UK!
Oh, to be a kid again.
In Keswick we stopped for lunch and then walked out to Derwent Water, the closest lake to town and one of the largest in the district.
Jubie with sheep and Keswick in the background.
It really was gorgeous there. On the right is an island in the middle of the lake, reminiscent of Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe.
Feeding the ducks, geese, and swans. Those swans are aggressive, and some of the geese are bullies. We had the ducks and the nicer geese eating out of our hands.
Spring break in the UK. What a life.
Next on the agenda was the island of Anglesey just off of the northwestern corner of Wales. The house we had rented was right on the water on the Menai Strait, but didn't really have an address. We drove around lost for a while and finally stopped to ask to use a phone. After surviving an encounter with a surly Welsh bar owner, Ashley was able to get in touch with our host.
Idyllic is the word that comes to mind when thinking about that house, that beach, that island, and the food we ate there. From the house we followed a dirt path that snaked through the woods towards the beach.
You can see the water in the distance.
We then came to this gate that led out to the beach.
Not a white sand tropical beach, and it was still a little chilly, but just what we wanted, especially after having covered London, Cambridge, York, Edinburgh, and the Lake District in 6 days.
There were mussels everywhere, especially at low tide, and attached to the mussels were other small mollusks along for the ride. We gathered a huge bucket-full for dinner that evening.
Rainboots come in handy in many ways in the UK.
This is the other side of the gate, which as you can see was once part of a wall and turret to protect the property. Ashley loved it.
Defending the fort.
Lunch that day was unbelievable. We chanced upon a small restaurant, the White Lodge Cafe, serving an amazing blend of local foods. We spent a fortune and blew our waitress' mind with how much we consumed, but it was so worth it.
We went for an ill-fortuned hike in Newborough Forest, but made up for it with a visit to the beach in Newborough.
Not bad.
Juliet fell in the water while trying to outrun the surf, of course, so we had to strip her down and dress her in a makeshift outfit cobbled together from other people's clothing. Much like the trip to the waterfall national park in Croatia last fall.
Some people stationed in the UK have never even heard of Anglesey. Such a shame.
For dinner that evening Ashley prepared the mussels in a white wine sauce and served it with fresh greens and pasta. The kids devoured those things.
Cleaning the mussels is the most labor-intensive aspect.
The good stuff. I didn't eat any, although I don't think I oppose it since we gathered them ourselves and they don't have a higher order nervous system. The plants of the animal kingdom.
And the road trip continues. From Anglesey we made our way towards the Cottswolds, a region of England famous for its quality wool and thatched-roof buildings. We drove through Stratford-upon-Avon on the way, right past the famous statue of Shakespeare, and stopped briefly in Chipping Norton. It was the one day that it was pouring rain, so although we enjoyed a tour of the local church, we didn't really take any pictures.
Our final destination that evening was an agriturismo outside of Bath. We were running behind schedule and I was going a little too fast on curvy country roads in the rain when suddenly the left front tire exploded. I had gotten too close to the bricks laid down on the left shoulder. Luckily we were safe and the rain eased up for me to change the tire. Shattering my hard-won confidence, I got back on the road, realized we were lost, and absentmindedly starting driving on the right side of the road until I saw someone coming towards me flashing their lights at me and honking.
The farm bed & breakfast was lovely, and they had just had a litter of piglets about two days earlier. That sow was enormous. Just look:
I had no idea that pigs could get that large. The owner told us that sometimes when she lays on her side to feed the piglets that she accidentally crushes one to death!
The kids could have sat here for hours watching her and her babies.
The plan for the next and final day was to see both Stonehenge and Bath, which our hosts thought we were insane to even attempt. Europeans travel at a different pace. But they can afford to. They live here.
Stonehenge! Much like the Mona Lisa and the Leaning Tower I was prepared to be underwhelmed, and it was just the opposite. Blown away. I know that it is reconstructed and there is an entry fee and there are a million tourists blah blah blah. Still fantastic.
Even Georgie is smiling! Prior to taking the shuttle bus out to the sight there is an interactive museum that is AWESOME. There is a large round room with a 360 degree screen and sound effects that recreate the morning of the summer solstice and the evening of the winter solstice, when the sun lines up exactly with the front and rear aspects of Stonehenge, respectively.
The only downside is that although you can get really close to the north end of the circle, you can only appreciate the other aspects from afar.
