Summer Travels

Giant's Causeway

Last meal before living off of sandwiches for a few days.

Entry from Tuesday, 18 August

Giant's Causeway

The past few weeks have included a fair bit of travel. A friend from Hawaii, Patrick, was out here for a work conference and we took a trip to Ireland (some call it Fireland due to so many people having red hair) for a few days. We didn’t have much time, but we were able to hit the main attractions in Belfast and Dublin.

Giant's Causeway

Our day and a half in Belfast included a trip to Giant’s Causeway. It got its namesake from the hexagonal stones along the shore and cliffs (as the story goes, the giant Finn McCool built it to kill a Squirtish giant, but there was no fight and the bridge was destroyed). The real reason for the shapes had to do with crystallization and the way the magma cooled, but giants make for a better story.

City government center (the exact names escapes me), Belfast

Story behind the Red Hand of Ulster:

Captain of raiding party: "First one to touch the coast with their right hand owns it."

Soldier: (after cutting off his own hand and throwing it ashore) "BOOYAH!"

Black cab (ours was red) tour, Belfast

We also took a black cab tour of Belfast to see the old division lines of Protestant v. Catholic. Besides that, we did a good bit of walking around and even got to argue with some old people. Maybe I just haven’t had much luck with the Irish I’ve met, but I haven’t been able to carry on a conversation with any Irish people without it turning into them spewing a fair amount of hate and discontent my way. The evening in the Belfast pub started with some friendly banter about physical stature and John Wayne, but quickly turned into a discussion about who really should have won the American Civil War, how certain ethnicities are deceitful, and how America was a big bully. It seem that we were really just witnessing the start of an elongated downward spiral, so we left after two drinks.

Dublin started with a tour of the Guiness Brewery. Guiness happens to be one of my favorite beers. The key take-aways from the tour were: 3 million pints brewed there each day, each one is perfect, only 4 ingredients used (water, hops, barley, and yeast), and Guiness is good for you.

We also went to a few museums, one of which had quite a few mummified bodies from hundreds of years ago. Each one was slaughtered differently; some had body parts removed, some were slashed to death, others bludgeoned, still others were strangled. Bottom line: death and destruction appears to have been a hobby on that island for quite some time.

After the trip to Ireland I had two days to get ready for my trip back to the US. It was a 10 day work trip, but it just so happened that one of my friends from Hawaii who moved to Maryland got married on August 15th. Kate was able to come down from New York for the weekend, so it was a double bonus. The ceremony was nice and they had a really good menu: filet minon and crab cakes. Money.

Double fisting to start the evening (open bar)

Last call; down to one at a time

Although I was only in the UK for about 4 months, there are some definite differences I noticed from my short trip.

Some of the nice things about the US:

- If you are willing to drive for a short while, you can find anything you need at any time, day or night.

- Things are cheaper and bigger.

- The roads a big and wide and don’t have a roundabout every mile and a half.

Some of the nice things about the UK:

- People know how to use roundabouts correctly (it’s painful to watch their use in the US).

- Buildings don't look or feel like they were thrown together overnight by a developer looking to make a fast buck (our hotel in Annapolis was ridiculous. I really wish I took a picture of the "Greek" fountain.)

- No humidity

The trip was pretty good overall, but had its strange moments. This past Monday was somehow both fun and sad. I sat around my hotel room in my underwear eating microwave dinners, followed by going to a movie by myself. It’s like I couldn’t figure out what would be more disheartening, so I did both. While the tag line for the movie, 500 Days of Summer, was, “it’s not a love story, it’s a story about love,” it was, in fact, a love story. The theater was full of teenage girls traveling in packs and severely obese middle-aged balding men with goatees flying solo. And there was me.

Today I had some time to kill after my final meeting and before my flight, so I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Those are always a study in a certain element of society not found in other parts of the world. Anyone who wants to pick on how America does things has to go no further than a buffet. For under $10 (GPB 6) you can get stuffed with hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, pot roast, pastas, potatoes, tacos, Chinese food, creamy soups, pies, cakes, ice cream, and more. Yes, they also had a fruit bar as well as a vegetable bar, but those weren’t very popular. I don’t work out as much as I should and I don’t always eat as well as I should, but I try not to make it a habit. For a good percentage of the people at this particular buffet it seemed that they were doing everything they could to be unhealthy. It makes no sense to me, but all I can do is sit silently and judgmentally and watch the show.

