Yes, We Sang in Public!

On Friday night, we went out with a few friends to sing karaoke.  Now I'm sure my family/friends are freaked out thinking I scared all the people of Nottingham and surrounding areas with my awful singing voice and Jeff's family/friends are thinking "Man I bet he rocked it!". Either way, we both had a great time filled with lots of laughs and fun. Thanks to my friend, Sarah, for sharing all of her pictures and videos of the night. And welcome to your blog debut, friend!

Jeff and I met up with some friends, ate a yummy Chinese dinner and headed into these little private rooms to rock out to all kinds of music. I surprised myself and started singing within a few songs.  Although, I only met a few of the people a couple times before, we had a great time singing and hanging out.

I can't remember all of the songs we sang, but Beyonce's Single Ladies was one that Jeff impressed everyone with.  Jeff and I were pretty quiet when the British songs came on that everyone knew.  The Backstreet Boys wannabe group, Five, came on and everyone knew the words.  Jeff and I just sat there all confused.  {For some reason, videos are not working when using a mobile/tablet type device...computers seem to be the only ones working, sorry!}

There were a couple more artists that we were clueless on the words, but it was fun hearing the popular British hits, American ones, and the ones that we would all belt out at the top of our lungs.  We do have some videos of the night, but we'll share those with a few lucky individuals one day.

 Jeff and I rockin' out on the left. My friend, Sarah, and I on the right.

 

Jeff singing a love ballad with one of his friends.

Onto the next adventure...

Christmas Time Advert(s)

I know I posted an advert back in the spring for a mobile phone company of the cute little cat and girl singing one of my favorite 80's hits, but I just had to share another one! I found a new one that I even saw some of my American friends on Facebook sharing...so I know the word is getting out on just how cute it is!

Now Christmas is in full swing over here.  They have been putting out store displays, fully stocked shelves with all the trimmings, and the city lights around Nottingham since the beginning of October.  This week they started the set up for the beautiful Christmas Market that we were able to see last year when we visited to pick out housing.  Hard to believe that was a year ago? It is funny to think that they don't have the battle we have the U.S. about decorating/shopping for Christmas before Thanksgiving.

Back on track- My newest favorite advert is for John Lewis, which is like a Nordstrom. It is a great store, but unfortunately U.S. friends, the shipping is 25 pounds, which is around 40 dollars. Yowza!

Here is the cutest commercial. Enjoy!

*Update as of Nov. 14th:  I found another Christmas advert by the supermarket, Sainsbury's.  It is another heartfelt commercial that I thought I would share. They love the Christmas commercials over here, and to be honest, I can't even think of a Christmas commercial that stands out in the States other than the cute polar bears from Coca-Cola.  We definitely don't have something to this extent, and I really do like it!

**Another update as of November 17th: For some reason the videos aren't working for everyone. The only reason I would think that is if you are viewing this post on a mobile/tablet device. It works just fine on my computer, but the videos do not show up on my phone. Not sure if this helps. If you want to look the videos up yourself: John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014 and Sainsbury's Christmas Advert 2014 should work if you Google them! If you got the videos to work, please feel free to share some advice or what device you used in the comment box below. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...


Onto the next adventure...

50 Foot Flames? Hmmm...Okay.

Picture this, no seriously, picture this because I forgot the "good camera"...

Walking up on a cold November night in a local recreational park to see a giant bonfire with 50 foot flames. Along with this the other side of the park was filled with carnival games, food, and rides.  Guy Fawkes Night is also known in England as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night, and Firework Night.

 

The giant blob of yellow is the bonfire. Least you can compare it to the size of the tree next to it since the picture is bad. 

Who is Guy Fawkes?  
Guy Fawkes is known in Great Britain as the guy who failed in the gunpowder plot in 1605.  He planned to assassinate King James I in the Parliament building in London.  Within his group, he was in charge of guarding the explosives.  He was caught by the authorities, questioned, and then sentenced to death.  So, I'm sure you're thinking...what does this have to do with this special night on November 5th? 

What is Guy Fawkes Night? 
Well Guy Fawkes Night is a celebration. Since King James I escaped, those Londoners were encouraged to start bonfires to celebrate the fact that the king survived the potential assassination. As months went by, they named November 5th as the Observance of 5th November Act.  So along with the yearly bonfire nights, there are firework displays as well.  Mackey was not enjoying the fireworks part of the night.  

Jeff and I walked to the Forest Recreational Grounds to admire the giant bonfire, and within the hour the firework display occurred.  To me, it is an odd holiday to celebrate, but we definitely don't have anything like this in America.  Jeff made a good point, that we could never have the giant bonfires like this because it would probably start some sort of wildfire since it is so dry in the states compared to the damp English weather.

 The firework display!

To see more pictures (since my phone takes awful pictures), check out the Nottingham Post.

Update: As I left the house this morning (about 12 hours since the bonfire went out) our entire house smells like a bonfire and we were over a mile away from the event.  There is still a little haze in the air from all the smoke. And the worst---everyone at the gym reeked of bonfire smoke. It must have been seeping out of their (well, our) pores!

Onto the next adventure...

#1 Birthday Weekend....Ever!

How spoiled am I that we spent my 28th birthday weekend looking at this...

