Doing "OK" in the "UK"
While we were based in London, we traveled around different parts of the UK on day trips.
Edinburgh, Scotland
For our only full weekend break in London, we took a train to Edinburgh and stayed there with Emily, Emily's brother Andy, and Tanya. It was so great to have this trip with Clare's friends before they left the UK themselves.
We loved Edinburgh. There are so many old gothic buildings within a small few mile radius and an eerie castle on a hill in the center - just really impressive. The buildings are all sooted and dark from the industrial revolution. We walked over 30,000 steps this day just because everything is so walkable!
We learned a lot on the "free walking tour", stories about hangings/executions, graverobbers, and shady medical research from the old days. There is a cemetery there where J.K. Rowling got inspiration for her character names. So, there are graves of random people whose real names are "McGonagall" and "Tom Riddle". Also, Edinburgh used to be called the "Athens of the North" because there was a big effort to construct Greek style monuments throughout the city during the Sottish Enlightenment in the 1700/1800s.
One of our favorite activities there was to hike up "Arthur's Seat", a hill behind Edinburgh that overlooks the whole city. Tanya lost her hat in the wind.
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It was pretty cold the whole time, even on the train ride up. And we got caught in the rain while trying to drink some good whiskey. They also had really good flavored gins like rhubarb and ginger gin. And, we tried haggis and scotch eggs while we were there.
Canterbury, England
Adam took a day trip to Canterbury one saturday while Clare was in cooking school for the whole day. On the way, he read some of the Canterbury Tales, which were unexpectedly inappropriate stories for being written in the 14th century.
Adam enjoyed the city quite a bit because it's so small that you can see all of it in a few hours. The famous Cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury was beautiful and had an impressive choir for the evensong service.
Cambridge, England and Oxford, England
On two different days off, we went on day trips to Cambridge and Oxford to see the famous college towns. We decided to do the same activities in each place in order to compare them.
Botanic Gardens
Oxford (pictured below) had a lot of interesting plants on display that have modern day uses like cotton, coffee, tobacco, papyrus, rice, etc. There were also many carnivorous plants on display. We thought this was more interesting for a one time visit compared to the Cambridge botanic gardens. But the Cambridge ones would be nicer for multiple visits since it had a lot of open fields and benches and was more like a private park that was well groomed.
Architecture/Campus tour
We loved learning that Cambridge is known for math and scientific discoveries while Oxford is more known for the liberal arts with a copywrite library that holds one copy of every book published in the country. The buildings/architecture/campus of the colleges in Oxford (right) seemed nicer to us than Cambridge (left), but both were very impressive.
Cream Tea
In both cities, we just loved getting a "cream tea", which was an order of tea and a scone with clotted cream and jam. Cambridge (left) was better for that. Adam found out on this trip that he actually really does like tea with milk and sugar. He had only had plain tea before and didn't like it.
Punting
We rented our own boat in both places and tried our hand at "punting". Similar to the gondolas in Italy, you propel the boat by dropping a metal pole down to the river bed and pushing the boat along. It was so fun! Our experience in Cambridge (pictures below) was better because the canal was right by the colleges and had beautiful views and bridges. In Oxford it seemed more like a remote swampy river away from the beautiful architecture of the city.
Old Famous Pub
We had a beer at an old famous pub in both cities as well. We liked the one in Cambridge where the discovery of DNA was announced better than the oldest pub in Oxford.
Wrapping things up in London
Cooking school
Clare finished up her cooking school, took the final written and practical exam and passed. She now has a "basic cuisine" certificate to hang up in a future kitchen. The experience overall was incredible to have.
Blogs and social media can sometimes be really artificially positive. So, on a realistic note, Clare is unsure if she could recommend this cooking school experience to others. It was really exhausting physically and emotionally. She also did not learn anything about flavor combinations or improvisational cooking. It was really oriented toward teaching young chefs time management and exact fussy techniques off of pre-set recipes. She got comments about how her sauce was on the right side of the plate and her vegetables on the left, but it should be the other way around. Taste/flavor was the smallest part of the grade and was barely ever spoken to.
The friends she made and the memories she has from this will be with her forever though! The class even got together one day and did a wine tasting experience in a Student's courtyard, which was really a highlight. Clare is excited to buy some cookbooks and continue learning more.
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Experiences
To take advantage of the last moments in London, we had some really fun final experiences. Adam went to a musical called "Chess" while Clare was in school.
One of the best experiences to date was to see "Julius Caesar" at the Globe Theater, which was a replication of the theater in which Shakespeare was performed back in the day. Some of the main characters like Brutus and Cassius were women and they were wearing modern clothes, which was a little strange. We had standing room tickets just below the stage for about $5 each. Standing for 2.5 hours was tough, but it was worth it. The whole play was interactive. Actors came down the steps, shouted in our faces and ran around right next to us. That was so special! The seated guests didn't get that same experience.
More Special moments
Clare used to work with an old coworker who now lives in London. So, he and his girlfriend went on a double date with us. That was so fun to meet up after not seeing each other in about 5 years. Clare also met up with a high school friend who lives in London now. Great to reconnect with these folks.
Finally, Adam and Clare celebrated the 2 year anniversary of their first date on August 1st by eating at a fancy French restaurant called Brasserie Zedele in London. What a great place to be for this celebration.