Another thing I did on this trip was to spend like crazy. My reasoning was that everything would be much more expensive in the UK, but I bought so much junk that I went over my weight allowance for the flight. Luckily I was early and was able to move some heavier pieces into my carry-on luggage (you’d be surprised how much Chaco sandals weigh) and get half a pound under, but I probably didn’t need the paper towel dispenser or quite so many spikes.

That brings me to my next subject: the crazy old man of the neighborhood. As it turns out, it’s me. A short background: I live in a maisonette (a detached house split into two apartments) at the end of a block of terraced homes (row houses). My flat also adjoins a bike path. Long story short, my yard is the only place people can cut through without going through someone’s house or around the other side of the block. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that huge of a deal, but I don’t like it. On top of the people coming through I also have animals pooping in my driveway and neighborhood kids tearing up my hedge making a fort. As you can see, there is a pattern of encroachment.

That’s where the Home Depot come in. Since I was here in the land of cheap and plenty, I decided to purchase some defensive counter-measures to the encroachers. The idea is to develop a layered approach to security and to do it one step at a time.

- Step 1: I am going to start closing the car gate to my driveway and drive some 3’ fence posts into the opening of the hedge.

- Step 2: I am going to lock the gate and add a good deal of chicken wire to the posts.

- Step 3: I will add some of the awesome spikes I bought to my car gate as well as the “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” signs. As for the kids in front, I might move some of the animal poop from the driveway to the area under the hedge. They already used a fence post to take down two sets of chicken wire and make a bigger hole in my bushes, but I have a feeling that crawling through poop will prove to be more trouble than it’s worth.

- Step 4: If that doesn’t work, I will need to figure out how to attract colonies of hornets and spiders to my bushes. It can’t be too difficult.

I was thinking that things would slow down after the conference, but my schedule is still somewhat busy for the next month. I have another work trip to Germany planned and I was able to magically match it up with Oktoberfest. The only question is whether I want to stay an extra weekend on both sides of the trip or just one weekend. I’m pretty sure I am just going to go with one. I am planning on staying with Jens and Ana (they came out to Hawaii about 2 years ago). Jens, our German foreign exchange student my senior year of high school, is always fun to hang out with and he speaks German. Always a plus when in Germany.

Other than that, nothing too crazy planned. I have another Friday off coming up at the end of the month, so I’m thinking about going somewhere. Maybe Spain, but I’m not sure. After only 10 days away from the UK I am already looking forward to getting back and relaxing at home. That might officially make me a crotchety old man; I can’t say for sure.

Entry from Wednesday, 19 August

I got stranded at the airport last night. Due to the thunderstorms, I didn’t make it to Newark in time to catch my flight to Manchester. Luckily for me, Kate lives in New York. After an air train ride, NJ Transit train ride, some walking, a subway ride, and some more walking, I made it to Kate’s apartment. I didn’t get there until after 2:00am, but she was nice enough to take the day off work and we were able to hang out. We went through the obligatory bring/don’t bring tour of her apartment. Long story short, talk to me in a couple of months and I might have a smoothie maker staring at me from my kitchen counter. Money.

Entry from Thursday, 20 August

I made it back home in one piece. I did get some bad news today, but I’m trying not to let it bother me too much. So far I have been somewhat successful at blocking the bad thoughts, but I am really tired and might dwell on it more when I am rested. Long story short, I have no one to blame but myself. I didn’t read all of the laws and did not do enough research. It’s amazing how much money one can save by speaking to someone with experience. Long story short, if I knew two months ago what I know now, I would most likely have an additional huge chunk (five figures) of British Pounds Sterling in a couple of years.

Entry from Friday, 21 August

As for the house, there's no going back. I will have to chalk this one up as a "learning experience" and move on. I did some more research today and figured out that it isn't as bad as it seems. When all of the factors are considered, yes I am still out a considerable amount of money. Bottom line, I do have a roof over my head, so I have no grounds to complain!

Settled

From the time my stuff was delivered to getting everything sorted and settled, it took me less than a week. In large part that was due to the fact that I forced the issue by having a house warming on Friday, 4 days after delivery. The house warming went well. I made some beer brats and cheese dogs on my grill. We can check the grill off the list of things to test. It successfully held burning charcoal briquettes while simultaneously hold raw meat mere inches above those.