Our final stop of the entire trip was Bath, an ancient Roman town built on a natural hot springs that was "rediscovered" in the 1800s and is now a thriving tourist mecca. The Abbey was lovely and had an exciting scavenger hunt for kids, directing them to find stained glass windows of the coronation of King James and an older American flag with only 30-something stars, among other things.
Once again it was my pleasure to take the kids to the city green space and watch over them while Ashley explored the city.
This park is right along the river and doesn't have any playground equipment, but it was perfect for hide & seek and make-believe games.
Springtime in the UK.
I was going for that old 1980s Toyota advertisement effect but the timing was off.
The bridge over the River Avon, the same one that runs through Stratford father north.
We lucked out with the timing and were able to have tea at one of the most popular places in bath, Sally Lunn's with the famous buns, which is the oldest working kitchen in the town. But that same timing made us miss out on dinner at Yak Yeti Yak, a Nepalese restaurant that we had been looking forward to all day. You can't win 'em all.
The next morning it was a race against the clock to wake up, eat breakfast, get out the door, and drive three hours to Stansted Airport in time to get Ashley and the kids on their flight back to Venice. It had been a long but very action-packed 10 days. The kids got along great in the back of a Honda Accord, although I did have to ask Juliet to stop singing "Let It Go" from the movie "Frozen" because I just couldn't take it anymore. We are so glad that we were able to jam in as much of the UK as possible thanks to the Keuhnes and our superstar traveler children. We have considered trying to get stationed at RAF Lakenheath as our next assignment, and this trip certainly strengthened that consideration. We'll see.
we celebrated joey's birthday for days...it was that kind of weekend. on saturday, you saw the post from joey but I'll give you just two more;). we hiked and explored and picked asparagus until we couldn't wipe the grin off our face.
it was a magical day:
on sunday, the actual day we headed up into the mountains for lunch at a a cheese farm way up at the top. our italian friends deemed it a family favorite: malgo di coda del bosco. the food was rich, heavy and cheese laden.
megan and greg joined us
after lunch the rest of the crew came over for cake and games outside
the guys played petanque, a game they learned together in france and haven't stopped talking about it since. i'm sure we'll introduce you before too long. it's a great yard game. (what am I saying, i've never played it...!! but the guys sure seem to like it!)
here's joey being goofy with his cake. our friend ben, next to joey, came straight over, immediately after getting off a flight from the US. crazy!!
i can't believe i sleep next to a 37 year old. it's weird.
the best part of joey's birthday, in my opinion, was this sweet letter from georgie, who wrote this days before his big day and stashed it safely in her room in a private drawer until she could give it to him (spelling errors included, so you can see how the Italian is effecting her;):
My Dad (star, heart)
My dad is the best. Wene my sister get's hurt he cams (calms) her down like magic. He never get's to mad (but sum tims he dos a litel bit)
I luve him like crazy. He is funny to, he dos scary things but today is the best day cuse (the e has a tag over it like in Italian;) it is his BIRTHDAY!!!
(heart) yor Georgie
p.s. You ar the best dad in the hol world if I had to choose any other dad's i wudent choose enie cus you are the best.
(A picture of she and Joey)
This letter brought them both to tears. He bent down and hugged her for 2 whole minutes, at least, and when they both stood up (so cute!!) they both had little wells of tears in their eyes. xoxoxoxox!!
Early spring is when the wild asparagus is in season around here. Last year Ashley had picked a few stalks but this year we decided to go all out. Right behind our house is a hill literally covered with wild asparagus bushes so we didn't have to go far. As an added bonus, we got to watch Yorba and Verna, Greg and Megan's dogs, as well as Ava, the McDowell's German Shepherd puppy.
Ava obviously thinks that Juliet is crazy. Georgie is holding a handful of the asparagus shoots. The small, dark green bushes in the background are wild asparagus.
So cute how much our kids love these dogs. After we dropped them off Isaac pouted in the car for a few minutes saying, "I want to keep those dogs!"
Here is a video of Georgie explaining the ins & outs of wild asparagus hunting:
As we continued to explore the hill behind our house we found a clearing with trees planted in neat rows and ground cover in between, including beautiful blue flowers that reminded us of Texas bluebells.
After coming down off the hill we crossed the highway and followed a dirt road up to the top of another hill where there is a large vineyard. The owners have a couple of bee boxes that the kids were very interested in. The bees flew all around us but were very calm and didn't seem threatening at all.
Here are the kids with Verna and Ava in front of the main part of the vineyard. Not sure if they are red or white wine grapes but the owners no longer make their own wine and instead sell the grapes to other wine makers.
