At a Glance: Burgers. Pottery. Pubs. Football

Sorry for the lack of posts from us. Boy, have we been busy this month. Can you believe it is already the end of October? We have had a couple "normal" weeks around here.  Jeff has been working a lot, so he has been really busy lately.  We celebrated our 2nd anniversary two weeks ago.  There was monsoon-like weather so instead of going out, we watched our wedding video, ate pizza, had a glass of wine, and many many desserts.  We properly celebrated the following Friday by heading out to Annie's Burger Shack and Freehouse, which was the best burger I have had since we moved here.  Ahhh-mazing! The lady who owns it is from New England.

 Best two years ever!

This past week, I was able to go with a few friends to the Denby Pottery Factory & Shops (Pottery made in the Derbyshire area, around where Jeff works) on Thursday.  We ate at the little cafe, and then shopped. I finally found a teapot to bring home! It was almost addicting to see all the different types of pottery as well as the different pieces. I wanted to buy a lot, but settled for a beautiful little teapot.  I still have my eye on the cake stand...

 

My teapot's new spot in our flat! 

 This past weekend was a great one, as we went out with some friends on Friday night.  We met up with our friends in Nottingham to hit up Pitcher & Piano (the church-pub) and headed out to a few other places.  It was a fun night out, although I felt super old hanging around bars with "kids" (drinking age, 18).

My friend, Jo and I, at Pitcher & Piano

Saturday came quickly, and we headed to The City Ground to watch our first "football" match. AKA, American friends, SOCCER. Our friends, Andrew & Julie, came with us to the game. We stopped at a local pub that was on the canal near our house. It was a great environment inside, although we ate outside.  The pub had a boat garage, so part of the canal ran through the restaurant and boats were inside. Very cool place. 

Anyway--we went to the stadium to watch the Nottingham Forest (Tricky Trees) play the Blackburn Rovers,  Jeff bought a Nottingham Forest scarf, grabbed our tickets, and headed to our seats.  We were up high, but we had a really good view.  There were over 27,000 people at the game.  

 View from our seats

It was a great environment, although the atmosphere was nothing compared to American ball games.  There was not a whole lot of music, announcing, or even much on the "jumbo" screens.  Although they didn't have the flashiness, like our American sports do...I felt like people were there for just the raw sport, and not all of the other pieces of entertainment, which was cool.  The crowd was REALLY into the game, especially the opposing team who ended up whooping us 3-1. I felt because there was not so much entertainment, people truly paid attention to the sport itself.  And speaking of football (this time, American Football).  It was great to see American Football being played on our live TV screen this weekend, as Detroit and Atlanta played over here in London.  Tickets were super expensive and of course, sold out...but that would have definitely been a fun experience.  Either way--I think Jeff was a happy camper when he could watch it on a real TV and not a computer screen.

Group shots!

All-in-all, it was a great experience and one we checked off of the bucket list.  We can't believe that we are running out of time to accomplish some of these events, places, etc. that we want to before we move home.  It was crazy to us that we are already planning our 2015 trips! 

Busy week ahead, hope to post again soon! 

Onto the next adventure...

Our Weekday Adventures in the Notts

Travis came back to Nottingham with Jeff and I after we had our fun in Munich, Germany. We also were lucky enough to have another visitor, Jeff's dad, Greg.  The beginning of the week was pretty low key as the weather was awful (that's saying a lot for people who are used to the rain & wind).  Travis and I sucked it up to explore the city to some extent.  We went to the Nottingham Castle and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which are two of the many "musts" of Nottingham.  We also went out to an Indian restaurant Jeff and I had on our "to go" lists.  Watch out future visitors, we'll probably force you to do the same!  On Wednesday, Travis and I hopped on the bus to go visit Jeff and Greg in Derby.  It was a quick ride, and we were able to walk around the city, stop to have some tea, and do a little shopping at local charity shops.  Great deals, and Mom, I think I'm addicted to searching for teapots now...ught oh!