Even though I have only been there about a week, the new place feels like a home already. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I have all of my stuff for the first time since March, but more than that I just really like the neighborhood and set up of my place. It has everything it needs and nothing else. I wouldn't want anything bigger or smaller. It is perfectly sized for what I need it for. Not only that, but it is dead quiet. I live at the end of a dead-end street and the opposite side of the house is a bike/running trail. Yes, I can hear footsteps and music from my neighbor above, but there is no outside noise. It's almost strange how quiet it gets, but I love it.

Another thing I really like is the kitchen. For the first time, I have a convection oven. I'm still learning the ropes on that one, but the fact that I can cook a deep dish pizza in 8 minutes is awesome. It has led to a fair amount of burning, but I've already gotten the hang of it for cooking fish and other meats. I plan on testing out how well it fares with bread tomorrow at my first weekly TV-on-DVD night in the UK. Wednesdays are no longer workable due to open gym basketball night, but Tuesdays are just as good. I made a ton of chili yesterday. So much chili, in fact, that not all of it fit into the refrigerator and I had to freeze half of it. I think that marks the first time I have ever made something fresh and put it into the freezer. Hopefully it doesn't end up sitting in there for the next couple of years.


Other than organizing, cleaning, and loving my new place, I haven't really been up to much. I did have a chance to go to some friends' place for a Tour de Franzia party this past Saturday. Basically, you dress like a bicyclist and drink boxed wine. The goal is to get through all of the stages (different types) in the fastest time. Like what often happens when I plan on only having "one or two" but don't have a good reason for setting that limit for myself, I had a lot more. I don't really consider myself to be too competitive, but I do consider myself to be skilled at taking advantage of the situation. I took about 20 minutes to drink my first glass of wine and the next closest person was on their third. By the time I hit 3, most people were on 6. By the time I hit 6, most people were on 7. When all was said and done, I finished second. I think they should re-write Aesop's Tortoise and the Hare fable to cover drinking for speed. It applies.

Coming up this week, a friend from Hawaii who is now in Australia will be visiting. We are going to spend a couple of days in Northern England followed by a few days in Ireland. After that, it's back to the US for about 10 days for a conference and a wedding. This summer is flying by.

Pictures and Video of My New Flat

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I moved in. It's done. The video is post-cleaning inside, pre-yard work, and pre-delivery of all my stuff.

I am at the library now since my internet doesn't work, but I will include some updates soon. I think if I get this published I can type out the rest on my phone. Not fun, but do-able.

Flat

Things here have started to level out. I don't have my house yet, but I'm pushing for next week still. I stopped by the house today to take another look. The yard has really fallen into disrepair. The grass and bushes are very overgrown and there is garbage everywhere. I will have a project ahead of me, but that's the fun of home (or flat, I suppose, but I do have a tiny yard) ownership, right? It beats paying the £80 per month that I would have forked over at the other place for grounds maintenance fees. Mowing the grass once a week should not cost that much.

At any rate, Wednesday July 8th is what I am hoping for. I spoke to my solicitor today and he said the paperwork should be ready to sign by then, but I won't be able to move in until at least the 10th. I will pester him more on Monday and see if I can't get that changed. I would really like to move in as soon as possible. These next two months are going to be very busy.

Nothing too exciting going on here. I've been hanging out quite a bit with the same crowd. They all live within a couple of blocks, so I'm not sure what is going to happen when I move a mile and a half away. It doesn't sound far, but it's way farther than two blocks.

The only items of interest I have to add are that I went to a Medieval Faire a couple of weeks ago in Knaresborough. Not quite as exciting as I was hoping. It was more geared toward children (note the dragon), but it was free, so I can't complain there.

Not very scary. There were some people dressed up in Medieval clothing. That's pretty amusing.

This is what toilets (called a garderobe) looked like in Medieval times. There was a sloped schute would help everything roll out into the river. Midgets or children would crawl up the exit hatch to sneak into castles and prep the doors before an invasion. My question: why not put a metal rod through the middle of the schute? Another interesting tidbit: they used the garderobe to store clothing. The smell kept the moths away.

Awkward wedding photo?

I've also had two flat tires (3 if you include my flat spare tire when I pulled it out of the trunk) in three weeks. I don't think I've ever had a flat before coming here. Today I had a huge screw puncture my tire. It was about a quarter inch across. Luckily my spare tire (which was actually the tire that was flat a few weeks ago) had air this time. Unfortunately, there was no saving my tire. I had to order a new one. Although I could risk not getting a new tire, my recent experience has taught me that I should not. It's just really strange that I never had a flat before coming here. Until the day before I sold my Honda in Hawaii I didn't think that it came with a jack. Since 2001 I had been driving that car convinced that if I got a flat I was plain out of luck. Word to the wise: crafty engineering means that jacks can be stashed in a panel that looks like it should lead to your tail light. Another piece of wisdom: if you clean your car more than once every 8 years, you may discover things like that sooner than I did.

