Weekend in Ireland: Ring of Kerry

 Camille is fond of photo-bombing.

It was so hard to decide what to do for our last day in Ireland - so many choices! We'd narrowed it down to the Ring of Kerry or the Dingle Peninsula. After our hotel concierge told us that on cloudy days it's hard to see anything on the Dingle Peninsula, we went with the Ring of Kerry. It was a foggy, misty, sometimes rainy day. So pretty, but sometimes difficult to take pictures and not always inspiring for getting out of the car. We did get out of the car long enough for the girls to touch the Atlantic (they've now seen the Pacific, North Sea, Mediterranean and Atlantic) and walk through the town of Sneem and sit by the fire in a cafe, and stop for some brief excursions. It is such a pretty drive though.

We debated on whether late October is a good time to go to Ireland. On one hand, the fall color is gorgeous, some prices were lower and we were able to drive the whole Ring of Kerry without a hint of traffic or crowds anywhere. On the other hand, we didn't get any blue skies for our pictures and some of our activities were limited by the weather. One thing is for sure though, three days is definitely not enough to "do" Ireland.

Weekend in Ireland: Dublin & Cashel

This last week we spent a long weekend in Ireland, getting a very quick introduction to the country. We arrived Friday night and spent our first full day exploring Dublin. We visited Trinity College to look around and see the library and the Book of Kells. This is just how a library ought to look.

The rest of our day we spent shopping, wandering and eating. Dublin is a manageable size for exploring on foot with lots of shopping, restaurants and cute streets.

After a late start, our second day we picked up a rental car and headed east to Killarney. On our way, we stopped by Cashel to see the castle there. Unfortunately, half the castle was covered in scaffolding, limiting our pictures. We were still able to enjoy the stunning panoramic views across the countryside and nice walking.

Fall Morning in Cambridge

 Morning commute, Cambridge style.

I took time a sunny morning this past week to appreciate how beautiful Cambridge is in the fall.

English Food We Like

Of course scones tops my list of English food that I like. Besides that the scone itself tastes good, it generally comes with an obscene amount of clotted cream and jam to smother on it.

Camille once ordered this treacle tart with whipped cream, and it was definitely worth eating. Despite not having brown sugar in the recipe, it has a sort of warm, brown sugary taste that mixes nicely with the whipped cream.

I was a little nervous about trying Scotch eggs. They don't look all that appetizing. Here's what it is though: boiled egg, wrapped in sausage, coated with bread crumbs and fried. How can you go wrong with that combination? Americans, get over how scary it looks and give it a try.

Sausage rolls to me are a little like hotdogs. I never crave a hotdog, but in just the right circumstances - camping, baseball game, possibly having gone shopping at Costco without eating dinner - they taste pretty good. The perfect circumstance for eating sausage rolls is a cool day at a castle or country house after walking around long enough to have worked up an appetite.

In England there are all kinds of savory pies. I've tried several different kinds that are generally some version of pot roast in a pie crust. Despite often being proclaimed "award-winning" or some such, I just haven't warmed to them. To me it tastes kind of bland having pot roast in a pie crust, no matter how flakey and perfect that pie crust might be. What I do like are pork pies. Yum! The only problem, however, is that English people seem to like them cold, whereas I only like them hot. So I can only order them from shops or farmers' markets and take them home so I can eat it the way I like. English people also seem to like Scotch eggs cold, which in my opinion are much better hot also.

Although not a shortbread fan in general, I find these cookies dangerously good. Resist the Walkers airport shortbread and track these down to try. If you happen to find yourself at a farm shop or tea shop that makes their shortbread on site, that can be very good as well.

Don't worry, we don't eat these three things together. Mike has developed a love for English mustard. He says it's really spicy, which he likes. Wilkin & Sons Tiptree makes really nice lemon curd and jams. They're now my favorite, except for maybe my mother's homemade.

Other foods to try here: piri piri chicken (not English, but very popular here), tandoor lamb kebabs, dark chocolate HobNobs or Digestives (kind of like a graham cracker with dark chocolate on it), sticky toffee sauce, good fish & chips (there's a world of difference between the average and the best), lemon cake (you can of course find this everywhere in the U.S. too, it just tends to be consistently good here) and as much cheese as possible.

English foods I haven't warmed to: pickled eggs, pickled onions, desserts with dried fruit in it (wrong, yet very prevalent), mushy peas (often served with fish & chips), Cornish pasties (bland), canned beans (there's nothing appetizing about how these look, smell or taste), Eton mess (dessert that's ruined for me by the presence of meringue)  and many meat dishes I've been too squeamish to try.

Today

The rain doesn't sound as impressive on video.

Today is a rainy kind of day,
Can't hear myself think because the rain is so loud on the skylights kind of day,
So windy my umbrella broke kind of day,
So wild I came back from my walk soaked, even with rain boots and rain coat kind of day,
So soaked and muddy I didn't attempt my running workout kind of day,
A maybe after a hot chocolate and a hot shower I'll just stay inside and do moving errands kind of day.

What's fall like where you're at today?

Seize the Day

My time here in England is short. It's time to do all those things on my list that I've wanted to do, but haven't prioritized. 

Mike and I had really wanted to spend some time walking some of the coastal path trails while we were here. We've done tiny bits, although never as much as we would like. Family vacations are always a compromise, and we've got a daughter who hates walking. One weekend in September the weather was perfect, so we took a train out to the closest coastline: Cromer and Sheringham. I got one last look at the cute little beach huts and we enjoyed a beautiful coastal walk. 

