Postcard: Day 11

Got locked out of the flat yesterday upon arrival home, due to miscommunication, after walking to meet James at the grocery once he was done with work . It wasn't a warm night, luckily it was only an hour wait.

Not sure what we did on Sunday, likely it was to the library, and home to make dinner.

Yesterday we wrote for our other blog for about six hours, took up a large chunk of our alone time.

Slept too late again today topping off a 12 hour sleep session, difficult kicking that jet lag, and it's hard to wake up when it's so cold in the flat. The weather this afternoon is beyond chilly, as usual, a nice 1 degree Celsius with about 87% humidity and overcast. Get's into your bones and grips them. It may have snowed earlier but it is all gone now. We are nauseas, so we plan to stay in bed, and later maybe meet James on his walk home from work, about a 25 minute walk. It's refreshing to get some air.

Still no refrigerator (the kitchen is pretty cold though) so today's nausea may be caused by leftovers reheated for dinner last night. Heat doesn't kill all bacteria. Also could be yogurt stored at cold room temperature. Or perhaps too much bread in our carbohydrate sensitive belly.

So far enjoying the trip, wish it was more of a vacation, but in due time, hopefully next month we can do some weekend sight seeing.

A little homesick.

Hot Dogs In A Jar?

Walked around for about five hours today. The city was bustling with people, which pissed us off.
Yes, on occasion we have social anxiety problems, mostly social anger. So sometimes traveling is uber fun, but we can't let a little anger and anxiety stop us. There's a world to see, and we want to see as much as we can (and eat all its foods, and touch all its history)

Anyway, that aside, we popped into a few shops, not as many as we'd like - we prefer shopping on our own, and James was with us, so any talk of shopping will be done while he is at work.

One of the strangest thing we have come across thus far...hot dogs in a jar...

Apparently this was odd to James as well, because they usually come in a "tin" here (as in a can). Just as odd to us. Not that hot dogs aren't disgusting anyway (yet, oh-so-delicious), but the idea of them in a can, or jar, stored in some watery brine. Ick. Bet they taste great though. We're totally going to find out. We'll let you know.

We probably would have accomplished more today if we had gotten out of bed before noon...so nobody to blame but ourselves. It was a sunny morning, so we were told - he has been instructed that next time he kick our ass out of bed, or rather lure it, with coffee and breakfast and the word "sun". We only have a couple of days a week to spend "sight-seeing" with him, and the rest has to be done on our own, on foot, for now.

Looking forward to using the GPS on our phone soon so we can get really lost in the city. Adventure!

England In Photos: Week 1

We didn't get many photos this week, odd to our usual form (we love photography), but this is a start.
Each week (hopefully on Fridays if there is time) we hope to post a selection of our best photos from:

Our walk into city center...

English terrace houses we pass each time we walk into the city center.

On the castle grounds...

Castle Fountain

Touching an almost 2000 year old castle foundation (The Roman Temple of Claudius),
built in 54-60 A.D., with a new castle built on top of the old foundation,
by order of William the Conqueror, in 1070 A.D.
In 1645 suspected witches were interrogated
and imprisoned in this castle - touching history is amazing.

Pictures of castle to come....

A market day, these little stands run up all the streets in the city center,
selling everything from produce, nuts, cupcakes, shoes, purses...everything. 

Jet Lagged

Last time we taveled to Europe, a couple of years ago we had no jet lag, that we can remember. It's not even possible for us to have had it as we left from roughly the same time zone, and we arrived at roughly the same time into Amsterdam, rented a car, and drove to Germany, sure we were tired, we got lost looking for the hotel so it was even longer before we could sleep, then we got up early and hit the road - on THAT trip we had a schedule to keep - and the rest of the trip was getting up early in the morning, being busy all day, and then to bed at a "decent" hour.

