Kiki's UK Adventure

Although we are already in 2012 now, I am slowly catching up with the events of the rest of 2011. I am chipping away at it slowly! Hopefully you will still enjoy these recaps :)

In October, Kiki came to visit me in London and we spent the time in London as locals and then traveled to Dublin and Edinborough to become tourists.

On Kiki's first day here, we got down to business and went straight to the ICE bar. It's a bar completely made of ice, including glasses made of ice. We didn't last long in the cold though, just enough time to take some memorable photos!



After Ice Bar, we went to a London beer festival...with high hopes that it would give a taste of the best brews in London. It ended up being a bit of a floozy...just a few beer stands in a windowless room. Some how we stayed there for hours and ended up trying half of the room. We ended the night with a classy london experience of chicken wings! Kiki was such a trooper, looking back I am not sure how she survived such a hardcore day in London with jet lag!

During Kiki's first weekend here we also had a traditional Sunday roast and walked around the markets in London, including the Columbia road flower market. The flower market was closing unfortunately when we got there, but I have heard wonderful things about it!



We then jet-setted to Dublin. We tried to see as much as we could before darkness and before impending rain. We saw most of the big landmarks in Dublin, including St Patricks Cathedral in our few hours before dinner.

For dinner, we went outside of the city to see the Merry Ploughboys perform and have a traditional Irish dinner. It was definitely the highlight of the trip! The Merry Ploughboys played traditional Irish music and were comical as well. It was the perfect environment!

After the band performance, there were also traditional Irish dancers on the stage...think Riverdance!

We actually had quite a traumatic experience getting to and from the Merry Ploughboys pub. During that evening, about a month's worth of rain hit Dublin, flooding most of the streets. We actually drove through some roads that had debris falling down it. I was pretty freaked out! On our way back from the Merry Ploughboys the car actually ended up dying because the taxi driver drove it through a street that had water that ended up getting into the engine.

The next morning though the weather was stunning, with blue skies, which was pretty gorgeous considering we were in Dublin at the end of October!

We also toured the Guiness Brewery where there was a bar at the top that had a 360 view of the city. Perfect for a day like this! (even if both of us sipped cokes instead of Guinness)

We also took some more time to take a better look at Dublin's beautiful churches.

Next we ventured to Edinburgh, a beautiful old city. I really liked the feel of this town.

We were also blessed again with fabulous blue skies. I think Kiki brought the Texas weather with her.

We took a 14 hour bus tour of the Scottish Highlands with a quirky tour guide, fully playing the part- kilt and all.

Lake Lochness

The Scottish highlands were beautiful, but there wasn't too much to do other than enjoy the scenery lol.

The castle in Edinburgh.

Palace at Holyrood, where the royal family still spends part of the summer.

Ancient church on the grounds of the palace.

Halloween

Kiki was also here to experience Halloween in London. My expat friends had decided to do a "flat crawl" with a different drink and appetizer in each flat. Everyone lived close together, and we went to about 8 or 9 flats!

Everyone was in costume of course. After the flat crawl, there was a Halloween party nearby, which was ironically being hosted by the London Texas Exes chapter.

We were mainly observers of the Halloween festivities :)

But Michael did take part, showing up in his Mr. Blobby costume. It was a hit that people still speak about to this day. What a boyfriend!

Sadly Kiki's trip came to an end. I hope she and more Texas visitors come back :)

BEER FEST(S)

I know. It's been a shameful while. I've heard pleas from many to update my blog (and to be honest, I'm honored you haven't given up on me yet...or perhaps by now you have!) As one friend stated it best, she's had a baby and come back from maternity leave in the time it's taken me to update my blog.

I'll start my updates with some more of my 2011 travels. My main highlight for this post is all of my autumn trips that revolved around the universal language of beer. That's right, we're covering Oktoberfest and Belgium in this recap post. Crazy times.

Oktoberfest

Why order pints, when you can have STEINS?!

30 of my expat friends and I ventured to the land of lederhosen,



bratwurst, pretzels,



castles, and fairy tales for the adult fairy tale that is Oktoberfest.



The city of Munich swirls, quite literally, in it.



And this festival does not discriminate almost any age.



Our party was set up in the Hofbrau Haus "tent," which was more like a massive building.



The table reservations run in 4 hour shifts and you are alloted 2 steins and a meal of rotisserie chicken and potato salad for about 35 euro. We had the morning session, so the tent was just filling in at the beginning of our reservation.



By the end of the 4 hours, it was madness....a sea of drunk people! We lost many in our party on our way out of the tent that night.



Things got a bit crazy within my party as well. I'll let the pictures tell the stories.







We also tried to do some sight seeing. I wanted to see the beautiful Neuschwanstein Castle, it's always been a dream of mine. We ventured over for the 2 hour train ride from Munich to see the castle, but unfortunately it was freezing and raining, so it was pretty hard to enjoy the view! My hands literally felt like icicles and many were being blown by the heavy winds on the treacherous viewing bridge.








Belgium: Bruges and Ghent

We had been planning a nice relaxing trip to Bruges and Ghent for months, and I was pretty excited to visit these historic and beautiful cities as well as drink fine Belgium beer as Michael has converted me to a believer in only Belgium beer now. Unfortunately I had caught a hard core cold and by the first day of our trip I was running a fever the whole day and was too out of it to enjoy most of the time in Bruges, including what was going to be a satisfying sip of our favourite beer, Leffe.







In Bruges we did a boat tour and walked up the steps of the famous bell tower dating from the 1200s I believe. There were lots of bell towers to climb up in these quaint Belgium towns!







The town square

Although Bruges is the more "sexy" Belgium location, especially because of the movie In Bruges, I really preferred Ghent. Ghent had a much richer history and more to do. We stayed at a really nice Marriott for free courtesy of work and the Marriott's doorsteps had this spectacular view, which was also the central part of the town. I was actually extremely excited about this hotel ever since I saw it on the internet, and it did not disappoint!



Doorstep of the Marriott Ghent.

Our first night in Ghent we had a surprisingly delicious dinner of couscous. We were given these massive plates full of couscous and lamb with some kind of broth to poor over all of it. This was our view from dinner, which is just to the corner of the Marriott.



Ghent even had an ancient castle and another bell tower!



Castle in Ghent.

Overall, both beer fests were a success! Cheers! ;)

Under Construction

Wow all sorts of wrong going on with my blog today! Will fix this before the next post! I will also have to talk about the differences between English and American weddings...I got a bit carried away!

A proper English weekend, wedding and all!

This weekend Michael and I went to a proper English wedding in Beaulieu. It was a really beautiful wedding with lots of pretty hats and the backdrop of the beautiful English countryside. Michael was an usher in the wedding (groomsman) so he was decked out with a "morning suit" and top hat. I prepared myself by getting a fascinator.

The car the bride and groom arrived in.

In our fancy dress.

The bride and groom with their parents. Look at the hats!

The entire wedding party.

Looking dashing in his top hat.

Wedding guests with their fancy fascinators.

The marquee (tent) where the reception was.

Overall a good night!

This weekend I also got my patio furniture, where I am really enjoying in the 60 degree weather in August. I made full use of the patio furniture eating every meal.

I have also reluctantly succumbed to the traditional English breakfast. I made my first proper English breakfast this weekend and enjoyed it outside on the patio.

English breakfast involves a fried egg, tomato, mushrooms (seriously, I don't get it either!), fried bread, sausage, and English bacon (which is more like American ham).

I also have a cute cat that has been visiting me! It's very curious and always comes up to my door!



Also, apologies for the photos being cut off on my last couple of posts....I am working on fixing this! Until then, cheers!

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