Travel Tuesday

In spite of the aforementioned tummy bug I had this weekend I sucked it up so Steve & I went to Oxford for the day. It's only about 20 minutes by train from Reading and it was like a whole new world.

Reading is a very modern town. Its got 2 malls, a big John Lewis & M&S. There are old buildings everywhere but there are also six Starbucks! Yes - six! Why we need that many I will never know, but it's besides the point. The most exciting historical thing, the Abbey, has been closed to visitors since 2009 because the society for historical preservation isn't convinced its worthy enough of a grant (it was build in 1121AD). -_- that's my not impressed face. The city is far more focused on being a big hub for the train to Heathrow airport and an IT center then a quaint British town. Needless to say Oxford is the exact opposite. It's steeped in tradition, has only one Starbucks & lots of gorgeous architecture.

We started off the day with the bus tour - yes they seem lame and annoy the locals but since it provides hop on hop off access for the full day its pretty useful way of getting around. It covers the big sites and tells you stuff you wouldn't have known about.

Alice's Sweet Shop (Alice In Wonderland)

Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go in, so we are adding it to our next time list.

Downtown Oxford - 99 steps for the best view in the city

Another site we are adding to our next time list!

Covered Market

Oxford University Graduate

It just happened to be graduation weekend so all these happy kids were walking around in their full Oxford dress.

Theater

One of the 38 colleges that make up Oxford University. The entire city looks a little like Hogwarts. Some of the buildings were used for scenes for the movies but they were closed (likely due to graduation)

Bridge & the alley to Turf Tavern

The sign to Turf Tavern (where we had lunch).

I read about it on LonelyPlanet.com - a site I highly recommend. You simply type in the city you are going to and it gives you top attractions, restaurants and a basic overview. Perfect when you don't have time to buy the guidebook. 

Down an alley we went

Signs of life? 

The famous Turf Tavern!

History of the oldest pub in Oxford

Our "favorite" president used to hang out here

Punting on the River Thames

After lunch we wondered down to the river to see about renting a boat. Unfortunately the line for punt boats was well over an hour (it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon) so Steve and I took the next best thing. 

Row row row my boat Steve!

Steve rowed me up and down the Thames for the better part of an hour. I just enjoyed the weather!

The post box for the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. It was put in place just for him as he received so much mail!

The pub J RR Tolklien & C S Lewis used to frequent 

If you liked this post check out Across The Ponderings! It's an adorable blog written by Julie about her life living abroad in Oxford for a year. She gave me some great ideas of things to do while we were in Oxford.

Our First Visitors

This past weekend we had our first visitors here in the UK! My friend and sorority sister, her husband and their 9 month old daughter came to visit us for the weekend. Seneca is in Barcelona, Spain for 3 weeks for work and Jessica has always wanted to visit London.

They arrived late Friday, after BA failed miserably and losing their stroller and car seat... yes, on a flight that was less then 2 hours they managed to lose a stroller and a car seat! Ugh! Lets just say we are not big fans of BA right now. Thankfully they had a ergo carrier so we were still able to get some sightseeing in.

Saturday morning we headed into London for the day. We started off by taking a double decker bus tour of London - good way to get all the sights in within a few hours. We opted to not take the boat portion of the tour, which I would recommend. We took the boat portion of the tour in February and it takes longer to get to the boat, wait for it, get on & then off it then your actually on the water. Plus since its all enclosed the photos aren't very good.

Jessica, Samantha & Seneca are Canadian 

Big Ben!

London Eye

Tour Bridge

After the bus tour Jessica wanted to the M&M world store, so that's what we did. It was a mad house, mind you it was a beautiful Saturday so everyone in London was out and about, and a good third of them were at the M&M store.

M&M store 

By then it was 4pm and we were STARVING! Steve was craving cheese burgers and the best burgers we know is Shake Shack, so we took a quick cab ride over to Convet Garden. For the record I hailed  the can with one swift movement in 2 seconds. This never happens so I figured it was worth noting.

Piccadilly Circus

From Covent Garden we took a quick walk down to the river where we took a water taxi over to the Globe to walk the South Bank.

London Eye

The Globe

After a few quick photos & a stop at Starbucks for tea and recharging phones we strolled down the South Bank. We had a quick drink at a pub with some friends before we stopped for dinner just below the London Eye. 

It was a long day, we didn't get home till after midnight but it was a great day showing friends from home around our new city. 

Travel Tuesday

So since I already covered our travel into London and its Tuesday (I started this post on Tuesday, so I sticking with it) I figured I would reveal where we are headed for our first big out of the country trip - Ireland. We are headed to Dublin at the end of May for a 3 day weekend! We are both excited, this will be Steve's first time outside of England & I will get to see my childhood nanny who lives in Ireland. We are going to Dublin so we don't have to rent a car, but in the future I want to rent a car and drive all over the country and explore castles and sites. But that will be the next trip.

My family & I went to Ireland right before we moved back to the US, so somewhere around 2000. I don't remember a whole lot, we saw the Book of Kells and mom & dad drank some Guinness, but that's about all I can remember.

We're going to try something different as far as where to stay, since its a bank holiday weekend there as well hotels are very expensive. So we keep seeing adds for Air B&B on the TV here, its like normal people who rent either a bed, a room or their entire home out for a fraction of the cost of a hotel in the same area. So Ive found a few places that will work, for about $75/night. If it goes well we can keep doing the Air B&B thing, if not its back to earning lots of Hilton points.

We took this tour company around London and loved it, so we will do the hop on hop off buss tour on Saturday to get our a good overview of the city. 

Howth is a bay just outside of Dublin, a its a part of the city that I have never seen. I'm hoping for some great sea food, beautiful views & some shopping!

What would a trip to Dublin be without going to the Guinness brewery? We got a tip from a friend to go strait to the tasting for the free beer and do the self tour backwards. Beer first? Yes please!

This is my only real memory of my previous trip to Dublin so I'm excited to take Steve to see this beautiful piece of history. Plus we get to see all the cute Irish college boys ;)

Steve is a huge scotch fan, but in Ireland we drink whisky so visiting the Jameson distillery is on our list of must sees. 

One of my favorite kinds of tours are these land & water ones so if we have time we will take one of these around Dublin.