From Friday 17th to Sunday 19th September

From DC to Baltimore, via Prince Frederick


Well, I'm back home now, just about over jet lag, back at work, and have tried a few times to insert some photos in my previous blogs with minimal success, so for now, here's another installment in words only. I'll post some photos soon!

Friday 17th - From DC to Prince Frederick and a wonderful wonderful wedding

• We had breakfast in the hotel - simple muffins but they were huge and deeeeelicious.  I tried blueberry and Joe had one that seemed to be carrot, bran, cinnamon and drizzled with a sweet toffee splodge.  Truly nutritious as they contained fruit and vegetables and bran.  Mmmm.
• I spent some time wondering around the streets near the hotel as they provided plentiful examples of amazing 19th century brownstone town houses.  Totally brilliant. 
• We resisted the offer and temptation to “go large” when we picked up our pre-booked “economy” size car.  Definitions of “economy” here do not match those in England.  We ended up with a Dodge, which was actually the equivalent of a large family car in England.  It was also exactly the same copper colour as our own car.  Weird.
• We drove from DC to a small town in Maryland, called Prince Frederick, where we would be going to our friend’s wedding.  The drive showed us the more rural landscape.  White wooden houses, red wooden barns (like the Fisher Price one I had as a small child), all big and just splodged and dotted in huge plots of land.  Still really green, lots of trees, but starting to turn autumnal.  This was our first sighting of the typical american small town we’d heard so much about - a big motorway with retail parks that were actually the town centre, all with car parks for each one, that you were supposed to drive between rather than walking.  Even things like banks and libraries and post offices are in these parks.  We saw yellow school buses and huge huge cars.
• We went for lunch at Jaspers Bar and Grille.  Here we experienced the huge portions everyone told us about, the exuberant service and constant refilling of our empty pint glasses of soda.  I think there were weight sensitive alarms in the table that alerted the waitress whenever your glass was nearly empty - just as I put an empty glass down she would come with another one!
• We went to Erin and Darragh’s wedding at the Running Hare Vineyard.  Wowee, this was a stunning setting and fantastic experience.  We arrived to a wine tasting in the valley, then when it was time for the service we walked through the vines to the top of a hill where there were rows of white wooden chairs in front of a flower laden wooden gazebo.  It was early evening, the sun was orange and setting behind the hill as Erin arrived and the marriage took place.  They were married by the priest from Darragh’s town in County Mayo in Ireland.  Erin looked beautiful and a few tears were shed as tender words were spoken, solemn promises made and love was all around.  
• The reception was held in a lovely hall on the other side of the valley, with great company from so many countries, tasty food, splendid wine under a blanket of stars and a radiant moon, with the crickets and drunken rock n roll music as our soundtrack.  I was in my element.

Saturday 18th - from Prince Frederick to Baltimore via Chesapeake Bay and North Beach, accompanied by lovely Sue

• Early hours = too much drinking of red wine = sickness = missed breakfast :(
• First fresh fruit of the trip courtesy of a fruit bowl in hotel reception.  They were next to a bowl of chuppa chups lollies.  This shows how much I was in need of fresh fruit.
• We were joined by Sue as we drove to Baltimore via Chesapeake Bay and North Beach.  I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves as this place was wonderful.  Just think “Beaches” crossed with “Jaws”.  Strange combination but quite representative I think!  Had lunch in a cute little sandwich bar = first fresh vegetables of the trip.
• We arrived in Baltimore.  This is our first experience of what I thought a big American city would look like - massive busy motorways, huge tall tower block buildings, steaming sewer  caps in the middle of the road.  We drove past the M&T stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens american football team, and Oriel Park at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Oriels baseball team and smelt the barbeque of the hotdog stand vendors getting ready for the big game that night.
• Our hotel, the Radisson, was a 19 storey 1920s building, with matching internal decor to match, like the Overlook in the Shinning.  Old fashioned elevators with lines of lights above the doors.
• We joined the crowds and walked the few blocks to Camden Yards and into Oriel Park for the baseball game.  A veritable spectacular of Americana - families in sports gear, Baltimore Oriels and New York Yankees, hot dogs, beer sellers in the stalls, amazing sunset and views across the city from the upper stalls of the stadium.  The Oriels got slaughtered by the New York Yankees.  We had Italian hotdogs, after a wait of 45 minutes.  We were huuuuuungreeeeee!