I also wanted to mention that I have been doing CrossFit for about 6 weeks now and it works. It's a fairly new fad, but a good one. It involves a lot of pull-ups and Olympic style lifts, but it's all about intensity. The intensity makes it a good cardiovascular workout. This past Wednesday night I played two hours of basketball without getting winded. Three months ago I probably wouldn't have lasted 20 minutes without being doubled over. If you hate being winded from climbing stairs but also hate running, I recommend looking into it.

Happy Independence (from the Brits, ironically) Day!

London

Queen Elizabeth II. Check out her title at the end of the post.

London Bridge, staying up.

I had this past Friday off and was able to take a trip to London. I was in the locker room at the gym on Monday and they were talking about how Billy Elliot had won some Tonys the past weekend. Since I had Friday off and loved the movie, I decided that it was a great opportunity to get down there. The play was pretty good, but I preferred the movie. It's hard to get into something with a lot of singing in it. The movie was believable and did what a movie was supposed to do: it convinced me that the characters were real and I was able to relate to them. In the play/musical, that wasn't the case. Every time something big happened, it turned into a song. I don't know about you, but have never once in my life spontaneously burst into song before/during/after a particularly sad/happy/funny event.

The trip was very compact. I arrived by train a few hours before the show on Friday. I spent the whole day Saturday on my feet and moving. I was able to make it to most of the "must-do" tourist sites. I had a bit of luck when I showed up for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. As it turned out, it was the Queen's Birthday. I got to the palace about an hour before the "Trooping of the Colour" ceremony began and I moved up to about five people from the front. I saw the Queen, the entire royal family, and a lengthy military passing in review complete with the old uniforms, horses, and clanking swords. I couldn't help but laugh a few hours later when I was at the National Gallery and I saw a painting from the 1700s of a similar ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The palace, uniforms, and equipment looked exactly in the same in the 1700s as they did that morning.

Besides Buckingham Palace, the Saturday highlights included Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, the Tate Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the London Bridge, and Hyde Park. I was also able to make a walk past the V&A Museum, Natural History Museum, and Science Museum later that evening in preparation for Sunday, as well. After such a busy day I slept well, despite the fact that I was in a hostel room with 27 other guys and someone was playing with my foot (which was hanging into the walkway as the bed was too short and I had to squeeze my feet under the bunk bed bars) at 4:00am.

Sunday was less eventful. My train left at 2:00pm, so I was hoping to make it to 2-3 museums before I had to leave. Unfortunately, the underground was more or less shut down. It took me 2 hours and a lot of changing of plans just to get to my first destination. By that time, I figured I would be better off making my way to King's Cross just order to avoid missing my train.

I made it back to Harrogate in time to meet some friends for dinner. All in all, it was a really nice weekend.

The Rosetta Stone.

Big Ben

Apparently they made a movie about me. I love my reviews.

Yes, the mummies and 5,000 year old statues were cool, but I especially like the roof at the British Museum.

Westminster Abbey

Trooping of the Colour, Buckingham Palace (The Queen and entire royal family are in this picture. Look closely.)

As promised, here is the queen's official title, at the time of crowning, as per Wikipedia:

Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Mercy, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.

And if that wasn't enough, here are the some she has acquired since gaining the crown in 1953:

Sovereign of the Order of Canada, Sovereign of the Order of Australia, Sovereign of the Order of New Zealand, Sovereign of the Order of Barbados, Sovereign of the Order of Valour, Sovereign of the Order of Military Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Sovereign of the Queen's Service Order, Sovereign of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of St. Andrew, Sovereign of the Order of Logohu, Sovereign of the Order of the Star of Melanesia.

Believe it or not, the list goes on. Her business cards must be super annoying.

Almost Home...

I will be at the very end of this street.

I will soon have a house here in Harrogate. It's not the place I previously posted about, but there is a story behind that. To begin with, I was never extremely excited about the flat with the holes in the doors and no appliances in the kitchen. I was looking at it as an investment. With some work, I think I could have sold it in a few years for a decent profit. I still think that's the case, but I needed a place to live in the near term. Judging from how slow the speed of business is here, I could have been waiting to move into that place for months while the flooring was getting done or the cooker getting installed. Plus, it was right underneath some gigantic power lines, had no assigned parking, no outside storage, and was in a somewhat crowded neighborhood. It felt like an apartment, basically.

