Trip To England: Day 2

We took the morning to rest, watched fashion critics on the television analyze Catherine and Pippa's dresses from the royal wedding and caught up with Warren and Dawn. It had been about 10 years since Luke had seen them back at University of North Carolina-Asheville. We all got along amazingly, and it really seemed as if we had been good friends for years. Luke and I are so grateful for their wonderful friendship and hospitality. We hope to return the favor when they come visit America!

Luke and I do the traditional tourist shot in Chester

In the afternoon we headed to Chester, an old Roman village south of Ellesmere Port. The town was surrounded by a massive wall built by the Romans. Parts of the wall date back to the year 120! A Roman amphitheater is also located just outside of the walls and dates back to the first century. It is the largest amphitheater discovered in England.

The Roman walls

One thing that I loved about Chester (and England in general) is they never built huge shopping malls for all of the stores. Rather, they maintain the traditional store fronts along the city streets. It was amazing to shop in these old buildings, each unique and stunning. It added so much to the shopping experience.

The shops in Chester

For dinner, we went to the Albion Inn, an old Victorian and traditional English pub and inn dating back to the late 1800s. The decor is reflective of the Great War (1914-1918), which took place just a few steps from the Albion Inn. According to their website, many soldiers visited the bar before heading back out the the battlefield.

The Albion Inn

At the traditional English pubs, you have to go up to the bar to place your order. The waitresses only come by to pick up empty plates (there are no free refills in England). It was odd not having people come by asking how the food was or if we needed anything else. But at the same time, if we did need something, we could always go to the bar.

For dinner, I had a turkey dinner and Luke had an amazing cottage pie. Who says British food isn't good? This stuff was better than a lot of stuff we've had in the States!

Luke enjoying his ale and cottage pie

We strolled along the Roman walls for a bit after dinner and then headed to Tesco to pick up some food for the week. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip! I loved looking at all of the British and Scottish foods and seeing what American foods are popular over there. The chocolates are by far better than America's and their flavors of potato chips (or crisps, as they call them in England) are a little more adventurous. Some of the flavors include: Worcestershire sauce, prawn, roast chicken, pickled onion and beef and onion.

Dawn and Warren were a little surprised at our excitement over a grocery store, but they remembered how excited they were to walk around a WalMart when they were in the States. We enjoyed gawking at all the items for sale. We even picked up a pack of Scotch eggs so Luke could taste a bit of his heritage.

We headed back to their place for the night, had a cup of tea (PG Tips, of course) to finish the night and then it was off to bed.

Boston: Quincy Market

On Sunday morning we made our way to the Financial District to drop off our luggage at the Hilton Inn. Though it was difficult moving our luggage from one side of town to the other, it let us get familiar with parts of the city that we probably wouldn't have if we stayed in the same place the whole trip.

We made our way over to the pier to get a glimpse of the ocean. It was a perfect day, 70s and sunny and the ocean breeze only made it better. After wandering for a while, we ran into Quincy Market. It is an outdoor mall/market. There is a wide range of shops, ranging from American Eagle to specialty craft stores. The buildings at this place are hundreds of years old...history and shopping...who knew?

Quincy Market

Go Boston!

The food court in this place is amazing. It is set up almost like a flea market where you walk down a long row of quick service restaurants on both sides. They throw free samples at you and yell to get your attention. We opted for some mac n' cheese! I had the original and Luke had the Italian-style with grape tomatoes and pesto mixed in with the cheese and noodles.

This clam chowder was pretty good.

Our mac n' cheese lunch

A collage of what we saw at Quincy Market

After lunch, we made our way to East Boston to check out an apartment. I didn't take any pictures, but I don't think we will be living on that side of town. Though it is economical, it isn't the safest (though the apartment we looked at was on a pretty safe road, according to the police web site) and the apartment was no where close to the subway. We loved meeting the landlord, Kieran, though. He is from Ireland and seems like such a great landlord. We hope we can find one like him!

New Glasses

After 3 years with the brown glasses, I have switched back to black. Still breaking them in, but I definitely like the new style. :)

A pretty bright "Black Friday"

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying all of the leftovers :) We spent the holiday over at my cousin's husband's grandparents house. The food was amazing, and we have almost 2 full pies to remember the day by. If anyone needs pumpkin or cherry pie, let us know!

I was going back and forth on whether or not I would go shopping this morning. But when I woke up at 6 a.m., I figured I would go check it out. I got to Target at 6:30 a.m. and it really wasn't too bad. There is a Target not too far from our house that many people don't know about (It isn't even on the 'store locator' map on target.com). I found a lot of good deals, like a 6-piece luggage set for $35 and some other goodies that I got for Luke. According to my receipt, I saved $99.99 and I got a $10 gift card. Not too shabby! I decided to push my luck later on and Luke and I went to Kohls. It wasn't crowded in the store, but the lines were insane! We would have been in line for over an hour, at least, so we decided to put back the few items we had and head back home.

In other news, Luke has this Sunday off!! We are so happy to finally have a day off together :) I think it has been about a month that we have gone without one of us working that day. We will be putting up the Christmas tree and decorations and hopefully go out for a nice dinner.