Travis and Jeff played squash together, while Jeff's dad and I had some quality time at a local bar.  We all met up later that night to try yet another pub Jeff and I had been meaning to try.  Pretty good food and atmosphere.  

Thursday, Travis and I explored Notts and visited the Galleries of Justice which was awesome.  Sorry to our visitors so far that I didn't take there...would have definitely been worth it.  This building was used as a court room to convict murderers, thieves, and pick pockets...just to name a few.  It was also used as a gaol (jail) and reformatory school.  The tour was really interesting as we had numerous tour guides depending on what section of the building we were in.  We learned some amazing things about the criminals of Nottingham and surrounding areas.  They executed people right outside of the building by hanging them in front of tons of people (sometimes thousands).  There are many other gruesome facts I learned, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. 

I made Weaver take this picture. Can you tell how excited he was?!

 We were each given a conviction number, which identified us as a criminal and gave us a pretend crime to be convicted of.  My card read that I was a cow theft and my punishment was execution.  Other people were thieves as well, but their punishment was transportation.  Transportation meant that they were sent on a boat to Australia for __ years.  Many of them died by the time they got there though.  

Stealing cows is a serious crime!

At first we thought it was for a head...we quickly changed our mind after this photo was taken that it was probably for the waist! Whoops! 

 Carvings from the convicts in the "exercise area" which was only for marching around for an hour. 

We also learned the roles of men and women while in the jail.  They were mostly confined to their cells, but were only given amenities if they had money.  There was also an area called the Pit which was for the poorest people, and it was basically a hole in the ground that they had to stay in. Pretty scary in that area! 

The "pit". I tell you what, the mannequins set up around this place freaked me out at times. 

There were numerous exhibits that taught you more about escapes (two escaped via helicopter in 1987), staff's responsibilities, and other miscellaneous items.  I even took my own mug shot. See below...watch out I'm pretty scary! 

(1st pic) The execution spot once moved inside the building grounds (2nd pic) the area for children.  

Don't mess with me! Am I right?! 

On a less-scary side of things, we headed to Pitcher & Piano which I have taken pictures of before.  If you don't have time to reread that post...Recap: A local restaurant that converted an old church into a beautiful pub. 

 Beautiful inside, especially with hardly any people!

A pint in front of this background...so perfect!

Thursday night, Jeff came home early and we headed to the Robin Hood Beer and Cider Festival.  Yes, another beer festival...It was a really neat environment as all of the beer and food tents were set up on the grounds of the castle.  We were given these cute little 1/2 pint beer mugs as a souvenir as well as drink our beer from the night in it. We were given an allotment of tickets to sample a huge variety of local breweries.  I found some new beers that I really enjoyed, and I think the boys were the same way. Although, they were a bit more daring than I was and tried some really nasty beer as well.  Not too many pictures, as we were just enjoying the environment.

On Friday, I decided to explore some areas of Nottingham that I had not been to and dragged Travis along.  We went the long route and walked down by the canal since it was actually a nice day. It eventually rained later in the day...There are so many beautiful churches in Nottingham, and I have been in zero. Well minus the church that was converted into a pub. But I feel that doesn't count. ha! We made it to two different churches in the city center, which were both so quaint and beautiful.  

 St. Mary's Church

 St. Peter's Church

We also went to this park called Arboretum that is just north of Nottingham Trent University (1 of 2 universities in Nottingham).  It was really pretty.  It had a small lake and even had some caged birds that were on display as well.  Andrew came down on Friday night, and the boys headed out for a guys' night.  Jeff and I ended the weekend relaxing, as the last month has been pretty busy!

 The lake at the park

Not normally a "bird person", but loved seeing these little guys!

Onto the next adventure...

Sausage, Beer, Beer, Sausage, Beer, Pretzel, Beer, Beer, Sausage, Beer

The title of the post pretty much sums up our time in Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest, where we had lots of amazing German food and lots of amazing German beer.  We had a friend join us, Travis, for the festivities.  He came in from the states, and met us in London to head to Stuttgart, Germany on Wednesday. After an hour, fifteen flight to Stuttgart, we headed by train to Munich for another two and a half hour ride.