Now we find ourselves alternating between not being able to sleep at all (like the night before), and not falling asleep until after 1am - not unusual when we were back in America, but that was 1am American/home time, which is roughly 7pm - and sleeping about 14-16 hours a day. Meaning we're getting up at 2:30pm local (8:30am American/home). It's like we're sleeping in a swing-shift pattern. Not convenient if you want to get things done, or feel particularly healthy, and much of the area closes around 5 or 6 pm. 

Granted it's damn cold, we can still see our breath as we travel through the living room to the kitchen, and that drives us to want to remain beneath the pile of warm blankets, but come on.

Other signs of jet lag, besides sleep disruption all relate to digestion (we will spare you details), hunger, and other body functions. It's hard to tell if always being cold is because we are a woman, or if it's because it's so chilly in the flat. James seems to be fairly comfortable most of the time. Jumping when we touch him with our icicle-like hands.

We've been making sure to get exercise when we are awake though, it's about a 3 mile trip, round trip, into the city center where we have been going each day (yesterday we did it twice), and when we don't do that it's another 3+ mile round trip to most other places. That should be helping us, but it's hard to kick that excessive sleeping.

We've only been here 5 or 6 days though, so maybe that will change? We really didn't think jet lang lasted this long.

James got work today, it may be only one day of it, but he might be offered a month, and it's pretty great pay, so that means we'll get a little more than two hours of heat a day! We're really excited he got a job, for so many reasons, because it'll be good for him to be away from us a few hours a day (and we him) but also we can now take some trips into London, and further North into England (and Scotland), to see the sights, learn some more history (by the way, who needs a travel guide when you have a mobile phone with wireless!) take photos to share will you, our readers, try local foods and restaurants and visit some friends in England!

More on jet lag: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx

A Sausage, A Sausage, Our Kingdom For A Sausage

"A Sausage, A Sausage, Our Kingdom For A Sausage", a bastardized line from Shakespeare's Richard III that has nothing to do with sausage, or food...or anything else that will appear in this blog post, to be sure; but if you have a disturbing love for all things sausage, England is the place to be. While it may not be the proported birthplace of the cased-sausage concept, we're pretty sure the English love for it surpasses, or at least rivals, many a throbbing hearts for sausage, around the world.


The English have many commonly eaten dishes that involve sausage. Sausage and mash (or, bangers and mash, properly); SMB (sausage, mash and beans, sop common they have an acronym for it); sausage casserole; sausage rolls (a flaky pastry filled with sausage meat), a meal of sausage, egg & chips* (a breakfast meal; chips are what they call thick cut potatoes, similar to fries but far thicker), to name a few.

In general there are so many kinds of sausages in the world, from meat varieties, to casing type, and variations of spices and fillings (we won't even get into it you can find out more here: http://www.foodsubs.com/MeatcureSausage.html). You could eat sausages every night of the week and never grow tired of it, at least if you were in England.

We have been to two grocery stores so far in the city where we are currently staying, Waitrose and Tesco - Waitrose is a higher end grocery, and Tesco can be compared to, in price-point relation (not in quality), at least, to a Walmart or Target grocery store. We located it in an area outside of city-center, where we have been spending most of our time.


The grocery stores in England are full of all manor of sausage, from regular pork sausages to kinds stuffed with anything from sweet chili, chives, apricots, and other assorted fruits, mustards, and even bacon. Yes, bacon. Applewood, smoked, dry cured bacon. Which was the first of our pick of sausages, in an array of endless choices, to take home. A simple store brand (Waitrose) yes. A great prices, as you can see 2 packs for 5 (roughly $7.75 USD), each package containing 6 sausages. Really all you can say about them is that they are delicious, the bacon flavor is subtle, and blends well with the pork flavor of the sausage. There's nothing really to find to complain about.

