Through The Looking Glass

As of this past Thursday Luke is officially a graduate of the University of Manchester (with a 2.1 no less) and I'm so happy I was able to attend the ceremony. I have only ever attended a graduation ceremony that I took part in, so it was nice to sit in on one from a different perspective. The ceremony occurred in Whitworth Hall, a location Luke and I had visited on our trip around the uni. I took photos of it in a previous entry, it is the place that looks exactly like Hogwarts!

The ceremony was short and sweet, in fact much shorter than I was expecting - only an hour long in fact. It appears the English have managed to get all the pomp and circumstance into their ceremonies without making them long and drawn out. Something much appreciated as the room was stifling hot.

After the ceremony, I joined Luke's mum, step-dad, grandad, and dad at a pub across the street for a celebratory pint or two before the family sans Luke's dad went out for a lovely Italian dinner at Felicini's in Didsbury (basically a posh suburb of Manchester). Felicini's caters to the more Mediterranean side of Italian cooking, I had stuffed vine leaves for starters (by far the best I have ever had) and pan-fried gnocchi with goat's cheese, spinach, and sun dried tomatoes for my main. Before ending the evening with a selection of ice creams (fig and marscapone; cherry; double chocolate). The meal was the cherry on top to a lovely day!

I found out something new this weekend, July 10th is Alice's Day, a celebration of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll. This knowledge came to me quite by accident. Luke and I are currently at Neil and Nic's watching Oli and Doogal (their previously mentioned Basset Hounds) which is not to far from Oxford. Saturday morning Luke and I were talking about going to Oxford, and he asked me if I had anything in particular I would like to do there. Of course being an Alice fanatic I asked if by chance there were any Alice in Wonderland museums in Oxford, last time I was there I couldn't remember hearing of any. A Google search told us all we had to know.

Alice's Day is described as a frabjous day celebrated in Oxford (birthplace of the story), I'm still unclear if it's celebrated anywhere else. There are a number of activities to choose from. Luke and I went to The Botanic Garden to enjoy a picnic that Luke had packed and watch 'The Hunting of the Snark', a ceremony based on one of Lewis Carroll's nonsensical poems "that charts the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature." The Botanic Garden was a personal favourite of the Liddell family for a day out. Alice Liddell served as inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as it was written for her one summer's afternoon on a family outing along the river.

After our picnic, Luke and I had a wander around Oxford, down to Christ Church (which Carroll was the Dean of). We found the famed Alice's Shop which basically was like walking into a fantasy land for me, everything you could think of in an Alice theme. I had every intention of purchasing a souvenir but it was an incredibly small shop, on an incredibly hot day which meant it was stuffy and unbearable - I left the shop much earlier than I would have liked feeling faint. This was remedied by a stroll around Christ Church Memorial Gardens, where we had an interesting experience watching a demonstration on honey bees. We were able to post up and watch the bees coming in and out of their hives while listening with stethoscopes to their buzzing.

After our walk through the gardens, Luke and I fully intended to go to the Bodleian Library, which was having an exhibition of early edition Alice books, including one illustrated by Salvador Dali. To our dismay we arrived three minutes too late as the library had just shut. Oh well, there is always next year, for a feel an annual tradition coming on!

Alice's Shop with Christ Church in the background.

Erin x

Here Comes the Weekend

As stated in my previous post, Luke and I spent the weekend at Neil and Nic's house near Milton Keynes (about forty minutes outside of London). It was a lovely weekend with a few disappoints: USA was knocked out of the World Cup on Saturday in their match with Ghana and England on Sunday in a crushing defeat against Germany, 4-1. Alas, there goes England's hopes for a victory for another four years. Football has been turned off in most households now, except for the die hard fans. No matter, like I said it was a lovely weekend and one should not focus on the negative.

On Friday, Luke received his results for his degree - he received a 2.1! I know this must not mean much of anything to the Yanks out there, but it's a very good result. It is similar to scoring a high GPA. Luke was convinced he wasn't going to receive a 2.1, but I always believed he had it in him. Very proud of him, and we will head back to Manchester next Wednesday to celebrate his achievement and watch him graduate. (Don't worry Grandma, I promise to get pictures of him in his cap and gown and send them to you!)

After we arrived at Neil's and said hello to the boys (Oliver and Doogal, their two Basset Hounds) we walked down to this Pan Asian restaurant (it serves both Thai and Indian cuisine). Neil and Nic were disappointed, apparently it was not as good as it usually is. I don't mind, Luke and I both enjoyed our meals very much. I personally think mine was the best, an Indian duck curry with caramelized onions and apricots -gorgeous!

The following day we went shopping at T.K. Maxx, the exact same store as America's T.J. Maxx but the name has been changed for the English market. Apparently there is already a store called T.J.'s, therefore the company changed it so no one would confuse the two. Luke found a number of nice shirts to get. Nicola and I ransacked the women's department, but I found nothing, alas it was just one of those days.

We went to Stony Stratford for lunch, a little market town which is where the phrase "a cock and bull story" was created. The Cock and The Bull are the two pubs in town, and during the coaching era people would travel from one pub to the other telling stories. Often, these stories would change between the pubs and thus the saying was invented. (See http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cock%20and%20bull%20story.html for more information)

The pubs are still there and working, which isn't surprising considering this is England where they like to keep cultural treasures and not Las Vegas which tears down anything that is over 50 years old. We had lunch at Neil and Nicola's favourite shop in Stony Stratford - the Stony Wine Emporium. We had a bottle of rose and two anti pasti platters, an English one with local English cheese and meats and a French one with some pates and two of my favourite cheeses: Roquefort and Port Salut.

