Adventures on Trains

It's been awhile since I've posted on here, hasn't it?  Well, in a short recap, last October I finally got a job (yay!) with the University of Surrey doing part-time research and part-time teaching.  While I was very grateful to have a job, we were living a 2 hour commute away, so basically all of my spare-time was being spent commuting on the train.  Luckily, after several months of looking, we finally found a bigger house near a train station that would cut my commute in half.  We've now been in the house for about 6 weeks, and I finally feel like I have some time to ramble on here for a bit.  Seeing as how I have spent so much time in the last 8 months on trains, I thought it most appropriate to do my first blog post about the various things I have encountered during that time.

People

There are so many different sorts of people that take the train.  When we were living in Newbury, the first train (of two) I caught every morning was one of the fast commuter trains into London.  Here you get all of the suits, some reading their Kindle, some reading the free newspaper, some on their computers, most with their coffees in hand and some still eating their breakfast.  Occasionally you'll get the groups of 2 or 3 people that actually know each other and enjoy being on the train with hundreds of people every morning and just chat away.  I learned quite a bit about some people from listening in on these conversations, sometimes a bit too much for my liking.  That's the other thing, at that time in the morning, I would say 90% of the people go to the same door in the same car and try to sit/stand in the same area everyday.  Since this was only the first train of the day and usually just a 20 minute ride, I typically chose to stand in the cafe car to try and stay out of the mad rush for a seat.  Although quite a few people tended to have this same idea, so the mad rush for a seat sometimes turned into a mad rush to find a corner to stand in.

Now that we have moved, I still have to catch 2 trains to get to work, but the first one is about a 3 minute journey from getting on to getting off again.  The station we live next to now is much smaller, with only 1 platform going each way.  This train's final destination is still London, but instead of only 2 stops, it has about 15 in between where I get on and London.  There aren't so many people in suits as there are uniforms, and these uniforms are typically on girls between the ages of 11 and 16.  You see, in England, most schools have either girls or boys (not both), and all schools up to the age of 16 make the students wear uniforms.  Now when I arrive at the station every morning I'm surrounded by school girls with problems like the party they couldn't go to over the weekend, the problems they're having with their phones, and just general nonsense I don't understand anyway.  Most of the time I just sit there and thank goodness I was never like that when I was their age...

The second train I take is also a slow train with several stops that takes about 35-45 minutes on average to get to Guildford (the city where I work).  There is no end to the different types of people that I see on this train.  There are still plenty of people commuting to work on these trains, they just tend to give off a more casual and relaxed vibe.  I've also seen a few homeless and/or drunk men staggering on the train from time to time.  Depending on what time I go to work in the morning, sometimes I catch the train that all of the 17-18 year olds get on their way to school.  Boy are these trains loud.  These boys and girls don't have to wear uniforms, so a lot more skin and underpants are definitely on show here.  Most of the girls are still putting on their gallons of makeup, and both girls and boys are frequently rolling their cigarettes to light up the second they step off of the train.  It's amazing how many young people smoke in this country.

Smells

I've heard that smell can trigger some of the most powerful memories from your past.  Well, I have encountered some of the most unusual and horrific smells on trains.  Some you can expect, others slither their way into your airspace and before you know it you have almost completely suffocated from the fumes.  One of the smells which aren't as sneaky is the one which envelopes you the moment you step from a rain shower onto the train.  You would think that I would be grateful for some shelter after having walked through countless puddles while trying not to trip because I have to peak through my increasingly frizzy hair on these days.  Wrong.  There isn't really one word to describe the smell of a hundred wet Britons all crammed into a damp, musty, and dirty train for 45 minutes.  In fact, it can take on different aromas on different days.  Sometimes it smells like you've walked into a port-a-potty, and sometimes like you've just shoved your face into a very wet St. Bernard.  One thing you can count on is that it won't be a pleasant smell.

