The new kids have arrived!

Hello there,

This is Cece, Steve’s scribe for the blog. I have not done this before so here you go.

We arrived in England on June 9^th, last Thursday. We have been learning by the seat of our pants ever since.  The flight was long and not easy to get comfortable, so I give Steve and me an A for effort in trying to get some sleep.

We landed in Manchester and our first barrier of performance was catching the train. Here is the picture; two old geezers walking through the airport in a foreign country dragging 3 months worth of luggage behind us. Doing quite well I might add. We stopped at Starbuck’s to get refueled then off again asking people as we go, where is the train?  We find it, no problem, load up the luggage, sit down, and I fall asleep. Steve, however, is wide awake loving the landscape and architecture. I cracked an eye from time to time, otherwise, crashed.

The next learning curve we stumbled into was getting a cab. Again loaded with luggage, bed head, dark circles under eyes, we are asking as we go through the train station where are the taxies?  Finally we see them and it looks like there is a line of at least ten of them along the street. We hail down the first taxi we see, and low and behold, he waves us to go on. Not believing that, we go to the next one. He waves us on too. The third guy sees us coming and shouts out the window- Go to the front of the line! Fine, I assume it’s because he has a van and can actually handle 3 months of luggage. Who knew!

We arrive at Roomzzz and crash. We get up around dinner time and unpack then off to the next door pub. They serve great sandwiches. They do not serve ice tea. They serve ice coffee though. Sooo, I ask the waitress for a cup of tea and a glass of ice.  Problem solved.

The next day Steve is off to his new audit. I planned to take it easy today and tidy up the room, getting it organized. This is when I had my first lesson in communication. The maid came into the room to pick up towels and trash. I have absolutely no idea what she said. She was speaking English, I think, but no clue what about. I just nodded.

My next experience while Steve was at work was in blowing up the appliances I had brought from home. I thought I was a great smarty pants and had all the right adaptors, but No, they only slowed down the burn. I was freaking out by the time Steve got home but all I got was, “I told ya not to bring all that stuff.” No problem—there is an Amazon.com in the UK. Problem solved. A girl needs her things.

Room views

Over the weekend we went to the Leeds City Center and plaza. It was an amazing collection of diversity. I loved it. We stopped and had our first fish and chips, quite good, but very unhealthy. They put gravy, peas, or curry on the chips. By the way, chips are French fries. Steve had the gravy and I had the peas. We decided we liked them but not enough to eat them at home.  Victoria’s station was lovely in the city center. They have true artisans there. Their wares cost a king’s ransom so we left them there. We took a few pictures of the trip, hope you enjoy.

Our next trip was to the Thackray Medical Museum. As a retired nurse this was a real treat. In the exhibition one gets to step back in time to 1842 and experience the sights and sounds of Victorian Leeds. After experiencing that squalor, you walk on through the museum and in an ingeniously organized manner find out how scientific discoveries helped us to understand disease and revolutionize medicine in today’s time. It is well done and I recommend it.

On another note, we went to the grocery store yesterday. I met Steve at a beautiful rose garden near his work and we walked to Morrison’s together. We enjoyed the walk to Morrison’s but the walk back was a challenge. What happened to getting in the car and going to the store? What about having the groceries brought to the car? We carried them home. We caught buses. Not what this pampered housewife is used to. These Brits are tough.

This is where we ate our first English Sunday dinner; roast, chips, peas, cabbage, and Yorkshire pudding. Steve and I were excited about getting the pudding-NOT-it is just a roll with a hole in it and gravy in that. Very disappointed, but, we learned something.