How I Spent My Half-Term Break by: Craig & Kristen McCarter

We had a very relaxing time in Spain. The weather was unbeatable (mid 80's to 90 degrees) and the beaches were nice although we were told that the weather was not characteristic. The scenery was enjoyable once we escaped the touristy areas and the small villages were charming and friendly. The number of orange and olive trees was just mind-boggling! The city of Valencia was very photogenic and easy to navigate. The roads were very well-marked and everything was signposted somewhere along the journey. The roads were also well-built so tourism and the EU are doing their part in terms of infrastructure.

That said, I am not a fan of Mediterranean Spain. The Spaniards tend to dispose of litter where ever it suits them and they have the dreaded plastic shopping bag Walmart curse without the Walmart. One thing I do like about the UK is the stress on reusing (and sometimes charging for) plastic bags or using sturdy carrier bags. Buildings are in various states of disrepair or construction has been abandoned. It reminded me a lot of Mexico and Puerto Rico which are both nice places to visit, but just have that junkiness about them. Monuments and special places of interest tend to be rebuilt versions of the real thing to boost tourism. I know that Williamsburg-type venues serve a purpose but it is disheartening to see actual history torn down, replaced and/or altered to what it "should" look like. The beaches are gorgeous in smaller towns, but industry is literally right next to them which was unnerving. The Costa Blanca leading to the Costa del Sol is like a New Britain with even worse driving, parking and food than we experience in the UK because it's old age pensioner land and geared towards them and soft mushy food. (I do want to note though, that the food in Cheltenham is great.) I think part of my attitude is that I had high hopes and Spain just didn't reach the mark, can you tell?

Craig kept a journal of this trip and I am pretty much going to plagiarize his writing because it's good material. So, here goes...

Part One: 30 October 09 - Valencia, Spain
Today is Day 2 in Valencia and actually our first full day. The trip down was pretty easy. Bristol airport was dead at noontime and we zipped right through security. (I, Kris, attribute that to our fantastic ability to learn the system and pack well.) We are staying in a neighborhood west of the town of Betera which is 20 minutes northwest of Valencia. There is a military base here and one of the first people we saw yesterday was a US Soldier in his fatigues at the grocery store. Weird. The place where we are staying is a little (Editor's note: A LOT) different. We thought it was a guest house on a big estate. Instead, we are staying in the house and cohabiting WITH a single mom and her two sons. Quite uncomfortable at first and a shock really, but we are actually getting used to it. The owners have a minifarmful of animals: three chickens, three bunnies, two not-so-well-behaved-but-friendly dogs, a really smelly goat (think teenage boy) and a lame (literally) miniature pony. There is a pool and a small pond with fish and frogs. It really is Owen's dream house. The kids are enjoying having other kids to play with and they are learning many new Spanish card games.

Today, we went to the beach in Porto de Sagunt. It was nice with very fine sand and crystal clear water. It was just warm enough to swim in the Med, but the air was downright balmy at about 90 degrees - not usual for this time of year. After the beach, we had a good lunch at a little restaurant ('bocateria" or sandwich shop). The hamburgers were sort of pork burgers (really were chopped ham as opposed to chopped steak). The paella was authentic.

After lunch, we walked over to a little cafe selling Horchata de Xufa and gelati. The kids opted for gelati and we got horchata. Turns out 'horchata' sounds a bit like the word for 'spoon' especially if you make a /d/ sound in place of the last /t/. The girl couldn't make it out and held up a little gelati spoon. We got our horchata after a laugh. It's an interesting taste. It's made from ground up tiger nuts which aren't nuts at all but are actually tubers on a big grass plant. I thought horchata tasted like a ground parsnip smoothie and very health food like. Wheat germ in milk anyone? That was Kris' first and last horchata.

Next, we went into Sagunto which is an old Roman, Iberian, Moorish, Valencian town. Owen took a lot of these photos.





There are big castle ruins on a 200' hilltop with lots of Roman and Moorish walls about 1 kilometer long. If we hadn't been so tired we would have loved to explore it all because it was the real deal.

