Sunday, July 29, 2007

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.

3 comments:

Steph said...

Wow I can't imagine having an apartment in a freakin' CASTLE.

Cars for hire--Do you watch hired movies as well?

Anonymous said...

Rent a movie

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