Sunday 19th - Baltimore to Detroit, via 7Eleven, Maryland Crab soup and the Hard Rock Cafe

• We took a stroll down to Baltimore inner harbour for breakfast.  The best place in town was packed so we went to 7Eleven instead!  After freaking out because we thought the car had been stolen from the car park (we’d just gone to the wrong level - they all look the same) we went back to the Inner Harbour and wondered around in the hot sun for a few hours.  We tried Maryland Crab soup and later had lunch in the Hard Rock Cafe!  Very cool.
• We dropped the car off at the airport - greeted by Hany the friendly Egyptian, who exuberated his love for America whilst he bleeped the car back in, and directed us to the shuttle bus to the airport.  
• The flight from Baltimore to Detroit was more hairy and seemed to last much longer than the transatlantic journey.  We were in a tiny little plane that seemed to get blown about quite a lot.  Joe later continually referred to this vehicle as the 'baked bean tin with wings"
• When we got to Detroit, I thought I would never see Joe again.  He went to the loo and I said I better go too.  I came out, and he wasn’t there.  This is unusual as he’s normally out before me.  I waited 5 minutes and started to get worried.  I asked a man to go in and try and find him, but he wasn’t there.  I was thinking he’d been schnaffled by the FBI, or beaten up and slumped in a cubicle, or been abducted by those aliens from the X-files.  I put an announcement out on the tannoy, still nothing. It turns out he thought I said I better go and get the bags so he went straight down to baggage claim, but couldn’t get back once he’d gone through.  So half an hour later, I went down and there he was.  Phew-ee.  And my cousin Stephen was there too.  
• Stephen drove us back to his beautiful home in Farmington Hills, in the suburbs of Detroit.  We were greeted by his lovely wife Galina.  Their 4 year old daughter Isobella was tucked up in bed, so after a quick coo at her sleeping, we fell into our sumptuous bread dough-like island of a bed.

Tired Thursday (16th Sept)

Altough it is now Tuesday 28th, I wrote this next lot on the evening of Sunday 19th September evening, sitting in Baltimore Airport.  Here are my musings from that day on what had occurred from Wednesday to Sunday...

I'm waiting for the flight to Detroit to stay with my Mum’s cousin Stephen and his wife and daughter, Galina and Isobella.  The thing is, I’ve been so busy having lots of fun, I’ve not had time to keep my blog updated everyday, which is not that surprising really.  So what I’m going to do from now on is just give the highlights and some pictures, as otherwise I’d be spending all my holiday writing my blog and not really doing any holidaying.  I hope this is ok with everybody.

I think I wrote about most of Wednesday, but here’s what happened after we landed and after Joe had eaten his first in-flight meal.  

