Games Day

Saturday happened to be a day of games. Our church sponsored an "Amazing Race" through London. The exciting thing is that the Amazing Race is my absolute favorite TV show. I would love to be on the real show so I was very excited to do a small scale family version through London. Only problem - our buddy family was English/Dutch and had never even heard of the Amazing Race and they had no idea we needed to hurry, get the challenges completed and move onto the next clue. I was so frustrated. I wanted to WIN. Unfortunately, we came in 4th out of 6 teams. The kids did great though. They walked ALL over London. No tube rides for us.
That evening we hurried back home only to get to our next event of Quiz night through the American Women's group. Our friends challenged the wives against the husbands. We thought we would ROCK. but, came in next to last out of 7 groups. Major bummer. We did great on the British History category only to blow it on the American History. We also did poorly on the Olympics section.
Fun games day - but I wanted to win! Need to brush up on my US Presidents.

English cooking disaster # 7,365,484

When will I learn... all efforts at cooking here are just laughable. Tonight I made my first attempt at a traditional English apricot pudding (their version of cake - not baked, but steamed). This is how it worked out

DISASTER! but smells really good. Should look like a cake made in a jello mold turned out on a plate with toffee coating. think this falls under "complete failure"!
Very disappointing since pudding takes forever to cook on the stovetop (1.5 hrs +)
I know what my problem is though. One part of the recipe calls for baking soda and the other part calls for baking powder. I mixed them up and since I dont really understand the science of baking soda/powder, I didn't know how to counteract my mess-up. It's very confusing since the English version of soda is half strength, so if you are making US recipes with UK ingredients, you must double soda. If making UK recipe with US ingredients, I might need to half it. (that might even be wrong. It could be baking powder that is half/double strength.)
Regardless, it was a complete, globby mess. The real kicker is that I went to a cooking class and watched a lady make the same recipe, so I thought I had all the odds working on my side. Think again, Bridget!

Hope your dinner turns out well tonight.

Remembrance Day

http://www.freefoto.com/preview/9904-11-12?ffid=9904-11-12

Today Remembrance Day was celebrated in England. It is the basic equivalent to Veteran's Day in the USA. It is marked by wearing a poppy such as this on your lapel. This year is the 90th annual commemoration of the end of WWI which is always done on the Sunday closest to the 11 day of the 11 month of the 11th hour. The whole country has a 2 min. moment of silence at 11:00am to remember the end of WWI in addition to paying respect to all the families who sacrificed for that great war plus all the other conflicts which have happened since. We had our moment of silence during church and they read off some statistics that seemed poignant.
In the "British Empire" as it was called at the time, they mobilized almost 5.5 million people and suffered almost 2.5 million casualties of either wounded or dead. France mobilized 7.5 million people with almost 4.3 million casualties of wounded or dead, and the US, which joined the war later, also suffered significant casualties with over 300,000 wounded or dead.
The English gentleman leading the memorial gave much respect and credit to the US for helping end the war so quickly.
I guess living here and traveling through Europe - even visiting the American Cemetary in Normandy, it has opened my eyes to realize how WWI and WWII deeply affected the people, landscape, and entire societies of the whole world. Millions dead or wounded. It's just mind boggling. Even to this day you can see bomb damage in London that happened during the blitz of WWII.
I know I studied WWI during school, but I guess I've always heard more about the second world war. It is interesting to hear about history from another perspective and to learn what is significant to them. I appreciate having these opportunities to understand and see first hand the history of Europe.

No funny quips today, just commemorating Remembrance Day.
I guess the endless days of rain, grey skies and darkness just zap the "funny" right out of me.

