Hebden Bridge

On Saturday we went to a town called Hebden Bridge about 40 minutes, by train, East of Leeds.  The night before there was a severe eye stabby storm so we wanted to go some place where we could enjoy a walk in the fresh powder.  Hebden is a small town situated on a narrow canal. When we arrived, the entire canal was frozen over.  Along the banks, large canal boats were locked in by the frozen ice.  We threw snowballs to try and break it but our weak attempts simply made little craters on the surface.  It was fun, and we attracted some others to join in.  No one was successful though.  Even the huge ball we made weighing at least 100lbs failed to break through.  After several more useless attempts we decided to start walking along a path next to the canal.  The path was beautiful, snow covered every inch.  There was so much snow that we couldn't resist building a snow man.  Unfortunately, he didn't turn out so well.  It was our first time building one and apparently you need a degree in structural engineering and the artistic ability of Michelangelo to make one that looks like the ones on TV.  Still, we were pretty proud.   A few hours later however, we were saddened to see that someone had knocked our beloved snowman over.  Whoever did it was probably so disturbed by its hideous form that he had to rid the world of this demon spawn.  Either that or the snowman fell over on its own because, we suck.

A short distance from the small center of Hebden is a trail that winds its way up a hillside.  The hike was a bit treacherous due to the ice but the view from the hill was spectacular.   Despite the snowman debacle we had a great time in Hebden Bridge.

We are legal!

We got our TV license today!  We are now free to watch and record TV on any device such as mobile phones, DVD/ VCRs, computers, digital boxes, and game consoles without the TV gestapo coming after us.  One thing we found after a couple days of watching is they don't censor anything here!  Movies have the F word, S word, everything!  They even showed nudity at 8 pm on a weekday!  It offended everyone of my prudish American sensibilities.  It was almost too much to handle, but I soldiered on watching.  I had to.  For America!  

York

York is a 2000 year old walled Roman city about an hour bus ride north of Leeds.  It is rich in history and in the 19th century became a hub for the British railway.  But we didn't care about any of that, when we arrived we went straight to the first pub we could find.

The Harkers is a pub near the city center.  We were drawn to it because; 1. It was a pub, 2. It was warm,  3.  It was warm.  Also they had a great deal on Sunday roast.  Cady had the Pork and I had the lamb.  It was delicious.  After the pub we tried to get up to the wall to walk around the city but unfortunately it was closed, lots of things are closed on Sundays here.  Instead, we took a walk around town and looked at some of the ancient ruins that are scattered throughout the city.

We also went to a few museums but immediately walked out because we're cheap. After the stroll we went to the British Railway Museum which is the largest rail museum in the world and its free!  It was massive and had hundreds of trains.  We sat and listened to a guy talk about trains for an hour.  I never knew that a train's transmission shifts with a lever that the conductor operated by rocking back and forth and I'm bored.  Actually, I found it really interesting because TRAINS!  Cady, not so much.  Hopefully the next time we visit we will be able to walk around on the wall and maybe check out some other museums (pubs).

It's SNOWING!

Neither of us have ever been in snow while it was falling before.  I've watched it from a window and enjoyed it after the storm, but never walked through it or lived in it.  I like it, however I discovered today that snow has a tendency to go right for the eyes, so from henceforth I will be referring to snow as "eye stabbies".   Stay tuned for my next post where I will most likely be bitching about the "eye stabbies." 

We are no longer interesting

Well... That didn't last long.

We're interesting here!

People actually find us interesting here! 
"Wow!" they say.  "Love your accent! where are you from?"
 "America!" we reply.
"Where in America?"
 "San Diego." 
They look surprised and ask us a bunch of questions.  Just yesterday a guy at the bank was telling us how cool that is.  Yeah, we are pretty cool.

Our Flat

 

MTV called, they want their lame Cribs spoof back.

Where are we?

England is not like the United States at all.  For Example, they still have Blockbuster here! Unreal! And their Costco has a tire center but it's spelled Tyre Center!  Outragous!  Also there is only one Starbucks in the entire shopping plaza!  What!?  Oh, and look at this.  They're Burger King and McDonald's are right next to each other!  I mean, Who does that?!  And Ikea, they don't carry the Sjöåfkthöåggståddt end table, they only have the Zgréfftånstdnéöthugt one!  It's like we are living in The Twilight Zone over here! 