Stuff I did and saw

• Talked politics with the air hostess as we took off.
• First ariel impressions of the grand old U.S of A as we flew in to Washington DC - It is very green in this area - lots of trees and forests.  There are lots of little clumps of houses, but each quite remote from the other.  There were lots of patterns in the street planning.  Not only the grid system, but also the interesting fan effect of the suburban cul de sacs and drives.  The white wood panel houses and the red wooden barns, just like my Fisher Price farm and “Edward Scissorhands”.
• When we landed it was 30'c and 4.30pm local time, but my body thought it was 9.30pm.  It should have been dark, but it was glaring sunshine.  I think it was all exacerbated by the 4 hours sleep I had the night before - I was starting to feel a bit spacey.  We queued to go through immigration for quite some time, but actually got through with no problems, probably much to my Dad’s disappointment, as he had taken great care to prepare us for the interrogation he and my mum and brother got when they arrived in Detroit 3 years ago.
• Dalj and Magali offered to give us a lift to our hotel in their hire car.  Said hire car ended up being a big white beast of a Chevrolet.  He just could not resist the offer to ‘go large”.  So we arrived in refined and leafy DC, in gangster style, complete with blacked-out windows.  
• We gave the shuttle bus driver a tip.  As we were waiting for Dalj to bling up, he came over to me and told me that I was a wonderful woman and because of me he was now going to have a break.  I think it’s because our giving him a tip guilted the other passengers into tipping him too.  He was a nice chap and told us he’d moved to the US a few years ago and that he thought he was a wonderful place.  
• Dalj also hired a SatNav so as not to get lost in a strange town, but the kind man in the car hire place set it up wrong which meant we got a bit lost, but this meant we got to drive around some amazing rural bits of the country.  The houses were H.U.G.E.  Mansions.  But on housing estates.  We got back on track, but in a round-about way, which took us into DC through Alexandria, which was founded in 1749, so we had a treat, passing by amazing old buildings, the likes I had not seen before or even knew existed.  We got into the grid system, the yellow traffic lights hanging over the crossroads and the big freeways dissecting the old streets.  Thing is, the streets and buildings were old, but looked so new.  Not stained by coal smoke like the red-brick Victorian buildings in England that I am so used to seeing.  
• Then we drove through Georgetown, the original bit of DC.  Also old, with the most beautiful houses.  Kind of like I’d seen on TV and films, but better.  DC was also very green, loads of trees.  By this time it was dark.  We drove past the university and down Q Street - original old building with cute shops.  I was starting to feel bit delirious as it was now about 1am in my body (8pm local) and I hadn’t eaten for ages.  But we arrived at our hotel in Dupont Circle at last, dropped off our bags and then walked out to find some food.  Dupont Circle is a classy bit of town, and quite soon I could tell I was in Washington, with the young politicos out to eat and drink, chatting about their days work in the capital of the world.  “My member said this”, “well, my member reckons this”.  The uniform - women in very conservative but casual dresses, the men in chinos, shirts and ties.  All pretty young looking.  We ate some yummy Mexican food then floated home in a daze and fell into bed.

Our ride into Washington

Thursday

Perky perky perky at 6am.  Blooming heck.  We were up, showered, phoned home and out  of the hotel by 8am.  I suppose this is what the jet lag does to you.  

Stuff of note

• We had an amaaaaaaazing American breakfast in Kramer and Afterwords.  Kramer’s is a very American book shop and it had a cafe out the back.  We had blueberry pancakes, with streaky bacon, scrambled egg, maple syrup and a slice of melon and pineapple (to make it healthy).  It was delicious.  The waitresses were very friendly and chatty.

Kramer & Afterwords, where we had our first American Pancakes



Our first American Pancakes.

• We saw: the Whitehouse (it’s quite small), the Washington Monument (it’s very tall), the WW2 memorial (a calvalcade went past at this point), the Vietnam Memorial (pretty intense) and the Korean War Memorial (very eerie), the Lincoln Memorial (it’s at one end of the Mall), the Capitol buildling (it’s at the other end of the Mall) and all the amazing buildings in between.  It is like an outdoor museum of epic proportions.  A National Park in the middle of a city.  We walked from one end of the Mall to the other, stopping off to get some shade and rest.  It was about 2 miles, and it was the middle of the day and it was 30.c and we were jet lagged.  I think we did well.
• As we walked across the green in front of the Whitehouse, a policeman came and chased us off on his bike.
• I walked over a subway vent and the air blew my skirt up, just like it was supposed to.
• We walked from one end of the Mall to the other, stopping off to get some shade and rest.  It was about 2 miles, and it was the middle of the day and it was 30.c and we were jet lagged.  I think we did well. 
• Joe bought his first hotdog from a street vendor. 
• I felt weird - spaced out.
• We ate delicious noodles in Chinatown.
• I discovered rag cut books.  Very nice.
• Book covers have a very different style.
• Free refills of coffee and sodas do exist.
• I haven’t seen any fat people yet.
• The food is not that cheap.
• The meals are not huge.  Maybe it’s just DC.
• We spent the evening in an area called Adams Morgan - an old area with lots of independent eateries and bars.  I saw a proper record shop (like the one in High Fidelity film).  We had our first american burger in “the Diner” a 24 hour joint.
• I slept well.
• TV is pretty dull.  The adverts are amusing and plentiful.

