New car and first castle!

This was one seriously hectic week in the UK. Started the week in a town in Wales and ended it for a couple of long days in Manchester (neither very glamorous, conference rooms are the same in every country).

The one day I was in the office I got rid of the hired car (that's a rental in American), and got my car that I will have for the year. It's a VW Jetta that's a turbo diesel and has an iPod craddle built into it. Can't believe it, but the thing gets 40 mpg and is fairly speedy with some lag before the turbo kicks in. It seems like almost all the cars here are diesels, or have a diesel variant (this includes even american made Jeeps which get 30 mpg or better). The improved mpg is key since diesel or gas is around $8/gallon.

Yesterday it was finally sunny after what seemed like a very long time of clouds and rain so I decided to take in a castle that is nearby. I went to the town of Skipton which was fairly big back in the 1200-1300's which is when the castle dates from (castle may even be a bit older, not sure). It was pretty small, but interesting. The old part is kept for tourists, and the newer part, built during the time of the Tudors has been converted to apartments. Here's some photos of the place:

Front door

Guard tower

Tudor part

This Friday I get to move into the new flat, so stay tuned for photos of the new place and of the neighborhood.

car update

FYI--For those of you thinking about coming to visit, the car we have is a company car and can't be driven by anyone who doesn't complete the company's driver training. As it stands right now, I haven't and won't which means you will have to rent a car or rely on public transportation unless Pat is available.

We are close to the York train station (more detail to come) and from what I understand the buses in York are good and frequent. From some initial research, train fare from London is about 19.50 pounds which is about $40 one way. That's booking as far in advance as possible. Ironically, the fare is a little bit more to take the train from Manchester which is geographically closer. The time it takes is still close to 2 hours (about the same as driving and just a little less than the time it takes to get to London). The airfare to Manchester is also suppose to be more expensive.

Check out the map below. We're the little pink square at the top of 1A (top left). The station is in the 2D quadrant (middle left). You can also see the walls (green line) and a walk/bike path along the river (black dashed line). For a better view of the map, click on it and it will enlarge. For more info on York, go to www.insideyorks.co.uk/york/

--Jamie

Looking to let a flat

aka rent an apartment

We saw the good, bad, and ugly in Harrogate (an old spa town) and York (you know the one that has a guest appearance in my favorite movie Braveheart). We saw grandma's pink 50's retirement home, basements that smelled musty with a bit of mold (from recent heavy rains), super swanky "baroque" furnishings, the clifton garage sale collection, and some plain old nice places to live.

After much discussion, stress, and last minute realtor calls, we landed in York. Ironically, in an area referred to as Clifton, but much nicer than it's Cincinnati counterpart. It's in a grand old house that has just been refurbished and split into flats so we'll be the first occupants since renovation. (Pictures to come--we took movies and they won't upload) It has a reserved parking spot, an amazing shared entry staircase, and is nicely placed on the first floor (that's the second floor for us Americans). It's across from a nice village green aka park (the view is shown in the photo here), is close to the river and the city walls. We think that it's a 15 minute walk from the train station, but that's up for debate right now. It's unfurnished right now, but will be mostly furnished when we take occupancy.


Most importantly for our future guests, it has a good size second bedroom, second bath, and a tiny "third" bedroom (don't worry--nobody will get stuck there).

From our brief on-foot exploration of York, it looks very cool. The surrounding farmland is beautiful--somewhat reminiscent of Tuscany, but less dramatic. There are poppies here too which seem to grow everywhere except Cincinnati.

Here are some misc. photos:







Tomorrow is driver training for me. Not really looking forward to that, but it's necessary. Friday I have to get down to business and work on Lauren's wedding invitations (no, Lauren, I haven't forgotten :)

And to sign off, I have made my first English blunder. When we went out with one of Pat's co-workers I mentioned to Pat that I found a good price on a pair of pants. Well our pants are trousers in England because pants refers to underpants. His co-worker got a kick out of it, but has spent enough time in the US to correct me vs. be confused.

Will try to write again soon (assuming I don't crash into a roundabout tomorrow),

Jamie

First week in England

I just finished my first week here and thought I'd post up some photos of the temporary apartment and some other stuff. The week has been fairly hectic. My first day I had an all day driver training so I could learn how to drive on the other side of the road (Jamie gets to do that this coming week while she is out here, haha).

What would England be without a rotary?

I knew these would be common, but didn't realize quite the extent they are used. They are pretty much at every intersection (have yet to see an intersection with lights).

This is a view of the apartment. Not too bad; fairly small and could really use some paint, but hey, it's only for the next couple of weeks.

This is the view from the balcony looking away from Leeds city centre (it's not a "downtown", but a "city centre").

This also happens to have been 1 of 2 days when it wasn't raining.

Since it's so far north it stays light here real late in summer (not looking forward to the inverse come winter). This is the start of the sunset at 9pm.

... and it's still setting at 10:30pm.

Jamie will be here tomorrow and this week we get to go house hunting for our new place. I'm looking forward to it so we can settle in a bit and start getting into a routine of sorts for during the weeks and start traveling a bit on the weekends.

Jamie or I'll post more next week, have a good one.

Coming Soon!

Pictures of our place, our new city, and our travels through the countryside and beyond...