Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Home Sweet Home - England Trip Report










We are home from our very quick trip to the UK. It was very fun.

We ended up enjoying our Maxjet flight very much. It really was all business class with all the amenities and comfort that you would find on any business class flight. And both flights ended up on time, thank goodness. The one annoying thing about flying Maxjet from Rochester is that we had to buy a separate flight from Rochester to NYC and back... which means collecting and rechecking our bags in New York. This became messy on our way to London when the Jet Blue flight was late and we were running through the airport to recheck in at the Maxjet counter. But all in all, I would definitely use Maxjet again.

We got to London after an overnight flight and rented a cute little Peugeot (pronounced Peu'jhitt in England, by the way) . Rich again mastered driving stick with his left hand on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. Getting around the roundabouts is challenge enough for me (Look kids, Big Ben. Parliament.) I didn’t even have to navigate, thankfully for everyone involved, because we brought over Jill, our handydandy GPS system.

We drove to Bath, a very quaint little old town and stayed over there for a night at this beautiful hotel called the Royal Crescent, named suitably for the fact that it is located in a crescent shaped row of houses. It was impeccably decorated and had orchids and other pretty flowers everywhere. I loved it. Rich’s only comment was that the bed was very comfortable.

Like in good English fashion, it rained and rained. For the first day this was fine because the two of us passed out cold in the hotel, waking only to eat dinner at the restaurant downstairs. Rich tried foie gras, though it took him the entire night to pronounce the ‘fois’ correctly. The restaurant was yummy but no matter what they served, the bill was preposterous knowing that the dollar is as weak as the evidence that led us to the Iraq war (or insert some other political jab on the President.) If it’s any indication, Rich didn’t even buy a t-shirt and that’s saying a lot. The man lives for t-shirt buying.

The next day after walking the adorable town in the rain, we left to head to Cornwall for Jeremy and CJ’s wedding (the reason for our trip.) We got there at about 6:30, saw Jeremy and CJ for about two seconds and went up to our room to unpack. Then we went out to dinner with Chris and Ann, our other friends and went to a bar for a few drinks. By 11:30 we were back in the hotel.








The next day Rich, Chris, Ann, and I took a walk to an art gallery and down to the beach.. We were in a town called Rock, which is on the Atlantic. It felt like we were at the jersey shore… except the architecture of the little shore houses was much different than that of New Jersey. Still, it was sunny and it was nice to chat by the water despite the wind!
The wedding was lots of fun. Now that Rich and I have been to two weddings in the UK, I can wrongfully generalize how weddings there are different using characteristics of Ann and Chris and Jeremy and CJ’s wedding as a guide…

1. O’ Jerusalem. Sung with lots of enthusiasm in a scene much like the one in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Despite being Jewish, you cant help but want to sing at the top of your lungs to this hymn.
2. Lots of hats. Seriously. I look like a moron in hats, but I was sad that I was not wearing a big colorful thing on my head.
3. Loooooong. Jeremy’s wedding started at 3 and ended at 1. Long day.
4. Disco. All about the after dinner disco. Cheezy dancy 80s music. Jeremy’s personal favorite song is ‘Kids in America’ and don’t you know we were all cuttin’ a rug to that one.
5. Speeches. Loooooong with lots of ‘here, here!’s added for good measure. Typically a wager as to the time from start to finish. This one lasted a bit more than 35 minutes. I was off by about 56 seconds and won the table.