One of my most horrific experiences with smells on trains occured a few months ago when we were still living in Newbury.  I had just had a long 4 hour lab session and simply wanted my 2 hour commute home to go by as quickly as possible.  Then a large Indian decided to sit next to me.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Indians.  Sure, their poors tend to ooze the curry they ate for dinner the night before or lunch that day.  I've gotten used to this.  What I haven't gotten used to yet is large curry scented men sitting next to me and passing some of the most terrifyingly bad smelling gas that my nose has ever encountered.  The worst part?  The train was pretty full, and I was in the window seat wedged between him and the table in front of me with my large backpack full of labs to grade the next day.  There are just no words to describe how happy I was to get off of that train.

Sights

My favorite thing about trains is getting to just look out over the beautiful English countryside while on my way to work.  It can be so amazing to see the rolling hills covered in snow, or the first flowers of the season coming up next to the tracks.  On several occasions, I've also seen deer just munching away on some grass.  I've seen newborn foals, piglets, and lambs in the fields next to the train tracks.  Sometimes it's so peaceful, the last thing I want to do is get off and sit in my windowless office in front of a computer all day.  This is why I continue to commute by train and haven't opted for driving into work everyday.

However, when arriving at a train station, the worst thing to lay your eyes upon is when all of the platform signs telling you what train comes next and when it should arrive just has in big bold letters DELAYED printed on the screen.  Nothing is more heart breaking than this.  You get used to seeing the times 5-15 minutes later than usual, in fact, you come to accept that it is more likely to be late than on time, but if the station is unable to give you a time in which the train will arrive, you know something big is afoot.  Usually this is due to a train breaking down on the tracks, some signalling problems outside the station, or the worst, when some sorry person has decided that their last and final goodbye to this world must occur during rush hour in front of a train moving at 125 mph so that as many people as possible now know they have departed.  When this happens, nothing can pass either way for at least 2-3 hours, and by then there are so many trains backed up that your journey could be 4-5 hours later than normal.  Before I started commuting by train, I thought this was something that rarely happened and would never affect me.  Well, I had the pleasure of experiencing this for the first time during my second week of work, and a few more times after that.  Thankfully I have never been on the train which helped the person jump from this world to the next, and I have a very loving husband who has come to collect me from the station on those times when I wouldn't get home until 11pm otherwise. 

Well, this is quite a long post, and I think I have rambled on sufficiently about various experiences I have had during my train adventures.  I will try to post on here again before too long as I'm sure there are loads of different places and pictures I could post of our adventures roaming the English countryside.  Until then, I'll be praying for sunshine as our winter seems to have clawed it's way back these last few weeks!

Summer Adventures

I can hardly believe it's August already.  This summer has been flying by!  We've been camping, visited loads of big stately homes, a bit of family came to visit, kayaking, and even climbed a mountain in Wales!  I don't think I could give you a play-by-play of everything we've done, but I'll do my best to give you a good overview.

Camping
At the beginning of the summer, we went camping in Dorset on the South coast to pick up a kayak.  We were hoping to give it a test drive that same weekend, but windy conditions and big waves prevented us from getting off of the beach.  Instead we just hung out and took a walk on the cliffs next to the campsite.  It was very pretty!

Looking back at the campsite from our walk

The bay next to the campsite

We next went camping in the New Forest, which William the Conquerer had planted for his own hunting use way back when.  This time we were with 2 other couples we've made friends with from Jonathan's work.  We also went kayaking this time, and got a bit farther than before.  It was such a nice weekend, we both got a bit of sun even!  Not that anyone from AZ would be able to tell, I'm sure we're both still just as pasty as ever.  After kayaking on Saturday, we spent Sunday at Hurst Castle, built by Henry VIII.  It was built as a defense mechanism, heavily armed even through WWII.  Again, it was just a lovely and beautiful day to spend by the seaside.  I just realized I never actually took a picture of the castle, but at least you get to see what a lovely day it was!

Everyone enjoying the sun.

