FYI

            In England when you turn 60yrs old, you get a free transit pass, good for all buses, trains and metro. When you turn 75 yrs old, you receive free cable.  The health care is free for all their habitants.

            There is this chain of movies theaters named “cineworld”, where you can subscribe for a minimum of one-year contract, and for £13.50 a month you have unlimited entry to the movies. If you go twice a month, the subscription paid for itself, anything over that is gravy.

            Children wear uniforms to school, they all look so cute, and none of them looses their identity. The children that need to take a bus wear a navy blue blazer, the ones that walk or they parents pick them up wear a red blazer.

            When we think of English food, we usually think “fish and chips”, and in London there are many places for it, however, up north in the midlands, the English diet consist of pies, meat pies, chicken pies, vegetables pies, everything they eat is inside a crust.                                     

One of the daily staples is Pasties, they are smaller than a calzone and bigger than an empanada, the crust is a lot thicker and doughy, filled with potatoes, vegetables and mincemeat, chicken or pork. They eat a lot of pork, as in bacon, ham, bacon ribs, ham shanks, slab of bacon, you get the idea.                                                                                                                                                                A typical breakfast consist of: eggs, ham, sausage, home fries or hash browns, fried mushrooms, baked beans and fry tomato.                                                                                                                                              

Now a day you find many ethnic restaurants all over the place, so you have a many places to choose from. If you are one of those people that eat fast food, you have McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Dominos, Pizza Hut, and all the other American fast food chains.

‘’’’

Still England

 I had visited a few other towns and parks around Coventry, they are very nice, I love the ponds and  lakes with all the swans,there are such  beautiful animals, too bad they are so mean. Unless a town has some touristic attractions, all the towns are very much the same. If you go around your town to visit all the other towns, you can see that they all reflect each other more or less.

 It is the same in any other country. England is not exception; some of the towns are very nice, very quaint. Some of them have beautiful white houses with thatch roofs, and do not forget the beautiful canals.

One thing I cannot say enough, it is how wonderful the English people are, I have met some great people during my English travel, and all the people has been wonderful. Many people had invited me into their homes, taking me for a tour of the town, or a ride to another town, inviting me to dinner or lunch, or a cup of tea. I enjoy sitting with locals and learning about their customs and their different or similar ideas. It is amassing how we can be so similar in so many ways, even that we have grown up a different way, in a different country, with different customs and believes.

Almost done

Lindy was doing an improvisation workshop on Friday nights and she invited me to go.

I figure why not.

Some of the people there where really good, some were really bad, and I was glad, because I am not good at all, at least I wasn’t the only one. Actually there were some people worse than me.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. There were about 30 or 35 people and we all did sketches and bits and laughed all the way trough at our own silliness.

I was only able to go for 2 weeks, because my English stay was coming to an end.

However, I was very glad I went. I met a very nice lady there named Davinder, and a few days later we met in town for tea and another day I went to her house for lunch. I would have like to meet her at the beginning of my stay not at the end, but, that’s life.

Anyway, the two cats I house sat for were great. Mr. Dylan is a Persian cat, adorable but very naughty and frisky. Paws is a tuxedo cat and she is 17 yrs old, however you would never guess it just by looking at her.

Every night as soon as I sat in the couch to watch TV, Mr. Dylan rushed to seat on my lap and Paws sat on the arm rest of the couch, she never touched me, but she was always next to me, she even slept in bed with me. I was told that she doesn’t touch anybody, so that was OK by me.

On a Sunday, Tim’s sister was having a family picnic at Coombe Park, and Tim invited Raeph and me to go.

We had a great time, his family was very nice and they had a lot of food, barbecue: pork shops, sausages, chicken…, pork and beans, salads, many desserts, so much food I don’t even remember everything they had. Everything was just great.

 Tim gave us a tour of the park which consists of 500 acres (no, we did not walk the 500 acres, just close to it); there are many trails and walks, and an abbey next to a lake, which is a hotel now, where they host weddings, anniversaries and big parties. There are magnificent gardens and many swans, ducks and different types of birds. Many people go birth watching due to the large heron population.

Of course after the walk we eat some more.

Then most everybody played cricket. Raeph and I just looked without either one of us knowing what they were doing, still it was fun game, I guess.

Another day Tim took Raeph and me for a walk on this park in this old town (that I forgot the name), very nice town, with thatched roof houses and canals with narrow boats, and a little old church next to a very old cemetery.

Most of these old towns are so quaint, so nice; it is like looking at a postcard.

Oxford

What a beautiful town, the houses, the architecture.

Did you know that there is not one Oxford University? Oxford University is comprised of 37 Colleges, all under the Oxford umbrella. There is one college per subject; ei: engineering, math, science, biology, etc, etc…

Some of these buildings are beautiful and very old; however, I could not go into most of them because they were close to the public. Some of them you could go (after paying a fee, of course), but they only let you see the gardens and the outside of the buildings unless you buy a tour, but even then you do not get to see much.

All the robes have a unique design, depending on the subject of study: ie; engineering, law, medicine, etc, I just don’t remember now which was which, there too many.

There is a humongous park, very nice and neat, but, like all English parks, it is all green, no flowers, and no colors.

At least for me, this is another must see in you tour of England, but, I like anything with a University on it. Besides, the town was very quaint, very English.

The day I went it just happened that they have a fair, so I eat a pork sandwich at one of the stands, it was good.

Still London

Most weekends they have something going on; check the visitor’s center to find out what going on.

Museums are free in England, however, everything else you want to see you have to pay for, and most places are expensive. I went to the Natural History Museum; it is located in a gorgeous building, with great arcs in the ceiling, just beautiful architecture. You need a few hours to see it, however if you really want to see it all and read all the signs about the animals and watch the films and presentations, you need a whole day.

Even if you don’t care about national history, you should go to see the architecture, you won’t be sorry.

There is a humongous room full of precious stones and many meteorites, even a Martian meteorite.

Beautiful.