We meandered back home to play fetch with the dogs and the girls decided to climb the pear tree. Juliet is very independent and gets upset when I try to help or spot her.
Georgie likes to show off just how high up she can get. This poor tree has a fungus growing on the bark, which you can see as white patches all over the place. Last year it produced over 250 pears but they were hard, inedible, and nearly every single one was infested with worms and bugs. Not sure what we need to do to turn this thing into a productive asset. Same with our apple tree. But I do have high hopes for our walnut and fig trees this year.
It was a fantastic afternoon. I really enjoyed the wild asparagus hunting and would like to have asparagus bushes as part of a productive food forest on our future property. We ended up with two colanders full and ate half of them for dinner. We'll have the rest tomorrow morning in some omelets and then share some with our guests tomorrow afternoon for a small party. Somebody around here is getting old.
In late March our great friends the Alcocer family came to visit. Nick and Tanya are both from Upstate New York ("Oop-state!") and we met them in Altus in the summer of 2011. They have five kids, all of whom came with them on this trip: Trinity, who turned 18 while here, Arianna 10, Andres 8, Alyska 5, and Athan 3. They drove the 25 hours from Altus to Baltimore, flew on the worse-than-coach-on-domestic-flights rotator both ways, then drove the same 25 hours in reverse back to the dust bowl. And Nick didn't commit even one homicide the whole time!
They stayed with the Jones family and went with them to Verona on Friday morning. We joined up in Verona later than night and then all headed to an Agriturismo near Lake Garda. Amazingly, breakfast in their rather fancy and glass-item-filled restaurant went quite well despite having six adults, a teenager, and eleven children between the ages of two and ten. We did get kicked off their brightly green lawn for committing the unforgivable sin of playing soccer on their grass and were directed instead to the concrete sports slab. Europeans are so bizarre.
That Saturday was all about Sirmione, a medieval island village that is at the north end of the peninsula that divides the southern portion of Lake Garda in half and makes it look like...well, you know.
The Italians get a huge kick out of the shape and the fact that Garda is the biggest lake in Italy. Although I think he's got a tumor on the left side, he should get that checked out.
Here is most of the crew: Nick, Juliet, Georgie, Samantha, Tanya, Aly, Ari, Athan, Isaac, Andres, Payton, Landon, Angela, and Jacqueline. This is the Sirmione castle that was built in 1277, exactly 700 years before I was born. The large vertical gaps in the wall above Nick's head are part of the drawbridge that separated the castle & island from the peninsula and mainland.
Inside the castle Jubie is showing off her core strength.
Here are Tann and Juliet with a modern reproduction of what the drawbridges looked like.
I can't quite remember what Georgie, Samantha, and Aly are going for here. Nice navel, Gigi.
The boys are very interested in all the sundry items that have fallen between the cracks: shoes, toys, trash, etc. Nice face, Isaac.
Georgie just hanging out on the mini pedestrian drawbridge support structure. Tann put her up there and I probably yelled at her to get down.
Here is Nick putting Jubie up to copy her sister. He really is a better dad than me.
But Andres took the cake with this daring climb up the chain.
We walked through the town, along the beach, and out to the end of the peninsula where there are ruins of a Roman villa and an olive orchard. We watched the Alcocer kids while Nick and Tanya toured the ruins. I entertained them by having them work on building olive wreaths.
Doing my best Caesar impression.
Tann tried to help me attach it together up front but to no avail.
We then had dinner outside at a great pizza place in the middle of town. The big kids sat together while I sat with the medium kids and entertained them with the silent game. Landon and Aly held out for about 15 minutes (!) until Aly final broke down crying to her mom, "I don't want to play the silent game anymore!" Landon was the champion. Juliet was out before the game began. That girl can talk.
The big kids loved having their own table. They told jokes and played games and were very well behaved.
We finished the evening off with gelato (of course) and then headed back home. At the Jones' house had a light evening snack of various Italian cheeses and balsamic vinegar garnishes. We established that Nick, Tann, and I cannot tell the difference between European and American Coke, but that Angela can tell the difference between expensive and cheap balsamic vinegar.
We have had several Altus reunions here in Italy now. The Joneses, the Keuhnes, the De La Torres, the Edstroms, and now the Alcocers. We are still waiting on the Alleys, the Bahrs, the Binghams, the Harters, the Lillys, the Mumfords, the Linders, the Dawoods, Ruth, and anyone else that would like to reminisce about Oklahoma while enjoying the magic of Italy.