More photos to follow when internet connection allows

Weird Wednesday (15th Sept)

It's now Tuesday 28th September - I've been so busy having fun, I've not had a chance to keep my blog up to date, but here's some more news...

Wednesday 15th September

Today we got the plane from Heathrow to Washington DC.  This all went pretty well.  Dad had warned us that we should expect to be grilled by immigration control on our arrival at DC, and provided us with lots of handy hints to ensure we glided through smoothly.  And that we did.  But getting through security at Heathrow was a little more bumpy.  Once we passed through the hand luggage security scan and body bleep thing, a rather stern looking man and woman asked Joe to answer a few questions.  And that they did.  They said he looked nervous and asked if he was.  He replied he was, as he'd never taken an 8 hour flight and didn't really like flying.  Poor bloke.  If he hadn't have been nervous, he certainly was by now.  They asked him lots of questions about where he lived, his job, what he was doing going to America, what the weather was like.  Then they asked me. I'd heard all the answers Joe gave, so I just gave them the same ones, and then we were good to go.  Phew.

We managed to get good seats, in the middle of the plane, on the front one, so we had lots of leg room.  For the take off and landing, I was asked to sit by the window, which was great as I am a bit of a take-off and landing adrenalin junky.  So, with my nose squashed up against the window I got to see the world get smaller and smaller and then bigger and bigger when we came to land.  The 8 hours went by fine, with rubbish films, Derren Brown, Louis Theroux, Tetris, Pacman and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  Joe was really calm and enjoyed the flight, despite  even a year ago never contemplating taking such a long flight.

Travel blog Tuesday

It's actually Friday and I am in America!  In Washington DC, to be precise.  I have got a little bit behind with my blogging, but this is because I've been busy on an adventure.  It's one big Bright Side for the next two weeks as going on holiday and traveling around in foreign lands is one of the greatest things I like to do with my time.  This is the reason I go to work.  If I'm on a traveling adventure, I am the happiest I can be.  Thrown into something completely new.  So here I am, uber satisfied.  Thank you very much.

So for the next two weeks, I'm going to turn the Bright Side into a bit of a travel blog.  When I go on holiday, I always keep a diary of what I do, what I see, what's new, surprising, challenging, different, and quite a lot about what I eat.  I also take lots of photos.  So I thought I'd try transferring from paper to laptop for this holiday.  So back to the very beginning...

Right well, Joe and I finished work on Tuesday afternoon.  Got home, farted about for a bit, panicked when my hand luggage was over the alloted weight, then got over it very quickly.  Lord and Lady Bay Taxi service came to collect us and took us to the station.  We were very canny and got the Bays to load up their car, not only saving our delicate backs, but also foxing the burglars into thinking it was them going on holiday and not us.  Er-hum, yeah right.  We are not paranoid about being burgled AT ALL.

Anyway, here we are at the station, full of excitement.

So we gets on the train, and this is what happens, ten minutes into our journey...