This isn't your Johnsonville sausage, either. These sausages are fresh and short on salt and preservatives (as is much of the food produced by England), which means they won't be able to sit in the fridge for long - but who wants food that lasts "forever" anyway? Fresh is best...and the taste...is amazing.
The selection of food in the grocery stores in this modest city (location private until we depart) is outstanding...you can find so many different types of cheeses (types we've never even heard of - and we have a culinary degree!), yogurts (with flavor combinations, and variety, you just can't find in North America), and specialty foods that you would have to go to high-end stores for - like products made of goat, and ewe's (sheep) milk (cheeses, milks, yogurts), all types of breads and pastries, fresh from the bakery...you walk into the grocery and it's as if you are visiting butchers, and bakers, and cheese shops. The prepared food is even of quality and selection that's unheard of.

Let's just say we're obviously impressed with the food here, it's quality, it's variety; meaning we'll be writing a lot about it until we gather the funds to head to other parts of the city and write more about history, geography, weather (pretty sure it's always cloudy with a chance of imminent rain in the winter though). It's too bad we don't have a refrigerator (yet?), is it?

*what are chips then? They're called "crisps" in England. Weird, hey?

Worth The Weight In Pounds?

Soon we will have wireless access at the flat and our writing will hopefully pick up. So far we have been tethering our cell phone to James' phone in order to access Twitter, Facebook and Google+, and write the occasional travel update via statuses there (and mess around on Twitter, of course), however it just doesn't cut it. We haven't done as much writing about travel as we'd like, even though we have access to electricity now. Then again we pretty much just got over the jet lag, hopefully. We slept for over 18 hours, combined, on Saturday night (we arrived with James on Friday afternoon). We don't recall it being this much of an issue last time we traveled abroad.
Today we went to a local wireless shop and picked out the plan we will use for wireless, both on our mobile phone, and in the flat. (James' house, our temporarily residence for at least the next month)

You would not believe the deal on mobile phone packages they have here. Astounding, really.

But first, to provide some perspective, it's damn expensive in England, in general. The exchange rate on the dollar is terrible. One American dollar is worth .64 pence (basically the cents equivalence in British Pounds [£]) meaning, as of this writing you have to have $1.66 USD to have 1£ (The Canadian Dollar is, currently, damn near on par with the American dollar, so same goes for that currency). We exchanged $237 dollars upon arrival and got just over £150, to last us at least until the middle of next month. (Did we mention this trip is on a severe budget?)


Food in the grocery store, while of very good quality (from what we have experienced so far) is a bit higher in price. The prices listed, if they were in dollars, as is the case with almost everything here, looks pretty spot on, but when converted to pounds, well...add .66 cents to each dollar. Crap.
With that in mind, the mobile and wireless services are SO inexpensive.


The plan we will be purchasing tomorrow is a rollover monthly (month-to-month contract) for £25 which includes the following: 5000 same network minutes, 2000 other network minutes, 5000 any network text and unlimited data (that can be tethered to a laptop, or other mobile device). For less than the equivalent of $40 a month. No real contract. Unlimited data - that means all internet, including streaming, downloading, and Skype. No hidden fees either! No service charges. No 911 access free, none of that crap that sometimes adds $8-10 to your monthly plan. Glorious.
We know this isn't the travlouge entry you hoped for, but we're not really on vacation here, not yet anyway. We'll be living here for over a month as a resident, experiencing day-to-day life as a Brit. Fun times.

In other news, we've gotten the electric on, and the heat. Unfortunately due to our modest budget the heat is only on every few hours, so in the living room we can still see our breath on occasion, driving us to hang out in the bedroom where the space is smaller, and therefore the heat can be contained better. Also, because of the cost of running the shower - yes, the shower is actually run by electricity in James' flat, and uses electric to heat the water it uses because it is not hooked up to the main boiler that provides the steam heat, like the taps in the shower, sink and kitchen, are - we resort to washing with a washcloth daily, a bath every other day or so, and a shower once a week.


Look how European we are! Or rather...smell...:-s

Frankie's Log: "Day" One

Please note, for the time being our travel entries will be copied here, and copied from our other blog, Just Call Me Frank.

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When we desire an adventure, we get an adventure, apparently.