Jonathan and Adam attempting to fly a kite

The lighthouse next to the castle

Looking across at the Isle of Wight

Stately Homes
We've had two visits from family this summer.  Jonathan's parents came to visit for a long weekend.  We visited several homes and gardens and ate extremely well.  We love it when family comes to visit (and we get to go out to eat at nice places!).  For some reason I wasn't in a picture taking mood for most of the weekend, but the last day I finally busted out the camera.  This is a place called Clivedon, and it was amazing.  The gardens were really what were appealing, since the house is used for a hotel and you can only go into part of it. 

And this is the house

These are the formal gardens as
viewed from the balcony of the house

We took a boat ride on the Thames, too!

You can just see the house over the trees

This next place is actually called Blenheim Palace.  It belongs to the Duke of Marlborough, and is the place where Winston Churchill was born.  We went here when my grandfather and his family came to visit.  It was another beautiful day, we've been so fortunate to have good weather this summer when it really mattered!  Blenheim also had beautiful ground to walk around in and its own man-made lake as well.  Again, I didn't take many pictures, but there were a couple!

In the chapel of the Palace

Part of the formal gardens

 Snowden

I'm almost done, I promise.  This last weekend, we drove up to north Wales and spent the weekend with Jonathan's friends Elen and John.  Elen is from Anglesey, a small island off the North-West coast of Wales, which, if you are keeping track, is also where Prince William and Kate live when they're not in London.  Anyways, we decided that we would go climb Snowden, which is one of the three tallest peaks in the UK.  It is just under 1100 meters at it's peak, somewhere around 3500ft.  It's been a while since I've been on a good hike, and this didn't disappoint.  Among the highlights were clouds that kept creeping lower and lower over the mountain until at one point we were walking in the cloud and couldn't see farther than 20ft in around us.  It also started raining as we came down off the mountain, and eventually got completely soaked before getting to the bottom. 

A look back at the train that goes parallel
 to the trail for the lazy people ;)

The clouds on the tops of the mountain

As we start to ascend into the clouds!

Yay we reached the top!

Well, that's the bulk of our summer so far.  We still have a trip to Leeds which includes a day at another roller coaster park and of course to end the summer our trip to AZ!  I hope you all are doing great and have enjoyed the update!  :o)







Please forgive me...

I'll admit it, I have a problem.  I'm not a big fan of talking about myself which makes blogging all that more difficult for me.  I always tell myself I need to update my blog, because I love reading other peoples blogs and looking at pictures and such.  So, why shouldn't at least someone like to read my blog or look at my pictures.  Anywho, let me give you a (hopefully) brief update as to what we have been up to these last few months...

March 19th marked our first anniversary.  Hard to believe I've been living here for over a year now.  We spent the weekend in South Wales, in a little seaside town called Saundersfoot.  We got there Friday afternoon, spent the evening walking on the beach and exploring the town.  It was before the big summer season hit, so it was pretty empty, but the weather was gorgeous.  On Saturday, we hiked to the nearest slightly larger and busier town of Tenby where we had fish and chips and ice cream for lunch, and ate at a really nice old restaurant for dinner that we found once we were there.  Sunday we drove back, stopping at castles on the way.  It was a great weekend.

Saundersfoot, Wales, UK

Just a small example of the strange Welsh language...

Jonathan on the beach in the moonlight.

Us in Tenby.

Tenby Harbour with the tide out.

Tenby Harbour when the tide was in.

In April, we went to nearby Buckleberry Farm Park, after Jonathan heard that there had just been some piglets born.  There we fed lambs, piglets, deer, goats, and mini horses and donkeys.  It was pretty much Jonathan's dream come true for a day out. 

These are hairy piglets,
they crept under the fence to get our food.

These are the wild boarlets they had,
but we didn't get to feed them.

And these are the pygmy goat
kids who kept escaping.

We were thinking about stealing one
since they had so many,
but couldn't figure out how to fit it in our pockets...