Living room with gas fireplace.

The realtor really messed up my bid on that first place, as well. I placed my bid over the phone on a Thursday because I was in Germany. On Saturday I called them back to see what sort of progress they were making. They had no news for me. I asked if there was anything I could do to speed up the process and the guy recommended that I bring in my mortgage in principal (pre-approval) paperwork. Even then he didn't make it sound like it was necessary, just that it would be helpful. I walked the paperwork over to their office that Saturday morning. The following Tuesday I called the bank that is providing the mortgage to let them know that I might be getting a place. The lender said that I should have been notified already of their decision, so she called the realtor for me. She called me back in a few minutes and told me that the realtor needed my mortgage in principal paperwork before they could place the bid on my behalf. By that point I was very frustrated. I called the realtor back and told them that they already had my paperwork. I told them to submit my bid. They finally did, but then called me back to tell me that someone submitted a bid before me. Long story short, I had to give an update with my "best and final offer" before noon the next day. At this point I really didn't want the realtor to get the commission, so I called the other realtor that had the property listed, but they didn't seem to be any more helpful.

Front of house.

During lunch that day at work I started looking online again for a 2 bedroom place in Harrogate. I found one at the very peak of my price range, but I immediately liked it. It had a garden (yard), it's own parking, a bbq pit, a gas fire place (just the idea of having a fire place makes me look forward to the cold winters with their 20 hours of darkness each day so that I have a reason to use it.), and it was in move in condition. When I got home from work I looked at the place again. The price had been lowered that afternoon by £5,000. At that point I knew that I wanted the place and that I had to get my bid in quickly. I set up a viewing appointment with the realtor and drove to the house to look through the windows that night.

Side of house abuts "push bike" / walking path

The next day I submitted my "best and final offer" on the first place, which was less than my first offer by £5,500. I'd still live there if I got a great deal on the place, but I was pretty sure that the offer wouldn't be accepted. (Apparently the other one wasn't either; the place is still listed). I also took a look at the new place. It was in good condition. Not great, but definitely move-in ready. I put in my bid for the full asking price. It ended up that someone else put in a bid that day as well, so it went back to the "best and final offer" stage. I raised my bid by £2,010. That evening I found out that my bid was accepted (even though the other person's bid was apparently higher) and now I am on my way to having a place to live!

I'm shooting for a move in date of July 8th, but I was already told not to get my hopes up. Things move slowly here, like I said before.

Side "garden" (yard) with storage sheds, sun deck, and brick bbq.

Kitchen with shattered window.

In other news, I am starting to meet more people and am really enjoying my job. This past weekend I went on a "house crawl." Basically, it's a pub crawl except to people's homes instead of pubs. I joined about halfway through the evening, but I soon caught up. It was a lot of fun, but the night ended badly for my phone. As I was walking home from the last house at around 1:30am, I got a strong urge to listen to Neil Young (I have a tendency to listen to American folk music a lot more regularly when I am in a foreign place). To quench my urge, I grabbed my 3 week old iPhone from my pocket, but the little guy was slippery like a fishy. It jumped out of my hands and onto the sidewalk. Everyone knows the saying, "liquor then beer, you're in the clear; beer then liquor, never been sicker." A less known piece of wisdom is, "beer, then shots, then a mixed drink, then more beer, then some wine, followed by eating all of the taco toppings after the shells ran out, then an urge to listen to Neil Young while walking home in the dark kills your iPhone." It's catchy, I know. Ironically, as Kate pointed out, Apple just announced their new iPhone yesterday and the lowering of their prices on their old models. It is going to cost me more to fix my iPhone in the UK than it would cost me to buy a brand new one in the US. Bullocks.


Something positive that came out of the house crawl was the fact that I know where half a dozen people live now. On Sunday I ate dinner with some friends and came to find that I had a flat tire afterwards. No worries, I had a full sized spare in the trunk. As my luck would have it, that was flat too. I looked up the nearest service station on my GPS, picked up the tire, and started walking. An hour later I was still walking. What I didn't know before I started is that there are no service stations in Harrogate. It was amazing. I went to the three nearest places listed in my GPS and they had all recently been converted into something else. Just as I was considering my next move, I noticed that I was standing two houses down from one of the places I visited during the house crawl! I knocked on the door and borrowed a bicycle pump and got a ride to my car. After a quick tire change, I was off and running.