We made it to Munich, and the boys immediately put on their lederhosen, and I put on my dirndl.  We headed towards the festival where thousands of people were already drinking, eating, and enjoying the festival.  What a sight to see all of these people dressed up in the traditional attire.  There were 14 large "tents" that held all the different local beer.  And by "tent" I mean a standing structure that holds about 10,000 people.  Not so tent-like, right? 

Jeff and I in our Bavarian attire

Inside one of the beer tents. (This was taken Sunday so less people in their Bavarian attire)

Oktoberfest is known for its traditions like the cookies. 

We walked a little bit, grabbed a giant sausage, and headed into the Hofbrauhaus tent.  It was pretty funny to see the three of our faces as we walked into the tent. I think we were all in shock as there were people everywhere, the band was playing local tunes, hops were hanging from the ceiling, and everyone had giant beers in their hands (1 liter of beer, approximately 2 pints).  We walked around, a little overwhelmed, and found room at a table where we enjoyed a few beers.  We loved the songs the band played, even though we did not understand any of the words.  It was also fun to meet new people, mostly Germans to talk about the festival and whatnot.

Giant sausage. So yummy! (PhotoCred: Travis)

The festival area. You can see the large tents (buildings) on both sides of the pictures. One of which has the giant beer on top!

This was our favorite tent. The only one with sit down and standing tables. 

The boys in their gear with their beer! (PhotoCred: Travis)

On Thursday, the three of us walked around Munich.  We went into a couple churches that were really pretty, popped into a few shops, and ate at a cute little outside restaurant before heading back to get back into our gear.  We could not make it inside a tent, so we enjoyed an area outside a tent before meeting our friends, Julie and Andrew who were joining us for the remainder of the Oktoberfest excitement.  We all had a great night, grabbed some sausages, and headed home for the night.  Another successful day.

 The insides of the two churches in the city of Munich. 

Julie and I with our giant beers (PhotoCred: Julie)

On Friday, we got up early to rent a car. You're nervous about how this story is going to go, aren't you? Luckily they drive on the "right" side of the road and the driver's seat is on the American side as well, and Andrew took the lead, so that was nice.  No issues as all, really nice roads, only "bad thing" was the signs were in German.  We drove about 2 hours to the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle in which Disney modeled their famous castle after. We were the lucky ones who could barely see the castle up close because there was a crazy amount of fog that morning.  We looked off the edge of the castle, and it was pure white...we couldn't even see the ground.  It was pretty disappointing that the weather was so yucky.  Other than that, the inside (no pictures allowed) of the castle was beautiful. It was not like the other castles we have been to because it wasn't used for war; it was purely for the joy of the king.  The rooms were still decorated as if the king still lived there, so that was pretty great to see the fine details.  Sidenote: The story of this king is pretty interesting if you want to read more.  We walked down from the castle area, grabbed a great local meal, and began to head back to the car for our journey home. Funny story though...the fog lifted and we looked up from the sidewalk to see the castle perfectly in the background.  Just our luck!

 Inside the castle grounds. Fog was so bad I didn't get many pictures

After the fog "magically" disappeared as we were leaving the city 

We ended our evening at another beer tent, and enjoyed the festivities.  Saturday morning we woke up early to head to the festival.  We knew that since it was a Saturday and the last "big hurrah" day we were going to need to get to the tents early.  We stood in line around 8:15, and the tents were supposed to open at 9:00.  The line began to move, and immediately everyone smooshed into one giant blob of a crowd.  At one point the line was moving, but I was not physically moving my feet. The line was pushing (not roughly, just tightly) that we were just moving together.  The 5 of us were split into 2 groups by accident.  Jeff, Travis, and I were sent to sit outside while Julie and Andrew made it inside the tent.