 

 

April also brought on Easter, which we spent up in North Yorkshire, with Jonathan's parents.  My sister Lindsay and her boyfriend John also came up to spend the long weekend with us, which we spent outside in the beautiful sunshine playing frisby and attempting to get rid of our ghostly appearance!

 

In May, we went to a country fair at the grounds of nearby Highclere Castle.  We went there last year, and we still enjoyed it just as much this year.  There were a few more exhibits/stands that we visited this year.  Jonathan spent about an hour and a half talking to a taxidermist while watching him stuff a bird (I can't remember the kind).  I learned more than I ever dreamed of about the art of taxidermy and that if Jonathan one day has a lot of time on his hands, I might become even more familar with it.  Oh, and we visited a stand with lots of "exotic" animals.  There was a boa constrictor, a scorpion, a tarantula, and this:

 

A hissing cockroach.

Jonathan of course basically forced me to hold it first, which wasn't necessarily scary, but it was pretty gross.  Then after I was done, I told him it was his turn, and he shouted, "no way!"  Well, I wasn't about to let him get out of it, so you can see, he eventually conceded. 

 

That brings us to June.  Just a couple of weekends ago, we went to an amusement park called Thorpe Park with Lindsay and John for her last full weekend in England.  It was so much fun having her here, even though she wasn't quite close enough for a daily visit.  We were able to get together several times between her European getaways with John.  She even went of one of the big rollercoasters, which, if you have ever been to a park like that with Lindsay, would know that is a pretty big deal.  We did almost get rained out that day, but we stuck it out until the end.  Jonathan and I also went on one of the wettest rides I've ever been one, and I found out that the waterproof jacket I brought was not so waterproof after all...

 

Yay Lindsay!

Oh.  So.  Wet.

I'll try to do better this summer with updates.  We're hopefully going on a few camping trips with and without our kayaks, so I'll let you know how we survive!  :o)

Friends and Animals

This past weekend we had 2 of Jonathan's friends from university, John and Elen, over for the weekend.  Surprisingly, we all fit into our house!  It was really nice having them over as we've had some fairly quiet weekends since our Christmas holidays. 

I started off the weekend on Friday by baking some white chocolate and Smarties cookies.  For those of you from the US who have some confused looks on your face and wondering how Smarties could ever be good in a cookie, I should probably clarify what Smarties are over here.  Basically, they are like another version of M&Ms.  They are not the hard sugar candy that you get in the states.  For a bit more clarification, here are a couple of pictures of the delicious cookies.

Elen came late Friday night, and John came around lunchtime on Saturday.  Over the past couple of years, we've unintentionally had a tradition of visiting wildlife parks or zoos when we get together.  So, this time we went to Beale Park near us.  It's a small zoo-type park, with the main animals being birds, owls, and a few Australian animals.  The past couple of weeks here have been pretty wet, and Saturday, unfortuately, wasn't any different.  As we do live in England, that didn't stop us from spending the afternoon outside looking at sopping wet animals.  We were actually pretty lucky in that it only rained sporadically, and we were able to escape the rain for the most part under some cover.  Some of the animals were quite friendly, and actually came up to us when we walked by their enclosures.  Here are a few pictures of the animals we saw.

Jonathan being a goof.

This guy came right up to the fence and actually followed us as we walked past, so I got to take some fairly up close pictures of him.

This ring-tailed lemur also came up to the fence, along with a couple of others as we stood there watching.

After the park, we came back here to watch England play France in rugby, and play a marathon game of Disney Monopoly.  Here are the three of them about five minutes after we got back.

I tried to take one before this where they were all 3 holding cookies and their wine glasses, but it didn't turn out.  I think I made something like 35 cookies on Friday, and this morning there was about 5 left.  I'd say they were a success.  Anywho, that was our weekend.  We both agreed that it turned out pretty well in the end.  I don't think John and Elen are going to want to play Monopoly with us again anytime soon, but I'm sure we can find an alternative next time.  That's it for now.  I'll be sure to update you as soon as we have another adventure.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we do!