Refurbished amphitheater

Playing statues below

More town shots

Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night Revisited

Editor's note: This is a reposting from last year for all of you who might want to relive the adventure or gain some insight for the first time. As type, celebrations are continuing well past the actual evening (11/5) in our park out back. I am just wondering when the madness will end. Owen's school has its Bonfire Night next Saturday. I can only hope the weather is better than last year.

Bonfire Night is in full swing right now (11/5/09 7:20 pm) and all of our neighbors are lighting off fireworks right next to our houses! The park our house overlooks is full of crazy fireworks. It's a bit unnerving but pretty. There are like 10 mini 4th of July's going on simutaneously.

"Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
We see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!"

On the night of November 5th throughout Britain, bonfires are set alight, effigies are burned and fireworks are set off. This is to celebrate the defeat of the "Gunpowder Plot", a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics had hoped that her successor, King James I would be more tolerant of their religion, but this wasn't the case.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes joined with a group of four other Catholics led by Robert Catesby, in a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which would kill the King and Members of Parliament, who were making life difficult for Catholics. To carry out their plan, they stored 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar just under the House of Lords. However, one of the conspirators, Francis Tresham, sent an anonymous letter of warning to his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators. The King's soldiers discovered Guy Fawkes and the barrels of gunpowder in the cellar under the Houses of Parliament in the early hours of November 5th. He and his fellow conspirators were caught, tortured and executed as traitors.

Bonfires and Burning the Guy

The tradition of Bonfire Night began the same year as the failed Gunpowder Plot. The conspiracy was foiled in the night between the 4th and 5th November 1605, and already on 5th November agitated Londoners, who knew little more than their King had been saved, lit bonfires in thanksgiving.

In 1606 Parliament agreed to make 5th November a day of public thanksgiving and ever since then the day has been celebrated with bonfires and fireworks.
Preparations for Bonfire Night include making a dummy of Guy Fawkes (called the "Guy"), which is placed on top of the bonfire before it is set alight. Sometimes in the week or so before Bonfire Night children will take their Guys on to the street and beg "a penny for the Guy". The money then goes towards the fireworks.

The extent of the celebrations and the size of the bonfire varies from one community to the next. In Sussex, towns such as Lewes compete to have the best Bonfire Night celebrations. The Guys used in these celebrations can be enormous - the height of a small house - and under the guy's arm is placed a barrel of gunpowder, so you can imagine the bang when it goes off!

Bonfire Food

One of the best parts of Bonfire Night is bonfire food. Traditional food includes potatoes baked in the bonfire, sausages cooked over the flames and marshmallows toasted in the fire.

Off to Espana

The title says it all except for...
Question: Where are we going?
Answer: Valencia (east coast on the Mediterranean Sea)
Question: Have I packed?
Answer: NO!
Question: When are we leaving?
Answer: Tomorrow morning!
Question: Why are you blogging?
Answer: Feeling sooo lazy.
Question: Ready NOW?
Answer: Okay, I'm going.

Funny Stuff

I saw this on a friend of a friend's Facebook page (Thanks Erica's friend) and totally snagged it.

- I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

- More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

- Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

- Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

- I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

- Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

- I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu' to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."

- I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

- You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

- Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

- There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

- I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

- Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

- I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

- Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey but I'd bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

- I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

- There is a great need for sarcasm font.

- Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.

- I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

- How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

- The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sistahs!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

- What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

- Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

- I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

- I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

- It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

- Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

- It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

- I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

- I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

- The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

A Matrimonial Milestone

Today, Craig and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. I know it's cliche, but where did that time go? Hmmm, let's see... it went the way of (in sort of chronological order) two and a half cross country trips to move to three US states of varying climates, various deployments scattered throughout, the purchase of two homes, an awesome dog and some crazy cats in the mix, three spectacular children, a trans-Atlantic move, and the ownership of at least 10 automobiles.
We also first met one another on October 21, five years before we actually tied the knot. We are the product of a blind date through mutual friends. Craig was in his first year at Navy and I was still a senior in high school. We talked for about three hours at a dance and I don't even think we danced once! Afterwards, we were both smitten with the other and began the letter writing saga of love. I wonder how many letters we wrote to one another during our college days. We still have them all, but we are both too lazy to count them. We'll leave that up to the kids one day.
Craig always has been the person on whom I can rely, to whom I can complain, with whom I can make plans and enjoy life. He still just cracks me up at the drop of a hat and that's why we hardly ever fight...well, why I never hold a grudge... well, not for too long...
Here's to at least 20 more!