I have been in England for over 15 months and haven't gone to afternoon tea. That just seems wrong. Yet, I actually don't like tea. And even for a huge carbohydrate addict such as myself, it seems like a lot of carbs in one sitting. Scones, white bread sandwiches, cakes and pastries, all in one meal. I decided to give up the notion, and instead indulge myself with a slice of cake from one of the best cake places in town. My slice of almond-raspberry cake was really good, and it came on a cute little vintage plate to boot. That's as close to afternoon tea as I'm getting. Plus, now I feel justified in going out for a scone or piece of cake another time or two, as I didn't gorge on a whole platter of treats at one sitting. Notice how I've turned eating a piece of cake into an exercise in restraint?

I'm trying to make sure I spend a lot of time these perfect fall days walking around beautiful Cambridge. It's a town full of beautiful views.

 I'm also finding a little time each day to enjoy the fall season.

Possibly Cambridge's most famous pub is The Eagle. It's one of the oldest in town - it dates from the 14th century, was the place where Watson and Crick announced their discovery of DNA and also has a ceiling signed by American and British WWII pilots, using lighters and candles. We'd always planned on visiting, but just hadn't quite made it there until the other week. Being a bit of a tourist site and central to the university, it's almost always crazy busy, so we sneaked in before the students were back in town. It's worth going to once. I saw the plaque commemorating the DNA discovery, saw the WWII ceiling and memorabilia and enjoyed the perfect old English pub experience. But truth be told, there's a lot of better food in Cambridge and a lot of equally quaint pubs.

Another must-do in Cambridge is to go to the evensong service at Kings' College Chapel. It's a chance to sit in the beautiful cathedral and listen to the famous Choir of Kings' College, all for free. The cathedral itself has been described as a "gravity-defying hall of light." The early-evening light shines through the stained glass, which banks the whole cathedral. It also has a beautiful fan-vault ceiling. I can only defend myself taking this long to go because the service is at 5:30pm, with the queue starting at 5:00 - right when I'm always home making dinner. But yesterday my family ate a little late.

I found this youtube video showing the choir singing at Kings. Of course, they weren't singing Christmas carols yesterday, but you get the idea. If you are just interested in seeing what the choir looks like in the chapel, the video pulls back from close-ups about a minute into it.

Have you seen all the must-sees of where you live? If not, why not?

More Notes About School

Just a few random notes about school here:

At the secondary level, teachers are referred to as Sir or Miss, not their full name (Mr. Smith, Mrs. Jones, etc.). I thought Camille was being a bit slow about learning her teachers' names, until I realized this difference.

It is a new law here in the UK that parents are to be fined for their children's unexcused absences. The fine is 60 pounds per student, per day. So a news story noted that one family was fined over 1000 pounds for taking their three children out of school for a week's holiday trip. It has been a much talked about rule this past year among parents. My kids have actually had a day or two here and there of unexcused absences and have not been fined, so maybe in practice the schools can use their own discretion.

Impressions of Americans by UK students: The number one thing my kids were asked about when they first started school here was guns. Anya particularly got really tired of it. The UK kids' impression of America seemed to be that everyone in America has lots of guns and that America is a violent place, full of gun violence. It would be a huge discussion to go into how true that is, but it was hard for their peers to comprehend that my kids don't own guns, don't know anyone who owns guns and have never lived anywhere where gun violence has had any impact on their lives. On a lighter note, the other thing Anya was asked about a lot was her teeth. She was wearing a retainer when she started school here. Here in the UK orthodontics, if done at all, is done at a later age, so she was the first child most of the kids had seen with a retainer. The kids kept asking her why she needed to wear that when her teeth were so straight and white!

Just as America is implementing Core Curriculum, UK is busy reforming it's curriculum and assessment system also. I spent all year last year trying to figure out the grading system here (They did continuous levels across grades instead of number or letter grades. Like you might be level 4 reading for 2 years and then suddenly jump to level 6, instead of getting an A or B in reading), just in time to have a new system to learn this year. I probably won't take the time to figure it out as we're leaving so soon. I have noticed that they've started implementing the new requirement of every child learning computer programming and the requirement of every child studying at least two Shakespeare plays (Camille is on her second).

Both my girls had more challenging reading assignments here than in the US. Anya went from studying a Dr. Seuss poem in the US to "The Highwayman," Camille went from textbook excerpts to Macbeth.

Both of my girls' schools have much worse libraries here than they did in the US.

Both of my girls' schools have more specialist teachers and field trips. They have special teachers who come in for foreign language, drama, art, music and dance.

Both of my girls say the teachers yell more here. I'm not one hundred percent sure if the teachers really yell at their classes because my girls are very sensitive. What I might call angry, stern talking, they might call yelling.

Another big difference is there isn't a firm separation between church and state like in America. Anya goes to a publicly funded Church of England school. They have prayers, religious music, assemblies at local cathedrals and occasional visits from local pasters, which is all a bit strange to me. Technically, you could always choose a non-religious school. In Anya's case though, the only well-rated schools within a two-mile radius are religious schools. It wasn't really a choice.

In history and social studies my girls' classes in the US went for breadth, while in the UK they go for depth. For instance, Camille had a unit where they studied all of ancient Egyptian history over a couple of months. Here, they are studying the expansion of the British Empire, but actually only looking at two significant battles to do that.

Camille reports that if she could have her American friends here and not have to take dance, she would prefer school here. Anya says she likes school better in America. When I ask her why, she says it's sunnier and warmer there :)