 View from the terrace at our hotel

Dubrovnik, Croatia was one of my Top 3 places to visit while we are living over here. Jeff decided the perfect time to go was around my birthday.  We got up around 2:45 AM, and were at the Manchester Airport to fly out by 5:30.  We got into Dubrovnik, found our beautiful hotel, went into the city, grabbed lunch, and....it starting storming.  We rushed back to our hotel to wait out the storm.  Ended up working out well that we could take a quick nap since we got up so early.  Later that evening we went back out to explore the Old Town (a walled city).  We then fulfilled every child's dream...ice cream for dinner!  Jeff and I walked around the old city eating our ice cream.  We found some places we wanted to explore more in the morning. We walked north of the Old Town to just explore more of the city. We made it to a marina filled with boats, which was pretty cool.  

 View from our hotel window

View from the hotel window...beautiful clear water!

Sidenote: Cats.  I thought Italy was known for the amount of cats on the city streets, but I think I found a place to beat that record.  There was a crazy amount of cats walking around the city.  No matter where we were, like a side of a cliff...there was always a cat around.  A couple adorable kittens (one of which was all black, like Mackey) wandered the streets as well.  All the cats looked like they were in good condition, whether they belonged to someone or not. I just kept walking around the city think of Bob Barker. Yes, you heard me, Bob Barker. I kept picturing him saying "Have your pets spayed and neutered." Dubrovnik needs this...

Back on track. We woke up and went into the Old Town where we walked the city walls.  As you can tell in the pictures, the Old Town was enclosed by walls.  You can walk on top of the walls and boy is it beautiful! It took us about 2 hours to get around it, and that was stopping for a beer about half way through.  It was really fun walking around, and probably one of our favorite things we did while we were there. 

 Could get a little chilly and windy at times. "All you need is a light jacket."--Name that movie!

Great view of the wall we walked around in the Old Town

 At another fortress that has a great view of the city and the Old Town Wall

 The Croatian flag

If we were there longer, it would have definitely been great to go out on a boat!

We headed back to the hotel to go to the hotel's private beach (About mid-60's). We grabbed lunch seaside at the hotel restaurant, and then we laid around reading until the sun was hidden by the large cliffs.  This was perfect timing to head up to Mount Srdj, the 412 meter (350 feet) high mountain. We braved the cable cars, as the walk up the mountain would have took for-ever! Not a huge fan of cable cars, but this one was definitely better than the one we rode in Barcelona. Not nearly as scary.  We made it to the top, went to to Fort Imperial.  This fort was a crucial part during the 1991 war, and much of it is still in shambles.  It was crazy to look from the west side of the fort, as it was beautiful, beach-filled Dubrovnik.  The east side was Bosnia, which was mountainous and bare.  The fort was turned into a museum, but a lot of the material presented wasn't in English. Needless to say, I  lost focus.

 The Bosnia side of the mountain

 The Croatia side of the mountain

We ate at the top, Restaurant Panorama, where I had the best Bailey's coffee ever. Jeff was checking off a few new beers off the count. For those of you who know our goal, I will look at our count later, and get back to you.  We had a great time watching the sunset over the city.  We grabbed an "linner" (lunch+dinner), as the sun was setting around 4:30!  We took the cable car back down, enjoyed another chilly night in the city, and headed back to the hotel.  

Our beautiful view for dinner & drinks

The next morning, we went down to the beach for a few hours.  The feeling of relaxing on a beach, reading a book felt amazing.  Are my snow-filled Indiana friends/family closing their computers at this point? Sorry!  Jeff and I both finished our books, and put our feet in the cold Adriatic Sea.  Well, Jeff braved it and got all the way in. I was a chicken. 

After our beach-filled morning, we went back into the city to check out a bar on a cliff and walk around the city one last time.  We had a few beers at Buza Bar (Buza=hole, not Booze). We grabbed a seat right in front, and enjoyed the view.  It was great to see sailboats, kayaks, ships, etc. go by in front of us.  Besides the cultural side of walking around the walls, I really enjoyed this afternoon.  It was so relaxing! 

 Best view in the house!

So stinkin' pretty, right?

We ended our time in Dubrovnik by walking to a restaurant outside of the city walls and getting a "jumbo" pizza.  I'm not sure if I was just so hungry or what...but it was one of the best pizzas I have ever had (pepperoni, hot peppers, Tabasco, arugula, sauce, and a couple kinds of cheese). We ate the entire thing, and headed back towards the hotel.  

 Beautiful view on our way to the pizza place

 And yes, we ate the last piece! Yum!

Once the sunset, we went on a long walk to the Cave Bar (One of the Top 5 Hotel Bars in the World). It was really impressive, as stalactites were still hanging from the ceiling.  You could also see through the cave floor in one spot of the bar where the water flowed. Really cool!  It was definitely a long walk to this hotel bar, but definitely worth it. 

 This "hallway" leads into the room in which you could see the floor. 

(People were in there, so I couldn't snap a photo)

 The entrance from the outdoor seating

I leave you with an odd picture.  We were walking late in the city on our first day, and found this picture... Many of my loyal readers know my new-found fascination with the world of eggs over here. Bet you have never seen eggs in a pop-like machine! 

Overall, I was very grateful to spend my birthday weekend celebrating with Jeff in this beautiful destination. Thank you to all of you who sent cards, messages, emails, etc. for my birthday.  You definitely made me feel right at home! Love you all! 

Want to come along, too? Check out this interactive website I found!

Onto the next adventure...