I got to see my first castle, and it was stunning! Dad got a bit lost driving there and we ended up driving through Stratford Upon Avon (Shakespeare’s haunt) but eventually we made it to Warwick Castle. Having never seen any structure of this magnitude before, I had no way to prepare myself for its grandiosity! Unfortunately the whole thing has been commercialized and is now aimed directly at tourists, so some of the displays were quite cheesy (something like £3.50 to shoot three arrows on the mini archery range?! What?!) They did, however, have an incredibly impressive waxworks exhibit in the older part of the castle which showed the various types of jobs people had to do to keep everything running smoothly. They were all from Madame Tussauds, so they were all expertly crafted. The eyes were way too lifelike for my comfort and I felt a bit creeped out. There was also a dungeon below which still had some of the torture devices on display, including a few different cages for exposing criminals. *shudder*

The great hall was incredible, and even included one of the few child’s suits of armor ever made. It is hard to make out the scale from the photo, but this looks like it was meant for a 3 or 4 year old. Tiny. And a creepy Winston Churchill model. (He used to spend a lot of time in the castle.)

We climbed the ramparts, which was undoubtedly the most exciting part of the tour. There were 500+ steps to climb along the way with minimal handholds (most in circular staircases with triangular/wedge-shaped stairs–you know the kind) and I was quite winded when we reached the top! This was only the beginning of our circular staircase climbing journey on this trip so it was a good way to break into it! I actually found it amazing that they would allow people to do that climb without further safety measures, but that seemed to be the norm in England. They seem to have the attitude that if you are first warned of the dangers of making the climb, you are only to blame if something goes wrong. The fear of being sued doesn’t seem to prevail there the way it does in America. I couldn’t help feeling that I was doing something I probably shouldn’t be since I’ve lived under the threat of that sort of retaliatory attitude my whole life (not by my own choice of course.) *sigh*

There was a festival going on down below which had a forest of 100+ varieties of evergreens. Ahh, Christmas tourism, gotta love it. There was even a working trebuchet visible from the top, which I believe is possibly currently the largest in the world which is still operable. They weren’t firing it when we were there because the “season” had ended, but it was impressive to see nonetheless.

After a quick walk into downtown Warwick, we had lunch at an old Tudor Inn which I’m guessing still had a lot of the original construction from the 15th century. It was magnificent! I had my first room-temperature beer, which I wished was cold. We finished the afternoon with a walk further down the street and saw quite a bit more amazing Tudor-style construction, where there were no longer any 90° corners (but were there ever?) Kind of reminds me of something Tim Burton might draw.

We lost 8 hours in transit, so Thursday and Friday blended into a single day for us. Not sure how I was able to stay awake that long but somehow it worked out.

Saturday morning Mum & Dad drove us into Oxford and got us set up in student housing on Crick Road, about a ten-minute walk from downtown. (I only wish my university’s dorms were that nice!) Only disappointing thing there was the fact that the Power Shower in the bathroom near our room didn’t work properly. I tried to get Simon to explain why English people don’t seem to shower (only bathe) and he told me something about it being against the rules to mix hot and cold water. (This doesn’t make any sense to me and google has been no help. English peeps out there, can you assist?) Jules did end up discovering a Power Shower in a different bathroom that did work, so after a few days we were able to shower. In any case, the showers that most places have (if they do) are electric heated. The cold water comes through the device, which heats the water, then spits it out at you. It is really hard to find a comfortable temperature between arctic blast and scalding magma.

Once we had gotten set up in the student housing, we walked into downtown Oxford. It was a pleasant walk and not too cold out so we had plenty of opportunity to enjoy all the incredible architecture around us. The university campus is pretty much most of the city, and the entire thing is elaborately built. Each college has its own church and cloister in addition to all the other buildings! We had a pub lunch where I discovered that English fish and chips are quite different than American style. They pretty much just bread a fish whole rather than making fish sticks. It requires a knife and fork to eat properly. Also they don’t tend to give out tartar sauce so it can be a bit dry.

After that, we went up the tower of the Church of St. Mary to get a view of the city from above, and it was absolutely stunning! This helped us get our bearings a bit more and Dad was able to point out important landmarks everywhere we looked. We decided to tour one of the colleges which was open at the time, Magdalen College. On the way over I spotted a sign for Evel Knievel crossing. Magdalen (pronounced Maudalen somehow) College was beautiful, particularly the cloister. There was a long walk we could have done but I was feeling a bit tired so we cut it short. The days were getting dark around 4PM so it didn’t leave much daylight time.

We had dinner at The Eagle and Child, the famous pub where Tolkien and CS Lewis used to spend their time. The place was totally crowded, but the food and beer were very nice!

This was the scene that greeted us when we finally got to the airport. Two days of heavy snow had brought Seattle’s entire transportation system to its knees and everything was looking bleak. Seattle is simply not equipped to deal with this volume of snow so everyone suffered greatly as they attempted to determine what to do about it. Roads were unplowed and unsanded and of course unsalted as they only do that in dire circumstances (to protect the salmon in the Sound). Buses were stuck on hills and bendy buses had to be set aside so the Metro fleet was running at half capacity with spotty service. Jules and I were afraid a cab wouldn’t be able to make it up our hill (we live in the highest point of the city) so Nathaniel generously offered to drive us to the airport. A slight problem arose when we got out to his car and the windshield wipers wouldn’t work. Given that it was still snowing that was a big issue, so we decided to let him drive our car, trusting his Midwest winter driving skills. We managed to make it all the way there nearly without incident. We missed a turn on a hill and ended up spinning our wheels on the upslope, but luckily a couple of kids home on a snow day came out and pushed us free! We bid farewell at the airport and I spent a lot of time praying for Nat’s safe return home. He made it! He only got stuck trying to get into the garage (driveway is on a steep incline.) Jules was feeling headachy and irritable so I was on edge prior to the flight. We ended up getting off the ground about an hour late because the airport had to de-ice the plane twice before takeoff. This happened to be extremely lucky as we learned the following day many flights were grounded because the airport had run out of de-icing fluid.