Culture shock

England has lots of weird things that we are not familiar with.  Not remembering which direction to look when crossing the street is a big one.  But there are little differences that I find strange.  For example; every outlet has an on/off switch.  So when you plug something in you have to remember to switch the outlet to the on position.  Everything in our flat has a switch on the wall that you have to flip before you turn on the actual thing you're using.

Voltage is higher here too so you have to check your device rating to make sure you don't fry it.  The good thing is most computers and electronics are rated for UK voltage so our computers are good and our flat has one 115 volt US style plug in the bathroom so we can use our Sonicare toothbrushes.

 One of the most absurd things we discovered is that you have to have a license to watch TV.  Even the freely broadcasted stuff over the air.  The BBC will come to your house and threaten you with fines if they even think you have a tv.  We discovered this because we opened a letter addressed to "legal occupant" which contained a notice with big red writing warning that an officer was going to be sent to our flat to investigate the possibility that we were watching TV.   And this license isn't cheap.  £145.50 that's $234.87!  It's like if PBS suddenly said "F*ck it!  We know you watch our sh!t without pledging you ungrateful bastard.  We're just going to come to your house and make you pay us."  And there's only four types of shows here; Reality TV, Game Shows, British History, and Top Gear.  Well there are actually 5, the news which could be considered reality I suppose.

We also discovered while shopping that no one knows how to use our credit cards.  Swiping a card through a credit machine is completely foreign to them.  They are much more advanced than we are in this regard.  Everyone here uses smart cards.  Credit cards with a chip embedded in it.  It is much more convenient because you just scan the chip and you're done.  No Swiping no signing. There were some places that wouldn't even take our cards.  So a suggestion to anyone who visits Europe, get a smart credit card; it is way easier than having to explain to everyone how to swipe.

They also have a thing here called post codes;  ours is LS2 7EJ.  Took me 3 days to remember that.  They need post codes for all kinds of things.  I went to buy a sim card for my phone and they wanted my post code.  We tried to get some money and they wanted our post code.  Sign up for utilities- post code.  And speaking of utilities, you can't set up utilities without a bank account and you can't set up a bank account without proof of residence from a utility bill.  Luckily the bank accepted the letter Cady's employer provided as proof after the 3rd attempt so we could open an account and start paying bills.  Only took us a week to get that settled.

It's cold here!

Today we saw sun for the first time in a week!  It has been cloudy and drizzly since we got here but today it peaked out from behind some clouds.  The strange thing is it's colder when the sun is out.  The temperature has not gone above 7 degrees since we have been here and today it dipped into the 4s which is about 39 degrees.  It took me a while to figure out how to calculate that.  You see you have to multiply the Celsius temperature by 9, divide by 5, add 32 then sacrifice a small goat to get the the degrees in Fahrenheit.  The last part is optional but leads to more accurate results. Don't even ask me how to convert from imperial to metric units.   I haven't been able to cause it's almost impossible to find enough goats.

1 week in England

Yesterday was officially our first week in England.  So far it has been fun but stressful.  Our arrival was very smooth aside from a stern immigration agent who was not happy about letting me into the country.  Apparently they don't like it when you stay in their country for over 6 months but she let me in!  Hopefully it won't be an issue when we start traveling around.

 Our flat is surprisingly nice.  It is in a building Named The Chandlers in an area called The Calls.  The pictures made the place look small but it is surprisingly big so we have plenty of room for anyone who wants to visit.

The view out of our window is nice too.  Looking directly at an old church.

We live very close to a small river and are within walking distance to pubs, restaraunts, clubs, and shopping areas.  One of the cooler places is the Kirkgate Market.  It is the largest enclosed market in Europe and was built in the 1800s.  Cady and I wandered through there the other day and they have stalls with fresh fish, butchers, cured meets, clothing and tons of other things.  It reminds me of Pike Place Market in Seattle but bigger. There is also a shopping area similar to Santa Monica's 3rd street promenade. 

On our first night here Cady and I went to a hotel pub called the Adelphi Hotel.  It was nice to sit down and have some genuine British Pub food.  I had the fish and chips and Cady had the Bangers and Mash.  It was good.  And they had a special Wednesday deal that came with a beer.  I had 2, A Leeds Pale and one called Old Engine Oil which was an English Porter.  Both were great.