That's right, the train breaks down.  To cut a long, boring and at times excrutiating story short, we were stuck on the train for nearly 4 hours.  We were kept going by detailed,, but uninformative annoucements, supplies of crisps, nuts and shit coffee and hot chocolate and by the amusing complaints and panic attacks of fellow dramatic passengers.  Although, I have to say, just as hour three began, I did seriously start to think that we might be on the train forever as the staff just wouldn't tell us how it would all end, like how long would it be before they realised they couldn't fix it and if they couldn't fix it but weren't prepared to let us get off the train onto another one, how the bleep would we ever get to the airport.

Anyhoo,   Jack rang just in time to save me from the ridiculous (but crucially still internal) catastrophic thoughts, during which we were told we'd be going to Derby then taken by taxi to our final destination.  So, although we were only 400 yards from East Midlands Parkway station (the convenient public transport gateway hub to the East Midlands), and therefore less than a mile or so from the M1, we had to go back north up the country on a further hour's journey just so we could travel south again.

Well, well, well, the final leg of our "epic" train journey consisted of Joe and I and three strangers squeezing into the back of a hackney carriage cab and being driven to London by a man who didn't know where he was going or how to drive.  However, I had a great time chatting to the man I sat next to, who was an Osteopath from Melbourne.  Joe had a challenging time, as he ended up sat on one of the fold down seats for two hours.  Although he'd bagged a nice comfy normal seat, we were joined by a man who refused to travel backwards as he assured us he would end up puking up all over us.  Thinking about it now, I think we should have told him to go and get in another taxi.  Joe was a hero, but unfortunately the osteopath, kind as he was, didn't quite feel up to giving Joe a treatment on the roadside in Crouch End at 2am, which was the time we arrived at Emma and Pete's.  Only 4 hours late.

So we went to sleep pretty quickly, getting a luxurious 4 hours sleep, before getting up, bouncy and refreshed (er-hum) for our trans-atlantic ride in the iron eagle the next day.

Monday musings

I realised today, that over the past few days, 3 or 4 people have contacted me out of the blue to tell me how much they like my blog, that it inspires them and has helped them feel more positive and take positive action.  Wowee.  This is ace.  I feel humbled, but good.  It's hard to express in words, but this, I feel, is what life is all about.  Pass it on...

Peaceful Sunday Slumbers

For the first time in months, our Sunday night slumbers were peaceful.  We were blessed with silence, rather than deep bass lines rumbling through our souls and painful wails of the club singer that we are usually subjected to by the social club on a Sunday night.

It seems that "doing something about it" does pay off in the end, even if the process is exhausting.

Midsummer Saturday

I went to Joe's cousin's wedding in the countryside between Reading and Oxford.

This part of the world is famous for being the Chilterns, apparently, but it's more famous in my heart for being the setting of John Nettle's acclaimed series "Midsummer Murders".  Now, some of you may know that MM is one of my guilty pleasures, so I was thoroughly satiated with all things MM throughout the day.

  I gave yelps of joy as we drove through such places as "Gallowstree Common", "Nettlebed", "Chalkhouse Green", "Sonning Common", "Rotherfield Peppard, "Chalkhouse Green", "Devil's Hill", "Shiplake Bottom" and "Perseverence Hill".  There were skulky "oohs" when I heard the Midsummer Murder bird cry of the crows in the field, and disappointment when we didn't have time to visit the ultimate Midsummer Murder fan's place of pilgimage - Wallingford market square, site of "Causton Police Station".  I was relieved, however, not to have bumped into Joyce Barnaby, as doing so usually is a sure signifier of an imminent and grisely demise.  It does not pay to be friends with Chief Inspector Barnaby's wife, in more ways than one.

I saw lots of pretty little red-brick houses with picket fences overlooking village greens and commons which must have looked the same for centuries.

And the wedding was great too!  It was in a beautiful church on top of a hill over looking the Chilterns (and Didcot Power Station), and the reception was just across the road in one of Uncle Steve's sheep fields, in an amazing marquee.  All the family were there and much fun was had by all.