The flight was pretty unremarkable, and seemed relatively short compared to the trips I’d made to Australia. (It only took 8 hours as opposed to 15, and was only one flight instead of 4.) I had trouble sleeping for some reason. Mum and Dad Lancaster met us at the terminal in Heathrow and drove us back to Simon’s house in Penwood, which is just outside Oxford. We barely made it to 9PM out of exhaustion, then collapsed on an inflatable mattress in their conservatory. All the fun times to come ahead…we needed our rest!

So Seattle is calling this storm “Snowpocalypse”. It was pretty awesome to see snow falling here but it’s nothing compared to typical winter weather in the Midwest. Seattle drivers turn frightened and stupid in this weather and everything grinds to a halt. Jules had his first experience driving in snow and did just fine, so they really have no excuse!

Here is our completed bar, which we finished just in time for our housewarming party on Saturday! This was a quite clever and simple Ikea hack we assembled for under $400 ($700 considering stools, lighting, and refrigeration) with a combination of parts from Ikea and Home Depot. To give a little background information, we had 3 requirements:

1. It had to fit down our 29″ wide staircase which turns sharply on its way downstairs
2. It had to be easy to assemble without outside help
3. It had to be reasonably inexpensive

This ruled out pre-made counters as they are too large and too expensive and considering our lack of carpentry skills and access to powertools also ruled out making one from scratch. Thus, we took a drive to Ikea where we happened upon the Effektiv cabinet. We chose these cabinets because they are some of the only ones carried by Ikea which have a reasonably solid back instead of the typical paperboard that their shelving units tend to have. It needed to look good from the back and be fairly resilient since it would be facing outward and would probably take a bit of a beating from people’s knees.

The core of the project is 2 Effektiv cabinets side by side ($200) on plinth bases ($80), bolted together in the middle at the 4 corners. From there we bolted on 4 Capita counter risers ($24) evenly spaced. The counter surface is a 6′ oak plank from Home Depot ($60) which we sanded down, then stained and varnished with a medium gloss finish and attached to the risers with 3/4″ wood screws. (A side note: the 1″ wood screws that came with the risers were too long for the plank.)

Finishing touches include the track lighting with 2 halogen pendant lamps from Home Depot and 3 Soda Style Adjustable Padded Bar Stools from Overstock.com. To the right of the bar near the door is our beer fridge (Magic Chef 7 cubic foot — I cannot locate this on the Home Depot site), which creates the “L” shape and makes it look more like a typical bar. Jules and Nat did all of the electrical stuff with the track lighting (including shortening the cord lengths) and I did most of the surface treatment for the countertop so it was quite a collaborative effort!

I am very pleased with how it turned out, especially after its debut at our party. It stood up to heavy usage that evening, which bodes well for its sturdiness for daily usage. It is able to contain our (meaning Nathaniel’s) copious quantities of liquor bottles in addition to napkins, cups, plates, and various other bar-related implements. The lights give off a warm and inviting glow, which we leave on when watching television downstairs with all other lights extinguished. It is very comforting!

It’s kind of hard to believe we’ve only been in our house for a month considering all the stuff we’ve done with it already. Admittedly I’ve been going a bit overboard with everything but I do it in the hopes that when we arrive home from our honeymoon we will have a comfortable place to relax with very little to concern ourselves with.

As you can see by the photo, the chimney work has commenced. They have torn down to about 6 feet from the ground and have since rebuilt from that point up using the old bricks. It appears to be about 75% complete but since I am not a masonry expert I could be totally off the mark. It’s coming along nicely anyway, and will hopefully be complete by the time we leave. Additionally, we have had a new hot water heater, furnace, water pressurizer pump, electrical service, meter, and circuit breaker panel put in last week! In terms of major systems, that covers everything potentially problematic except for the roof, which we can’t do anything with until the chimney is complete. We have the roofer lined up to start work as soon as that’s complete though, so all I need to do is make a call and that’ll be ready to go. I feel so…responsible!

We have also been working on the basement a bit in preparation for our housewarming party on Saturday. We hung the speakers on the wall, several framed posters, and bolted together the bar cabinets. Last night we began staining the plank for the bar surface, which hopefully will be ready for varnishing tomorrow evening. We ordered 3 soda-style bar stools for the bar which arrived late last week and look fantastic down there! The place is really shaping up and is beginning to feel like home.

Unsurprisingly we haven’t really had time for much else lately. We did manage to go see Twilight, Quantum of Solace, and play a bit of Left 4 Dead. Despite being so overwhelmingly busy I am having a great time and am really enjoying life these days.

And everyone please send some positive energy to my dad as he is going in for hand/elbow surgery on Dec 30. I’m sure everything will go just fine, but some prayers and positivity definitely wouldn’t hurt a bit. Thanks. :D

In case I don’t get a chance to update the next few weeks, Happy Holidays everyone!

This hideous monstrosity created from something which at one time must have been quite beautiful is set up in the plaza area of our office building. I am simultaneously appalled and curious…sort of like witnessing a trainwreck.