Winter Wonders

Hello everyone!  I know it's been awhile since my last post, but it's been fairly busy around here.  In December, we were hit with one of the coldest on record, with the whole of England being covered at one point.  In places like the mid-west and in the mountains, they would have thought that what we experienced was like a cold spring day, but the English aren't used to quite that much at once.  We only had a couple of inches in Newbury, but Jonathan's parents had about 2 feet at one point.  To be honest, I felt a little cheated since all I wanted to do was make a snowman.  We spent Christmas in England with Jonathan's family, and New Year's in Arizona. 

When we got up to Yarm, to our disappointment, all of the snow they had was gone.  However, it was still pretty darn cold, leading to some very hard frosts.  Here are a few pictures of the frost they had, with no snow.

This is a little creek at the bottom of the drive to get to their house.

This is Jonathan standing on the frozen part of that creek

And these are just some berries with a lot of frost on them. :)

While it wasn't quite the 2 feet of snow they had in the beginning of December, we were fortunate to have a White Christmas, complete with sledding (or as they call it here, sledging, which to me just sounded like they had a speech impediment), an epic snow fight, and snow angels.  The snow was too dry to make a snowman, but I was pretty happy with what we did get.  :o)  Sadly, I was too busy pelting Jonathan with snow during our fight to take pictures of it, but trust me when I say that snow fights with shovels are amazing, and there was a unanimous decision that I won.  The snow came on the night of the 23rd, so we had 2 days of sledding before we had to head back down south.  Jonathan's sister, Ellen, and her husband, Andy, bought the sled initially, and after finding out that when it says for children, it doesn't mean for 2 grown adults at one time, we bought the second sled for Christmas day.  Jonathan did attempt to fix the one we broke, but it was never quite the same.  There were also a few epic wipeouts, one of which ended up in the biggest bruise I've had in my life, but I survived.  Here are a few pictures...

The snow angels we made after our snow fight.

Jonathan standing on the even more frozen creek.

Ellen and Andy pushing Jonathan down the hill.

I don't have many pictures from Arizona, but we had a great time with lots of family stuff and great friends.  We were hoping to warm up a bit with the 70 degree weather we kept hearing about, and we did, for about a day.  Then it became colder there than it was in England.  Not quite what we were hoping for, but again, we survived.  I guess we'll just have to wait until Spring or Summer to warm up!  That's about it for now, but I'll try to update again before another 2 months have passed.  :)

Elvis, Apple Cider, and Pumpkin

I've seen Elvis.  Or at least a really good impersonator.  The story?  Well, it's Thursday night here in our little house, I had just gotten home from tutoring a girl in physics and chemisty, and we think we hear a knock on the door.  I say think because Thursday was absolutely insane here, weather wise, and we weren't sure if we were just hearing the wind and rain on the windows.  It turns out, it was a knock on the door, from our neighbour.  Jonathan answers the door, and she says "Oh hello, it's just me from next door.  Do you like Elvis?"  Kind of a random question, don't you think?  Well, it turns out that they had tickets for an Elvis concert the next day, Friday, and she and her husband couldn't go.  After being a little hesitant, we took the tickets, mainly just to be nice and said thank you.  We weren't exactly excited to go, but decided that we would go and stay until the intermission or whatever just to be able to tell them thank you for the tickets and feign enjoyment.  Anyways, we went.  We get there and most of the people there are 50+ and several older people there who you could tell might have actually seen Elvis in concert 50 years ago.  Basically, it's a touring production called The Elvis Years, featuring Elvis (or an impersonator, you can decide), and a four-man band performing all of his hits and re-creating his biggest concerts.  It was actually a lot of fun.  Much more exciting than our usual Friday nights of just watching whatever happens to be on tv.  Everyone was dancing in their seats, and I discovered that I am a fan of Elvis.  I always knew I like some of his songs, but there were quite a few that I knew.  Anywho, I stand by the statement that I have seen Elvis, and now you know the story.