We arrived in a town of North Essex, an area of southern England, south east of London, after being awake for nearly 24 hours. We lucked out on both flights, the first flight arrived an hour early to Chicago -O`Hare Airport after catching a mad tailwind, and the second arrived well over 30 minutes before it's scheduled arrival time to London-Heathrow.  Roughly an hour and a half after meeting a friend of the family for ride, we were dropped off at James flat, a split-level structure; a condo which is what is called a flat in England (same goes for apartments).

A chilly rain had set in, and as we got into the flat James realized there was no heat and no electric, so despite not having slept in a over a day, we walked into town, a roughly 25 minute walk one way, where we put money on the gas card. It's not uncommon for gas service to be prepaid and activated with a card in England, money being deposited on a card the size of a credit card, which is then slid into the meter when gas is needed.

We walked around town, despite the drizzle, James pointing out all the little shops that are his favourite, buying some apples, bananas, instant coffee, eggs, bread and a butter "spread", and about four hours later we arrived back at the flat. As James made several attempts to get the pilot lit on the boiler, to get the heat started, I set out about the flat finding candles to bring to the bedroom, since not only would the candles provide some light, particularly after I set them in front of a mirror I had found in the bathroom, but with the door closed to the bedroom the candles would put off at least a bit of heat for the night, handy since it looked like we not going to have heat for the night.

It wasn't particularly cold outside, but the flat had been sat empty for nearly four months now, and so it was frigid and damp. I crawled under the available blankets we had placed on the mattress that had been left on the floor of the bedroom, my legs and back aching from the usual physical problems, travel and the cold; while James continued to work on the pilot light, watching my breath hang in the air, a fog backlit by candle light. It reminded me of childhood. 

Our home until we were thirteen year old, growing up on a farm outside a small town in the northern part of the United States, was heated in the winter primarily by a wood cook stove, not having enough family income to use fuel all winter long. At night the fire was sometimes left to burn out, and the house, poorly insulated, would become a deep freeze. Literally. We can recall on several occasion waking up to a frozen glass of water on the night stand, after falling asleep wearing a winter jacket, mittens and knitted cap to bed to stay warm. Who knew that such a thing would have prepared us for a trip to Europe over 20 years later.

We are lucky to being with though, having a place to stay at all right now.

James flat had been for sale for months, and he had finally gotten a buyer the weeks leading up to joining us in North America in September. The foreign buyer had told him he could leave things in the flat as-is and he would clean it up after the sale, but the lawyer has been lazy completing the paperwork, and four months later the flat sale still has not been completed; so at least we have a place to stay, with a bed, a stove, running water, and a small amount of house wares, in the meantime, that is free (aside from the heat and electric, once it is in working order) and private.

James managed to get the stove top lit, but was not able to find the key for the electric. In England the electricity is activated by using a key provided by the electric company, a key that James no longer had wince the box had been changed after he moved out. Electricity, by the way, is what powers the boiler, so there was no heat for the first night and morning at all, meaning no hot water either. 

The flat was short on blankets last night, it was hard to locate the heaviest one in the near darkness, but luckily James had the smarts to bring a hot water bottle in his luggage, and he actually enjoys cuddling (even when we don't), so he was not at all upset later when we had to lay close to share body heat.

While we snuggled with the hot water bottle, and tried to warm up James side of the bed a little with it, the blankets pulled up over our nose, James set out to find some of the food he had remaining in the flat. I had found a jar of red sauce earlier and he remembered a large bag of pasta somewhere in the kitchen, and so he made a bit of dinner.

As we huddled on the bed next to James, sharing a bowl of spiral pasta  with a light Bolognese sauce, we joked with him how we were lucky we had allowed Cassandra to gain us 10-15 pounds over the last few months because had we been the weight we were last year this time, we would have been far worse off in trying to get our body to create and maintain any sort of body heat. 