At the wine store, Neil and Nicola were also able to order a case Jurancon Sec, a local white wine from the area around Pau. It is Luke's and my absolute favourite white wine, I don't like many whites, and next to impossible to get outside the region. Luke and I are dogsitting for Neil and Nic the end of next week, so hopefully the wine will come in by then and we can have some!

Got all dressed up on Saturday night, because Neil and Nic were taking us out to celebrate both of our degrees. We went to Brasserie Blanc, a nice French restaurant owned by the famous chef Raymond Blanc. Started the night off with a bottle of Champagne, followed by two bottles of Rioja (a lovely Spanish red) and ending the dinner with a nice Port. I had escargots for starters and moules marineres (mussels) for my main, then Nic and I split Baked Alaska for dessert. It was an excellent meal with even better company. After dinner we sat in the back garden listening to music and drinking a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape (an incredibly nice red) until the wee small hours of the morning.

Sunday morning was a little rough for some people, not to point fingers but LUKE. It was the hottest day of the year so far in England. We took Oli and Doogal for a walk around the park and then chased them around the back garden trying to give them bathes, which they did not want in the slightest.

The England match was to begin at 3 o'clock, so we had a late lunch comprising of a barbecue before watching the match, which I will speak no more of, the memory of the loss is still too painful. After the match, Neil drove Luke and I back to Southam.

Luke and I had another lovely barbecue waiting for us back in Southam courtesy of Lindsay and Ian, this one was with a Greek twist and I stuffed myself on Lindsay's homemade Greek salads (one with grilled vegetables and the other more traditional) and Tzatziki sauce.

Ended the weekend with a bottle of pink Champagne, a very satisfactory end indeed!

Erin x

Simply Red

There is a saying here in England, that the southern Englishmen like to say "It's grim up North". This saying applies to the people, weather, etc. etc. After spending the past three days here in Manchester I must argue the contrary. The weather has been absolutely lovely here. With the exception of today it has been bright sunshine, barely a cloud in the sky, and incredibly warm. I'll give the English this, they take advantage of the nice weather more than your average American. The parks are filled with people sunbathing, having little BBQs and playing sport.

Yesterday I was amongst those people. Luke and myself went down to Platt Fields with two of his flatmates, Ben and Helen, for a spot of fishing and sunbathing. It was Helen's first time fishing and while we were all hopeful of catching something, Helen and I soon gave up and just laid back to enjoy the sun, Helen with her knitting and me with a book. The boys on the other hand were not so willing to give up, they kept switching bait and location hoping to coax the fish out of the lake.

We weren't able to catch any fish, but I was able to make an observation of the English people. I never realized how helpful the English are, or at least how helpful they try to be. We were down at Platt Fields for probably near five hours, and at least once every fifteen minutes would be approached by some one inquiring if we'd caught anything. When this inquiry was met with a disheartened 'no' there was a standard set of responses we would get. 1) What bait were we using? When the boys told them, they would suggest something else to try. or 2) They would point us in another direction of the lake and suggest we try to fish there since they had seen some (insert name of the fish they saw here). A couple of middle aged men, who looked the least likely to be of any help, stop to chat to us for five minutes offering a number of helpful pointers.

In America it has always been my experience that people will more or less let you get on with it, whether you succeed or fail is not their concern. I do not mean this as a criticism of America, it is just a different attitude. I think Americans find it rather rude when they are offered advice without asking for it, that the person giving you the advice must think you're an idiot. Here it is simply just friendly advice. Whether you take it or not is up to you, but at least the people feel they have done the neighbourly thing.

We left the park at five, and that night Luke and I made a lovely supper of Thai Prawn Curry. I'll try to remember to put the recipe up here at some point. We've made Thai Prawn Curry a number of times, but I have to say this was easily the best we've made. The portions were huge but I ate every morsel, it was just so amazing. We added a few extra ingredients this time which I think kicked the dish up a notch, like lemon grass and some random Thai root that I'm spacing the name of. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it...

Yesterday was an amazing day in Manchester, but it easily ties with my first day here. Luke had to return a book to the university library, so he used this as an opportunity to take me on a tour of the University of Manchester. I've been to the university before, but during a cold wintery day, so I wasn't able to appreciate the beauty of campus as much. We went into Whitworth Hall and I felt as if I'd stepped back in time, or perhaps more accurately stepped into Hogwarts. The building is around 150 years old one of the workers told me. It's hard to believe considering that UNLV is only 50 years old and I highly doubt has any of it's original buildings.

Told you it was Slytherin House

Inside Whitworth Hall aka "Hogwarts"

Me in front of the GIANT organ

Luke at University of Manchester

University of Manchester

Our tour of the university concluded with a little look at The Manchester Museum. I was expecting it to be small and rather insignificant but was happily mistaken. The museum is only three floors, not as impressive as the other museums I've been to in England but still had it's share of interesting artifacts. I especially enjoyed the Ancient Egyptian wing which had actual mummies out for display - including mummified shrews and crocodiles.

We took a bus into the centre of town to do some shopping for Father's Day, since we're seeing Luke's dad this evening, and a spot of lunch at Nando's (A Portuguese chicken restaurant that is beyond amazing!)

As for today, Luke has gone down to Birmingham for a job interview so I'm here at the house doing a bit of writing and reading, listening to music, and watching the Slovenia v. USA of the World Cup. It's the perfect day for it, with the cool breeze coming in through the windows and a scattered rain showers, so relaxing.

Erin x