The rest is similar to weddings over here complete with lots of fun and frolic. We had a fun table and enjoyed the night, though somewhere during the night, I had massive intestinal disfortitude and ended up upstairs in the room for awhile, changed, lied down for awhile, took the self portraits above (no, I wasn’t drunk), and then went back downstairs to start again! I am about a foot shorter than every single person at this wedding and never could get a good shot of the bride and groom together, but the pictures here are the best I have! The next day we returned the car and went to London, where we met up with Hazeywoo and went to dinner at a Thai restaurant nearby our hotel which landed Rich in bed for a good 24 hours with his own episode of intestinal disfortitude.
Hazel and I then ended up having a day to ourselves while Rich enjoyed the city from the inside of a hotel room (the bathroom to be exact.) Despite rain and wind, we braved the city from the top of one of those Hop On, Hop Off sightseeing buses that I love. We did a full loop with a funny guide and then hopped off in Chinatown to go grab some lunch. After lunch, we walked a bit and landed on a little riverboat that did a loop around (and was included in our bus tour.) That was fun, if not more rainy… and we ended up a bit loopy by the end.
Here are the pictures to prove it. After the boat, we went to Covant Gardens, where we walked until we found a pub. Had some drinks, went to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant, and said our goodbyes. Rich missed a very fun day! The next morning Rich and I departed for the tube to the train to the plane to the plane to the car ride home.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Hollywood Pisses Me Off

Today was 'Sloth and Watch TV' day. I realized that I was premenstrual as I snacked on lite french onion dip (I swear there IS such thing) and sobbed uncontrollably during the Intervention marathon. Inbetween the E True Hollywood Story of Michael J Fox and Sell This House, I managed to turn on E News Weekend and listened to the news that Paris Hilton would be sentenced to 45 days in prison.


I couldn't help but be happy that she was actually sentenced to prison. Especially when I heard that she was 15 minutes late to her sentencing and that she said that she never knew that her license was suspended because, and I quote, "she's a really busy person." Is she kidding? Why is she frickin busy? What the hell is she spending her time doing that is actually positively impacting the world?


Then, I turned on that show about Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott. Dean was going on an interview for a dinky little nothing job and stressing about their finances and Tori was shopping and spending oodles of money. Then Tori and Dean bought a bed and breakfast and had no clue that owning a bed and breakfast requires an enormous amount of work. Tori kept complaining about everything. She was enormously torturous.


It's honestly like these people are totally oblivious to how the real world works. It's really pathetic and annoying. And apparently, Lindsay Lohan drinks and parties because 'being famous is very lonely.' I hate all these people. They need a life. (We won't mention the fact that I need a better life than spending my Sunday catching up on their lives.)


Rich opened the house this weekend (hence my day of TV sloth) and I cant wait to get back up there after our trip to England. Friday I was in NYC for a conference for work. Then all of us went out to dinner, got suitably tipsy, and tortured some poor innocent girl who sat among us on the 9:30 plane ride back to the 'Cha. (PS I got her number to set her up with one of our coworkers.) Saturday I had a girls night out, but I was exhausted from being up at 3:15 the prior day to make my 6AM flight and didnt last that long.


Next is England on Wednesday. We fly Maxjet, a new all business class flight that has a few transatlantic flights. The planes probably look similar to this.



But Rich was willing to take the chance for the extra legroom. The prices are comparable to other coach seats. So hopefully we get there in one piece.

That's all for now.


Gotta go watch Flip This House.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Ahhh... spring has sprung

I nurtured my rose garden this weekend. I see growth on all of the rose plants and am very excited to see how they fared over the harsh Rochester winter. I know this is a boring topic for most of you, but having a rose garden was on my life list and I am very proud of this accomplishment. I had lots of blooms last year and expect all but the plant that Rich ran over with the snowblower to do very well.

Rich opens the Vermont house - FINALLY this weekend. He will go up with his dad and I will stay in the Cha. I am actually in NYC for a conference all day Friday and have a girls night out on Saturday. The rest of the weekend I will sloth and watch TV. I've had a rough stressful bunch of weeks at work and I need to do NOTHING.

On the 9th we go to the UK for a wedding. I'm looking forward to it. Then Hazeywoo will fly into London to meet us for two nights. I cant wait to see her... woohoooooo! The wedding is down in Cornwall. Should be a hectic bunch of days, but will be fun I am sure. I look very forward to many fun relaxing weekends in Vermont. I hope to do lots of planting and lots of relaxing. Come visit!

More to come when I am not working till all hours of the night and have a brain with which to process thoughts. :-)