James, of course, was, and is, upset. He wanted us to have a great first day. We tried to make light of the situation, both because we didn't want him to feel bad, and also because we're tough, and sure it was uncomfortable, but most of us are not a princess.

"At least it will be memorable" I beamed at him, poking him in the face with my finger lovingly.


We went to sleep fairly early, and awoke around midnight. James had just woken up and he was worried and fretting, holding him tightly I said reassuring things to him in attempt to calm him. Not really that tired he grabbed a nearby candle and picked up where he had left off reading to us on the plane from a book called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

We managed to get sleepy after a couple of chapters and fell asleep wrapped in James arms. Waking this morning mostly refreshed from sleep but not at all anxious to crawl from beneath the blankets, warm with a night of body heat, we felt slightly less optimistic, but resolved to a good mood.

Finally after an hour we managed to crawl out of bed, sponge wash with a cloth and water boiled on the stove, and for breakfast instant coffee and an apple we had purchased last night from an outdoor market. Outdoor markets are an occurrence in many towns, nearly three times a week you can buy any number of types of goods from small stalls set up along the street; the fruit and vegetable rival grocery store produce prices.

We walked into town today, passing swans bathing in a stream, and an old Roman castle, the sun made a brief appearance lighting up the splendid Europe architecture and the green all over the town. Its winter in England, which means the leaves have all fallen from the trees, but the grass remains vibrant, and many of the tree trunks are covered in thin layer of moss. As soon as we are settled a bit more we plan to spend several days photographing the city.

We went to the library, passing several types of shops on the old cobbled roads of the inner town. The bakeries smell intoxicating, the restaurants beckon. It will be several weeks before we can afford to allow ourselves a treat, but we have already started a wish-list. There are no malls here; no giant box stores; though there is a Staples store and a McDonalds along the “big drag” which is a heavily used roadway only one lane wide (wide being an exaggeration in Europe when talking about a street or road of any sort in a town or city) in each direction, most other chain restaurants and stores are few and small, and wedged between locally owned specialty stores each unique in it's own right. 

We came to the library today because we were not able to write at the flat, the electricity should be turned on this evening so we can write from our laptop, and we may have internet access via tethering from a cell phone later, but who can be sure.

We could just keep writing. There's so much to say, about the beauty of this place, the interesting sights, the expensive prices, the worry we have looking at the next four months here,  particularly after the flat sale is final, and the fears we have if James doesn't find a job fast enough, but there is plenty of time for that, and we're anxious to go see if the electricity will work, there's no 100% guarantee.

Meanwhile, the British seem to have a poor concept of whispering, at least at this library, it’s pissing us off nicely - James said we are free to tell them to shut up, but we're not ready to let everyone know we're not "one of them", though you can tell just by looking at us. Something about the way the English look is very..."English". They also pay little attention to the people around them when they walk, which honestly is not uncommon of most American either - lacking awareness of their surrounds. 

Observing the locals, and listening to them interact with each other, is great; they all have thicker "more British" accents than James, and it's like being in a British film. We are constantly giggle silently to ourselves. Now where is Simon Peg?

~ Frank & et al

And We're Off!

...LONDON, BABY!



...see you on the other side.

Countdown: Three Days

We can probably browse through http://www.enjoyengland.com/ now and find out what exciting things there are to do and see in England. We actually haven't, which is bizarre.

We always wonder what people imagine when they think of England, particularly the ones who have never been there.
Probably tea, poor dental hygiene, and the Queen. Right?
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) the British actually has the healthiest teeth in the world. IN THE WORLD.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/15060097?subjectid=7933596&story_id=15060097

Amazing, right? So how about that. (For an expanded interesting read on that, and four other National stereotypes read:'The 5 Most Statistically Full of Shit National Stereotypes' http://www.cracked.com/article_18409_the-5-most-statistically-full-shit-national-stereotypes.html)

But we're still left with the Queen. Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned queen 53 years ago yesterday. God Save The Queen. Something.