That is the major news from the weekend. I have Friday off this week, so I am taking the train down to London for a weekend there. I've never been there before and I am looking forward to it. I am going to the play Billy Elliot on Friday night. I think that is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I'm guessing the play should be pretty entertaining as well. I have nothing else planned at this point, so I will have to tear into my Lonely Planet on the train.

York Minster (it doesn't have anything to do with this post, but I walked past it the other week when I was out)

Cloudy Germany, Sunny England

I spent last week in Germany for a work trip. I get to go there every three months in order to check up on some of my people there. This time around I didn't spend any extra time there since I just took over two days before I left for Germany. However, in the future I plan on spending at least a long weekend there after every trip.

Germany was good, but since I was working I didn't get to see much. I did have some time on the last day as my flight was in the evening. I went to Heidelberg castle and the Gutenberg museum. The castle in it's current form was built in the mid 1700's. It's claim to fame is having the world's largest wine cask. How big is that, you ask? Just over 58,500 gallons. It is absurdly large and not functional. After only a year or two of use, it started to rot from the inside (they were never able to fully fill it) and it was too expensive to fix. From then on it was empty.


The Gutenberg museum is home to the first books ever printed. Unfortunately they didn't allow any photography, so you'll just have to take my word for it: they were old. The exact date of printing isn't known, but somewhere between 1452-5 Gutenberg started making Bibles. The first ones, which the museum had 3 of, are called B42 (Bible with 42 lines on each page). The museum also had a large selection of other printed works from the 1450's through today. My favorites were the pictures from the 1400-1600's. A lot of them looked like cartoon drawings from today, but (to put it in perspective) some were created when Christopher Columbus was a young boy; almost 40 years before sailing to America. For some reason I always imagine people from the distant past to be angry and without a sense of humor; however, a good number of the pictures had people smiling, making faces, or doing something funny. Maybe it is just that famous German sense of humor that is timeless and unstoppable.

I got back to England last Thursday night and the weather has been amazing. Super sunny, warm air, and almost no wind. It's a bit of perfect, as the Brits (or is it the Aussies?) say. As I mentioned an earlier post, Harrogate is a city of parks. What I didn't mention (because I had no idea) is how crowded the parks get when the weather is nice. It's like every living creature instinctively swarms the the manicured grass and flowers. I have never seen so many pale, shirtless hungover men in my life. I'm generalizing a bit here, but the Brits like to drink. It doesn't really matter where they are or what time of day it is. Walking past pubs at 9:00am on a Sunday, one would assume that it would be empty. In the US, if you saw someone drunk at that time of day you would probably think them to be a college student preparing to attend a sporting event or a raging alcoholic levelling out the shakes. But here, respectable looking people in collared shirts and expensive shoes are cranking away at drinking off their hangovers. No day of rest for them. Later in the afternoon they mosey on over to the park, take off their shirts and sun their white bellies. Their bloated faces are doubly assaulted by the alcohol and sun; it makes for some red faces.


In regards to the question of where I will be living, I put in a bid on a flat (apartment) last Thursday. It definitely needs some work, but it only has holes in the doors, not the walls like the place in Leeds. The carpet is old, dirty, and bunched up all over. Under that are those old white tiles that measure 1'x1' and are most often found in schools built in the 1960's. If I buy it, I would plan on replacing all of the flooring with wood, maybe bamboo. Some of the walls are painted (badly, but that's easily fixed) and some of the walls are wallpapered (also badly and not as easily fixed). There are a couple of spots in the cupboards (closets) where the cement wall is flaking off. The kitchen doesn't have any appliances; no hob (stove), cooker (oven), or refrigerator. There is some water damage in the second bedroom and mold. Hopefully it is just where the last people dried their clothes and not an issue with the foundation or window framing. All in all, it seems livable. Hopefully the realtor gets back to me in the next day or two regarding my bid. I went 5% lower than their asking price and the place has been on the market since last fall. It's a repossession.


Lastly, here is a short video of some bagpipers playing in the park next to my flat. Notice how perfect the weather was for a Sunday afternoon. I read three Mitch Albom books this past week (even though I wasn't a huge fan of any of them) and I started on some Mark Twain short stories today after the bagpipers finished playing. I'm starting to do the same thing I did when I was in Japan: reading too much and not wandering in my new surroundings. I hope to fix that next weekend with a trip to... somewhere.