My American moment

We have a running joke here that anytime we do anything "American" that we should know better NOT to do anymore - we call it having our "American Moment" of the day.
Usually referred to when DA drives on the right side of the road - not to be confused with the correct side of the road that he should be on to avoid having a wreck.
Anyway, today I went to a grocery store I have only been in once before. I didnt know where things were located. I was distracted when walking into the store - reading some vouchers (coupons) that had been handed to me as I walked in. Unusual because they dont use coupons here, so I was a little dazed by knowing what to do with them ;-)
I was shopping for 1 thing - eggs. I immediately looked up around the top part of the walls for the big EGGS sign. Didnt see it, started walking down the refrigerated aisle. Didnt see them, walked to other end of store for more refrigerated section when I remembered!!!! after being here for almost 2 years that eggs are NEVER sold in the refrigerated section. They were located, as usual, in the middle of the cereal aisle. I could not believe after all this time that I had a mental block and actually looked in several places in the store for refrigerated eggs. How dare I think that eggs should actually be cold (or white or without feathers and bits on them!) It's those kind of moments that make me shake my head and realize that no matter how long I'm here, the oddball habits are hard to break.
Moments later I also had sticker shock - 2 dozen eggs cost 8 GPS. That seemed outrageous to me. Are they that much in Dallas?

Oh - update on the eco milk sold in the bag. They now have a plastic carton that they sell right next to the milk for you to put your milk into to dispense it - obviously - but this new eco solution is so much more expensive than the regular milk. How can "eco" milk in a bag be more expensive than milk in a carton? Crazy.

The Hills are Alive...

The hills are alive... with the sound of off key singing!!!!
For half term break we did a driving tour of southern Germany and Austria. Got to do some really fun stuff which included a tour of all the Sound of Music movie sites in Salzburg, Austria. DA made us recreate some of the scenes. Here are a couple.

"Doe, ray, me.." cue Julie Andrews for the high note, cause we surely cant hit it.

"I am 16 going on..." the gazebo is locked due to a grandma jumping from bench to bench - she fell and sued for damages, hence no more jumping from bench to bench.
Our decision to drive across Germany/Austria was based partly on the fact it is fairly easy to do, the scenery is beautiful and since it is low season, there really aren't many professional tours we could have joined anyway. Driving ourselves to our own schedule was great except for --- they drive on the right side of the road! DA had to drive a stick shift - on the right side of the road- and we were driving straight up narrow roads in the Alps. Scary! He drove on the wrong side so, so, so many times. And then he kept stalling the car. He did a much better job than I ever could have, but it was still nerve wracking. If it weren't for the TomTom (satNav) we would still be driving around the border looking for signs we could read.
We ended up making our trip safely. Surprisingly, we had some friends who ended up being on our same flights and were going to some of the same towns as we were. Very strange to run into someone you know (unexpectedly) on top of a mountain in Germany. The kids were pumped seeing their friends, made the trip just that much more fun.
Here are some highlights:
Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. Supposedly this castle inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella castle.
Our hotel at the top of the mountain - the building on the right. The hotel was just below the ruins of Falkenstein castle. I held my breath the entire time we drove up the 1 lane road to get to the top - stalling the car made it so memorable!
Me at the top of Falkenstein castle ruins. I'm the one waving!Salzburg, Austria. One of my favorite things - the iron signs lining the old town. They are so picturesque. Even McDonald's has a fancy sign.

We visited the salt mines outside of Salzburg. (get it? Salz = Salt. The $ from the salt mines paid for the building of Salzburg)
The salt mine tour was really cool. We were so far underground (at least 750 meters straight into a mountain). We even crossed the German/Austrian border while underground.
We had to wear these dorky white overalls - to protect our clothes from the narrow cave walls and also to protect our legs on the cool slides they had which allowed us to get from one level to another within the mine.
We rode this train into the mine - too far to walk!Innsbruck, Austria Olympic ski jump. I'll never understand how those jumpers get the nerve to jump the first time.
My family on the Olympic medal stand in Innsbruck at the bobsled track.


The first snow of the season happened while we were there. Had to get out of the car and throw a few snowballs.