Non-Stop

So yesterday, Craig, Evan, Owen, Owen's friend, Felix, and I went on a Cotswold hike which began at the Kilkeney Pub. (Finn went to St. Edward's Senior School for their Open Day to act as a tour guide for the morning. Attendance was MANDATORY for Years 7-9.) We hiked a gorgeous route coordinated by the Anglo-American Womens' Club which is the group that coordinates the olde lady pub lunches of which I am quite fond. Afterwards, we had a yummy pub lunch.

Finn telephoned to say he had safely walked home. Then we headed home for about an hour to gather Felix's things and we were off to Gloucester to take Owen and Felix to a laser tag birthday party. We thought the boys were running low on energy but we were waaaay wrong. They were hyped and ready to go. Craig and I dropped them off then headed back home because I was going to see the authors Lisa See and Xinran speak about their books at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. They both write about China, especially Chinese womens' stories. Later, Craig picked up Owen and I walked home. On the way home, I stopped to pick up a curry Craig had ordered for dinner. We stuffed ourselves and watched the X Factor (UK's American Idol counterpart) and Match of the Day where we get to see all the recaps of the day's football matches. The big news was that Aston Villa (my favorite team which is presently in 6th place in the league - Go Acorns!) beat Chelsea (the #2 team in the league standings). Also, Craig's team, Arsenal (#4) beat their opponent as well.
Today, Craig and Evan went to see an event at the Literature Festival and I am awaiting their arrival back home so that we can hop in the car and go to our favorite pub to meet some friends, the Andrews, to eat lunch and then bring their kids to our house so that Amy & Scott can go to a Festival event. I am just hoping the sun decides to peek out some so we can eat outside and the kids can run around in their beer garden otherwise it will be too chilly to sit and eat and the kids are going to get antsy. Wish us luck.
Next on the list is finishing homework and getting Finn packed for his big week-long Year 7 trip to Morfa Bay, Wales. I think this upcoming week might actually be a quiet one.

Stroud

Since it was Columbus Day, Craig had a US holiday (yes, he gets both U & UK holidays - scha-weet!). We bought our living room set last year on Columbus Day and so, true to form, we bought a small sofa from IKEA this time around. After our early trip to Bristol, we headed to Stroud, a nearby town to Cheltenham for lunch and sightseeing. We took a scenic route into Stroud through the Stroud Valley which really is just a little slice of heaven. We want to return there to do some walks. On the way, we stopped at a roadside pub in the small village of Slad called The Wool Pack which made pretty much the best sandwiches I have ever eaten and I am really not a sandwich fan.

View from the terrace at The Wool Pack

Aside: I learned the next day at the olde lady pub lunch that Slad is a famous town because the acclaimed Gloucestershire writer and poet, Laurie Lee, grew up there. From Wikipedia:
"Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, (26 June, 1914 - 13 May 1997) was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter raised in the village of Slad, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie (1959), As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). While the first volume famously recounts his childhood in the idyllic Slad Valley, the second deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1934, and the third with his return in December 1937 to join the Republican International Brigade."
The first of his books features the pub we had eaten in. Looks like I have some reading ahead of me!

Stroud was a nice town, but really nothing special. However, the train station is very convenient for a quick trip from Cheltenham.

This is the train shed at Stroud. On the side it reads:
"STROUD STATION
EXPRESS GOODS TRAIN SERVICES
ONE DAY TRANSIT BETWEEN IMPORTANT TOWNS."

Detail from the Church of St. Laurence

On our way home, we passed through a couple of towns I'd like to explore more and a pottery studio is calling my name.