Apple cider.  It says cold weather, holidays, family, and coziness.  Do they have apple cider in England?  No.  Not even the caramel apple cider from Starbucks.  You have no idea how much disappointment I experienced when I realised this.  If you ask for apple cider, they think you're talking about a drink with alcohol and carbonation (ew).  I have even read up on the differences between cider and juice to see what I could do about it.  I determined that I am not making an apple press, no matter how much I love the stuff.  Maybe next year.  How have I survived?  By buying cheap apple juice, putting cinammon in it, and heating it up in the microwave.  Luckily, it's been long enough since I've had the real stuff, so it doesn't taste too bad, but still not the same. 

Also, they don't sell canned pumpkin in the grocery stores here.  That's right, if I want to make pumpkin bread or pie, I have to use an actual pumpkin, boil it, and mash it myself.  By the way, that mashing would have to be done by hand, we don't have a blender or mixer.  These people are wierd, and deprived.  I did find the website of a company that imports American food for you, but I think it's all 2-3 times (at least) more expensive than it would be at Safeway.  I'm still debating on whether I will do this.  I think it depends on how desperate I get.

Anywho, that's pretty much the update for now.  With no Thanksgiving to act as a buffer, the stores are completely Christmas themed now and have been for a couple of weeks.  In fact, I've been listening to Christmas music the whole time I've been writing this.  It's been wonderful.  Don't worry, it'll soon be Christmas!  :o)

Halloween!

It's been a few years since I've had the opportunity to celebrate Halloween.  Last year when I was in AZ I was supposed to go out to a karaoke bar and dress up and sing off key with my friends, but I lost my voice for the first time in many many years and was stuck at home watching movies in my pjs.  I decided that this year would be different.  Granted, it was no karaoke bar, but at least we celebrated. 

How, you ask? 

Well, let me start my saying that Jonathan has never really had a proper Halloween.  That's right, he's never been trick-or-treating, and has carved a pumpkin maybe once in his life.  Since we are a little too old to trick-or-treat (without kids), I decided we at least had to carve a pumpkin.  And we did.  We bought a little pumpkin from the store and Jonathan designed the face, with vampire fangs.  Of course, when I think of carving a pumpkin, I think of orange stringy stuff getting everywhere, but I had to sort of ease Jonathan into this, so the mess was minimal.  Here are a couple of pictures from pumpkin carving...

 That's not all.

On Friday, I went into town to do a few things and couldn't resist going into the pound shop just to see what they had in the way of costumes.  It took me a few minutes to figure out how much I wanted to torture Jonathan with it, since at this point he was still unaware that we were going to dress up.  By "dress up", I by no means am saying that I wanted to do a full body costume or anything.  I was in the pound shop, not a costume shop - which by the way, they call a fancy dress shop over here.  I was thinking more along the lines of a mask or a headband with antennas, just to get us into the Halloween mood.  After all, I have plenty of years ahead to plan more elaborate costumes.  ;)  Back to the shop.  In the end I found this "make your own mask" kit, with materials for 4 different masks in it - pumpkin, ghost, cat, and frankenstein.  Perfect.  Granted, the pictures on the package showed the finished masks on 10 year old kids, but I didn't really care.  So, after we carved the pumpkin, we made our masks.  He was a pretty good sport about it too, in the end.  It took a little bit of convincing, but I'm getting the hang of this whole wife thing, and have found my ways of persuasion.  You want to see what we looked like?  Jonathan was Frankenstein, and I was a ghost.  Just keep in mind, we basically just decorated it the way the pictures showed...

And this is what we looked like when trick-or-treaters came to our door.  Jonathan got so into it, that he even named the spider on his mask - Clarence.  We had quite a few trick-or-treaters as well!  We decided that it was our amazing pumpkin that we put out front which was like a beacon saying "Yes! We have candy!"  We even got complimented on our masks, which was great.  Granted, it was a little hard to see out of them since the eye holes were a little small, but I considered the night a success.   I even roasted the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin.  Yesterday was a good day.  :o)