First trip to the Motherland!

After spending a few dull days in the Netherlands (aside from my first trip to the North Sea!) I have finally made it to the UK for the first time! First impression was awesome- it's beautiful here and everyone speaks English with a fabulous accent! I haven't traveled much at all in foreign English-speaking countries, so it's still surprising to me that everyone speaks English. The first thing we did was get our rental car (naturally) and literally laughed (pretty hard- the guy had warned us it was small, we kinda just brushed him off) when we saw it in the parking lot. It's a Fiat 500, and if you don't know what that is, just think of a mini, but maybe a bit smaller? It's been upgraded by Abarth, so it carries that name and a turbo engine. It's bright red with white checker print on top, I wish I could pack it in my suitcase and bring it home! This is certainly the cutest car I've ever driven. I haven't driven at all these last couple weeks, so it is my turn, I'm now the chauffeur and this car is entirely the opposite of my lovely truck at home. It's fast, totally impractical, bright red, and not to mention the steering wheel is on the right. Shifting with my left hand has been alright, driving on the left side of the road has been fun! Since I'm not needed to translate here in the UK, I'm just driving Rob to his appointments. I've also been doing more research on companies in Spain and Italy, we have all of next week with no plans really, so if we can get a meeting in either of those countries, we will go, if not, I think we will go home a few days early.

In the meantime, we have been entertaining ourselves in a number of ways. Rob has an Aussie friend who is a die-hard Manchester United fan, and when he heard that we were in Manchester, he bought 3 tickets to the game that Saturday and hopped on a plane from New York- no kidding. So the three of us went to Old Trafford, the stadium of Man U, which has a reputation quite like Fenway or Wrigley Field, except way bigger, seating 76,000 people. It sells out every time and tickets are apparently really difficult to get, which might explain why we got VIP tickets! It included a 3 course meal before the game, and a chance to have a photo taken with the FA Cup, which is basically the championship of England. Pero (the Aussie) was out of his mind that day because going to Old Trafford for a Man U game was the number one thing on his bucket list. It was an exciting game, but I must say it still doesn't hold a candle excitement-wise to our city games in Costa Rica. It's too proper, darn the English. I've always thought that if you want to watch a clean (more or less) soccer game, watch an English Premier League game, because it seems the Brits just want to play, rather than whine and be dramatic (of course this is relative, they do it, but MUCH less than Latinos or Italians..). Well it turns out the fans are very similar, if they think they just saw a good play, they stand and clap and then quickly take their seats again. Even after goals they get rowdy and then they quickly sit down again, WHAT!? 

Anyway, our first full day in Manchester was actually spent driving around to meetings. We found ourselves eating lunch in a lovely little bistro in a really lovely little town in northern England called Whalley, and I kept noticing the word "Lancashire" on the menu referring to Lancashire cheese and what not, I didn't even realize we were in that area, but it just so happens that Lancashire is where my mother's side of the family is from! I tried calling my mom to no avail and ended up emailing my Granny to ask about the specific towns. I was right around the corner from Nelson, where she was born, and Burnley, where my great-grandmother was born, and believe it or not, she still keeps in touch with some sort-of relatives in Whalley! She gave me the phone number of these people and I called them and was able to set up a day to go for a visit. They are David and Brenda Hill, David is about my grandmother's age, they grew up together because their mothers were very close friends. So they are like cousins. So I guess David and Brenda would be my "3rd cousins never attached." How do you like that for a relation? :) I love it. I always wanted to still have family in England. So I went back to Whalley for a nice lunch and tea at their house and they took me for a drive to see these towns that I mentioned, they showed me Pendle Hill where the witches were executed (so I could have witches on both sides of my family? haha) and we went for tea and biscuits in a lovely park in Burnley. They were so sweet and such a crack up, I don't get to visit my grandparents as much as I would like, but this was what that felt like, visiting an extra set of grandparents, I loved it! So that was a special bonus day for me, getting to know the locals is the best part of traveling!

Although I really liked Manchester and the north of England, we couldn't stay for long, so we were off to Birmingham for a couple days. By the way, I drove to Birmingham by myself that night after visiting David and Brenda, it was a little strange to be driving a backwards car on my own through England, and having to navigate as well! It was quite a challenge, but I made it fine. Pero is 6'6" and we weren't sure if or how he would fit in the car, so the guys took the train. Birmingham was nothing special, one of the days Pero and I went to "Britain's Ultimate Castle." It was called Warwick Castle, and we didn't really know what we were getting into, we didn't know until we got there that it was like a theme park. So we went in, did the "Dungeon Experience" through dark narrow passageways where they try and scare you and show you how they used to torture and treat people. We saw a HUGE fireball get catapulted from the HUGE catapult, that was really cool. We at least have some good photos, I suppose that was the highlight of Birmingham. The next day we drove Rob to his meeting and then went bowling for an hour while we waited for him to finish. I'm basically done with work by now. I'm just hanging out because I can, and for the chance that we might still go to Spain, which I actually highly doubt. Somehow we were able to fit all three of us in that tiny car, with Rob pretty much under the luggage, and we drove to London, where we reluctantly had to say goodbye to Chile (I named the car). 

As a REALLY fun bonus, my friend Michelle (from Costa Rica, Ohio, Florida, Turkey, etc..) came to visit in London! She arrived our first morning and has been sightseeing with us, Pero left to go back to NY, and since Rob has had meetings it's been really good timing. We have seen most of the sights by now, and Michelle and I actually went out salsa dancing at a Latin Dance festival last night, I really want to get back into it. Plus I discovered Zouk, a different (new to me) style of dance, FUN! It was out by the airport and the tube stopped running at midnight, so we ended up taking a double decker bus (that was the good part:) back to London at 3am, oh the joys of travel. Anyway we have just a couple more days to enjoy London, I have two goals- to have "tea and crumpets" and fish & chips from "a real Chippy," and then I think it's back to the States, which will be nice, I'll have an entire week before taking off to Costa Rica on Nov 3rd…  :)

PS more photos are coming, they will be posted to the same album --->