Munich, Germany.
The Marienplatz and the glockenspiel. B was soooo over it by this point. We'd been to one old building too many.
B looking out over Munich. It was absolutely freezing in Munich, but it was warmer than London which had ice at the time.

This was the weirdest site of the whole trip - entire stores devoted to decorated eggs- thousands of them. They were mainly Easter themed, but had Christmas and Halloween ones too. They cost 6.50 Euro per egg, so they weren't cheap. Family - this is what you're getting for Christmas gifts.... NOT!

Happy Halloween and Guy Fawkes!

Happy Halloween. We celebrated last week with a big trunk or treat event at the kid's school. B was a "colorful Fairy" and L was a punk rocker.

B and friends at their costume parade at school.
On the 31st we stayed home and handed out some candy. The concept of trick or treating isnt as ingrained here as it is in the States. I answered the door one time to a group of kids and no one said anything when I opened the door. I said, "no trick or treat?" they just looked at me and held out their bags. Instead of "thank you" I got the British "cheers." Our funniest trick or treater costume was a boy dressed in dark clothes with a woman's bra and panties on top. Instead of carrying a bag for his candy, he stuffed his goodies into his bra. It was so funny.

Today started the Guy Fawkes celebration. They light fireworks for about 2 weeks straight. We have had about 3 hours worth already tonight. It seems every home with a decent sized garden buys fancy fireworks and shoots them off sometime over the next couple of weeks.

I'm not sure if they ever wish anyone this, but "happy Guy Fawkes" to you all.

The New Forest

This weekend was a long weekend off from school. Not because of the US holiday, but because of teacher conferences (kids don't attend school on conference days). We decided we would drive over to South Wales - 1) because we haven't been there yet and 2) because L is doing a family history project and we believe both sides of his heritage originated from Wales.
As you would expect, when driving out of London on a Friday afternoon, you encounter bad traffic - but yesterday was HORRIBLE. There was traffic everywhere. It was "choc-a-block"!!! SO, knowing that our whole journey should have taken 2.5 hr to drive - imagine our frustration that we were only 45 miles away after 4.5 hours. There was wreck after wreck and since they don't have frontage roads in this lovely country, there is no where to go except to wait on the road for them to clear the wreck. UGH!!! We bailed on South Wales and came back home for the night.
Anyway, this morning we tried a new destination and went down to "The New Forest" for the day. We'd heard really nice things about it and decided to give it a shot. It's about 1 hr drive away and I'm so pleased we went.
Out for a walk in the New Forest. (really a clearing in the forest!) The New Forest is actually very old. Established (and named) around the time of William the Conqueror about 1,000 years ago. It was protected land that the king could hunt on. They established laws several centuries ago that allowed the commoners to have access to open pastures and those laws still apply today. These are some types horses we came across beside the road today.

Mainly there are wild horses roaming free - over roads, through back yards, in the parking lots, etc. It is kinda crazy to see. The cars just have to wait for the horses to get out of the road. We came across at least 50 horses or so on the roads in just one afternoon. It really backs up the traffic and the horses are in no hurry to get out of the way. Even though the horses are wild, they are all owned "by a commoner" whatever that means.
B, being giddy over horses, had a ball. We toured in the car for a while and then got out and walked. You're not allowed to touch or feed the horses, but B wanted to get closer to them than we could in the car. We were standing by the fence when 2 feisty, wild horses came running full blast around the corner. Scared me to death. We watched them and realized they were the bullies of the neighborhood, charging at the other grazing horses and making them all run off.
These are the bully horses. As I was jumping on the fence, DA was snapping a photo.
We saw lots of deer in one area. A huge buck and about 15 others in his herd.Bonus that we choose a sunny, autumn day enjoy the fall color of the leaves.
So, the weekend wasn't a total bust - no Wales to check off, but the New Forest was a good substitute.
We laughed at this slug and beetle having a war over some droppings. The slug was huge - at least 3" long and that little beetle was not intimidated at all. No wonder all my flowers get eaten by the slugs, they're like monsters!