'I Went to England' or 'Blogs Galore'

I went to England with Ritchie. We visited family and friends, saw some sites, drank a lot of tea, and ate a lot of Marmite. If you like to read (or even just enjoy looking at pictures), peruse the posts below. If you're impatient and don't count reading about other people's lives as one of your favorite things, here's a brief overview:

1. I went out to dinner.
2. I celebrated Fake Christmas (I was hungover).
3. I went to London.
4. I went to Bath.

And there you have it!

Ritchie with his Mum (note my cultural awareness in the spelling) and Dad, Diane and Pat.

Ailey and Laurence, a good friend from Japan.

Bath

Ritchie, like locals of any place in the world, hasn't seen many of the famous sites in the UK. Because I'm not a UK local, I try to remedy this whenever I visit. Therefore, we journeyed to Bath. After three hours of driving, we easily found the city, but it took us an hour of driving up and down medieval streets to actually find the Bed and Breakfast where we were staying.

Tensions were high, so we decided to decompress by buying tickets to a Pantomime - Aladdin:


Though the story was Aladdin, the Pantomime took place in Peking. Were the writers trying to avoid offending the Middle Eastern population by packing the play with Chinese stereotypes instead? Despite the untraditional setting, the play was a lot of fun.


A trip to Bath is not complete without a trip to the city's namesake, the Roman Baths:

This picture shows the Baths as the were in Roman times, with Bath Abbey in the background. In Georgian times, the water level was higher.

Ailey converses with a Roman aristocrat.

Ailey and Ritchie in front of the Roman piping that feeds water into the Baths.

The city of Bath offers free walking tours of the city, so we braved the freezing weather to brush up on our Georgian history:

The tour guide gives a history of the Royal Crescent.

Some very expensive real estate, the Royal Circus.

A sample of the city's narrow, winding streets.

We also visited Bath Abbey, but it looks like any other medieval/Renaissance church so I'll spare you the photos. After a day of walking in the freezing cold, we scrapped plans to drive across the bridge into Wales and returned to Ritchie's parents' house.

London!

Ritchie and I took the train to London for a day of culture. Last year, we visited the Tower of London, Borough Market (spelling?), the British Museum, Leicester Square, Hyde Park and other stuff. Lots of other stuff. This year, we were far less driven. On the train ride into the city, our conversation went something like this:

Ritchie: What do you want to see?

Ailey: I want to go to the Tower of London again.

Ritchie: The portrait gallery is free.

Ailey: I want to go to the Tower of London again.

Ritchie: The British Musem is free.

Ailey: I want to go to the Tower of London again.

Ritchie: The Tate Modern is free.

Ailey: Fine, lets go to the Tate Modern (but I really wanted to say was, "I want to go to the Tower of London again").

So, we went to the Tate Modern. While impressed by the large crack that is running through the ground floor - it's a meaningful crack, of course - after two hours, I was ready to move on. My artist friends may shun me for saying this, but as far as modern art goes, I'm a cretin. I like the pieces with bright, bold colors and interesting designs, but large slabs of concrete hanging from the ceiling hold very little interest for me. Our walk through the museum was filled with "hmmms . . ." and "ummms . . ." and, the most hated comment of all, "I could do that."

After meeting Ritchie's friend for lunch, we did something a little more to my interest - the British Museum! Thousands of ancient artifacts collected (stolen?) by The Empire on view for me at no cost! With exhibits ranging from Viking Europe to ancient Egypt, the British Museum is definitely the best that I have ever seen. We arrived just an hour before closing, so we wandered my favorite exhibit, the ancient Levant.

Ritchie reads about an artifact while a bust of Rameses II holds.

We ended the day by meeting Ritchie's university friends for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in Piccadilly Circus. Good (expensive) times!

Fake Christmas, number 2

My family celebrated Christmas on December 1st. Not to be outdone, Ritchie's family had Fake Christmas on December 15th. Unfortunately, I'd decided to celebrate Fake Christmas Eve by drinking wine and dancing (see below) and was not in top form. As the kids ran around and the adults engaged in distinguished English conversation, I moaned on the couch and stared at the TV. After downing tea and shunning all offers of alcoholic beverages, I retired to bed a 3 p.m. only to wake up after everyone had gone home. Merry Fake Christmas, indeed.

Dinner at the Green Man

We met Ritchie's brothers, Martin and Vinny, and a few of their friends for dinner at the Green Man. I had the duck salad, pheasant, chocolate mousse, and a mince pie. I also had a lot of wine.

Following dinner, Ritchie, Martin (Ritchie's brother), James (Martin's friend), and I went to Ivory for dancing and chav-viewing.

Martin, James, and Ritchie pull a manly pose while a fight breaks-out just outside the club.