Observations

I originally planned to blog every night in England; chronicling the day's events. Pfffffffft - you know how it is on holiday. Instead, I decided to do a list of observations. Enjoy.

1) The bread is way better in England.

This is fact. Late last year I became gluten-free, but as my trip to England approached, I knew better. I wasn't about to restrict myself from anything and I'm so glad I didn't. The bread in England is delicious. Soft and chewy mmmmmmmmm DEE-licious! Whether its the bread you have for a cheese (cheese is so much better in England too!) sandwich or the warm tea cakes with butter or the soft scones you have with jam and cream ALL of it is FANTASTIC.

2) The English love their tea. That is no lie.

So I knew going into England that hot tea was the drink of choice, but I had no idea how much people drank of it. A lot. Pookie's dad would wake us up with a hot tea every morning. At first I only took my tea black, but wish I'd learned early that it's best with milk and sugar. We'd have another cuppa :) tea between the first and noon. We'd have another one for noon. If we went out anywhere, we surely had a cuppa tea then. When we got back from wherever we went, we had another cuppa tea and then another right before bed. I am going into tea withdrawal. No cuppa tea will ever be the same!

3) No ice.

I'm an ice freak. My drinks are mostly ice and then whatever liquid I choose to drink. I've always been like this. I like my drinks COLD. Well, the English don't do ice and if you ask them for "lotsa ice" with you water or juice they will look at you funny.

I gave up soda for Lent so I was hard pressed to find an alternate drink to satisfy my craving for sweet. In England you drink water, tea or squash. The only way I can describe squash is a lighter juice. It's the drink you'd have if you cut your fruit juice with half water. Its hard to describe but it is GOOD. I discovered J2O the day before I left. I don't think its a squash but its an orange/mango/passionfruit flavored drink. Had I known about it, I would have drank that all trip long. Anyway, the point of going into all this is that I had to order a cuppa ice with my water or squash or J2O if I even hoped to have a cold drink. Silly American.

4) The underground makes sMARTA look like a joke.

Most mass transit systems make the MARTA look like a joke. Even my beloved Metro, but the England Underground makes all of these look stupid. The Underground is England's underground (duh) mass transit system. You never have to wait for these trains because they come every 2 seconds. Okay not that fast, but not once did Pookie and I wait more than 5 minutes. The Underground is a maze of trains, but very neat once you figure it out. Pookie and I became intimately familiar with the Underground on Sunday when we tried to weave our way through to meet and see her friends from Uni at Picadilly and Notting Hill and see Trafalgar and Big Ben and eventually make our way out of London for the night.

5) The English are fashion risk-takers.

I noticed this in London first, but even in Birmingham it was obvious. We didn't do a whole lot of shopping in London - only because everything is ridiculously expensive in London and the dollar is weaker than the pound, but we did in Birmingham. The clothes are bright and the accessories are big and bold and, generally speaking, the English are not afraid to dress for themselves instead of dressing to be accepted by the masses. I definately liked this.

6) "Suburban" England looks exactly like you think it would.

The cottages you pictured based on what you saw in The Holiday are just as sweet and cute and small as they were in the movie - with ivy clinging to the walls and the hedges cut perfectly and yes, some of the roofs are still thatch. Thatch roofs are actually more expensive than "regular" roofs because you have to replace them roughly every 10 years. The smaller cities/villages are all adorable with the High Street (every city, no matter how big or small has a High Street, it's just their word for the main thoroughfare) having the main roundabout surrounded by small shops and all the cottages/homes lying just outside of the shops. This is the design of most every town I visited and I loved it.

More to come, but I do actually have to work...