The Oktoberfest gang! (PhotoCred: Travis)

Inside our tent on Saturday morning. Great environment! (PhotoCred: Andrew)

We eventually met up in a few hours, and hung out until the early afternoon.  We took it easy the rest of the evening, and rested up for a long day of traveling the next day:

• 2.5 hour train ride to Stuttgart city centre
• 30 minute metro ride to the Stuttgart airport
• 1 hour 15 minute plane ride
• 1 hour long underground ride in London
• 2 hour train ride back to Notts (Back at 1 AM)

I leave you with a few little videos that capture the environment inside the tents. Pretty hard to describe it all in writing. Prost!

Video of the band's first song. Immediately everyone got up on the benches and began singing some German song. (VideoCred: Travis)

This video is of everyone singing the "What's Goin' On" song by 4 Non Blondes. (VideoCred: Travis)

Thank you to Julie, Andrew, and Travis for allowing me to use some of your pictures on the blog. You definitely saved me from lugging around the giant camera all weekend!

Onto the next adventure...

Facelift!

No...not me! 

Just wanted to share that I updated the "looks" of the blog. So "no" you're not in the wrong spot!  As I am coming up on my blogg-aversay, Yes, I'm making this a word... I wanted to give the blog a little bit of a new & fresh look. About this time last year we were telling family, friends, and my elementary school that we were moving overseas.  Hard to believe:

(A) We've been here for 10 months
(B)  It has been a year since we made the big decision to move over here.

Time flies when you're having fun, right? 

Anywho, for all my avid readers, let me know if this makes it better or worse to read from your device of choice!

Short and sweet post, doesn't sound like me, does it?

Onto the next adventure...

Great Friends, Great Sights, Great Nights

Our week was another great one in England. Jeff and I were reflecting, as it was a busy week.  I spent a few days hanging out with some close friends, catching up.  Jeff played squash a few times, and we also had a night out with some work friends at a great pizza place.

Friday came quickly, and our friends from Cambridge (& the states) came to Nottingham.  We ate a great Chinese restaurant and went bowling for the evening.  The bowling alley was great and reminded me of the bowling alley in my hometown. We played a few games of cosmic bowling.  It was a great place to people watch as well.

We spent Saturday, driving about 45 minutes through Grantham to get to the little village of Belton, where the Belton House is located.  All four of us, have National Trust memberships (Thanks, Lori) so we were able to get into the site for free.  We had not used ours in a while due to our traveling outside of the UK, so we were glad to get back into traveling locally again.  This house was beautiful, and definitely one of our favorite visits of the manors, houses, mansions, halls...you get the idea. 

The front of the house

The back of the house

When we first arrived we were lucky enough to catch the basement tour that shared all about the experiences of the service people of the house...all 100 of them for 2 people. Insane, right? The tour was 50 minutes long, and totally worth it.  We went into various rooms learning about the services they provided, lives they lived, and how glorious it was to be a lady/man of service during those times. They really had some great perks as all the necessities of living we covered by the owners, so all the wages they earned was just "pocket change"...some of which were paid to what is equivalent to $32,000 in those days.  That is a LOT of extra money. We were really impressed with the tour and our knowledge, as this is what we expected to learn when we visited the Highclere Castle.

 Great listeners during our tour... 

The bell system was impressive.  The bell would ring once, and the service crew would have to figure out which bell by the pendulum system. Pretty cool!

After the basement we explored the upstairs, which was impressive.  We also walked around the gardens, and still didn't make it around the entire grounds.  1,700 acres would have taken us a while... I think it was a spot we could have spent more time at, but we were starving and Jeff and I had plans later in the evening.

 The library was my favorite room. Apparently each book has been read at least once. 

Loved this staircase

 Loving having our friends here to travel with

The gardens

We grabbed some food, and parted ways.  Jeff and I came home just to leave again within the hour.  Enough time to make some pasta salad and head out... We headed to a BBQ at friends' house.  We enjoyed our "American" bbq, and hanging out with friends. And apparently I need to do a better job at taking pictures of our friends and events like this. You are probably starting to think we are lying about times with friends...

We ended our weekend getting caught up on everything as our next adventure is quickly approaching again.  Jeff went into work to catch up on a few things, and I caught up on some laundry...boo!

Onto the next adventure...