Honestly, we're not interested in her, not interested in British Royalty at all, it's mostly symbolic anyway, and they are just people born into privilege - with some fucked up, excuse our language, history. About four hundred years ago they ruled that the government can overrule the monarchy, and they became a democratic country.

So, in the meantime, tea and the Queen, because you can't dispute the importance of tea to a Brit.

Oh, and you must'nt forget...The Monty Python (a fantastic British Sketch Comedy troupe)

Responsible for such awesome films as The Life of Brian. Here's a sample!

Countdown: Seven Days

We're going to attempt to not make this blog too much about mental health stuff...but it's bound to happen one and awhile. This blog is for the sole purpose of talking about travel, currently that to England.

One week from right now we'll be in the air, actually we'll probably be getting out connecting flight, on our way to the UK.

We're nervous as heck, mostly because where we are going to stay after the first few days hasn't been figured out completely yet. Luckily James has a couple of interviews for a job almost right away when we get to England.

Back in the day (meaning about two years ago) we never, ever, ever, would have put out entire life in the hands of anyone, let alone someone we were dating...but, well...what can we say, the "part" of us that was in constant obsessive control of everything, and planned things to a t, is no longer around, and look...caution meet wind, and we toss....

Wednesday night there was a breakdown in our system, she is scared, nervous, paranoid to be taking this trip...but James held us in his arms while she unraveled a bit, and then she felt better, for now. He promises her that he will try to keep her, and all of us, safe.

So...7 DAYS...we started packing last week.

*fingers crossed*

Sixteen Day Countdown, Packing

Warning: Ramble

Less than days before we get on a plane to England.

We're nervous, excited, apprehensive...and anxious to start packing.

But what to pack when we're planning on traveling while in Europe.

The weather in January in Britain, on average, is 8.4 C-11 C (48 F-52 F), but then we want to go to Spain and France too, so what does that mean for packing?

We're planning on going to Dublin (Southern Ireland) and Glasgow, Scotland, but we figure the weather is similar since it's less than 500 miles from the southern most tip of Portsmouth, Britain to Glasgow (or Edinburgh), Scotland, and from the looks of the map it's where more dense population gives way to wilderness and scattered habitation.

Back to packing...

In case you didn't know, we're a girl...meaning shoes, dresses, jeans, sweaters, t-shirts, skirts, tights, sweater-dresses...not to mention toiletries and jackets. Luckily we don't use curling irons, hair dryers, or hairsprays, that'll lighten the load.

Things to consider when packing...how many bags are  allowed? Some airlines only allow one checked, and two small carry-ons. What is the maximum amount the luggage can weight for each airline you're booked on? When James flew in he used two different airlines and managed to sweet talk them into making allowances for his luggage weight, but it could have cost him nearly $100 for overage weight (must be the accent).

How does one go about packing for three months in a foreign country?!

Yes, we're rambling...

Fun Facts: Geography
(not everyone knows this, trust us...okay, and it might not be your idea of "fun"):
This is the actual flag of England:

The other flag, the Union Flag, often inaccurately referred to as the Union Jack (up at the top left of this entry), is the flag of The United Kingdom.

The UK (United Kingdom) is made of of the following countries: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. (Dublin is part of Southern Ireland, Belfast is part of Northern Ireland)
Britain (or Great Britain) is the name of the island that makes up the political union of Scotland, England and Wales.

While we are going to be in Britain, we will be spending the majority of our time in Southeast England, outside of London (the capital of England), less than an hour from the North Sea.

England is only 500 miles long! The entire square mileage of England is bigger than Utah, but smaller than Oregon. (94,500 square miles).
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Why are we writing about this?
It's how we learn, and a place to keep the info we want to remember; and we love to learn about the world.
Our favorite part of social sciences in school was when we studied other countries, though on average we have forgotten the majority of what we've learned. The best way to learn about a country is to plan a trip and go there.

Promise, once we start writing about our travels there it'll be more interesting. Okay, so we don't promise...