London BABY

Before we can say farewell to the (travel) year 2009 we need one final chapter. We did go to Jutland to celebrate Christmas, and since that meant we were already half-ways towards London what could be more obvious than to go all the way and celebrate New Year with Rune and Nadja there?!


It Tues first time in the city, and even though London true to tradition bid us welcome with lots of rain he might be up for more visits in the future. We went shopping, we ate vegetarian by Radha Krishna, we saw the statue of Lord Nelson and the Tower of London, we rode a double-decker bus, we drank British ales in a pub, we visited Borough Market, we admired the food department in Harrod's, and we generally just enjoyed being in the UK.

On our last day there, we got to see the better side of London weather - the museum of natural history was very picturesque on such a day:


And since it was the New Year we were there to celebrate, Tue had to have his hair done up for the event!

Wedding in Dissington Hall

Last week it was once more time for pulling out the passports and going of to the airport in order to go out in the world and attend an international wedding - this time it was Richard (from England) and Vivienne (from Singapore) who had chosen to get married in a rented manor house in the countryside in northern England.

But merely one destination of course doesn't satisfy the likes of us, so we managed to fit in an evening and a morning in Edinburgh on the way there. Should we - even after having devoured a Scottish breakfast including Haggis - against expectations have had any doubts as to whether or not we were in Scotland we were so lucky to meet a few soccer fans in the street to set the matter straight for us.


The wedding followed the local traditions: Richard had to leave home and go to a hotel for the last night before the wedding, so he could stand there and really sweat it until Vivienne's brother led her down the parted winding stairs which Dissington Hall supposedly is so famous for. The ceremony itself was quite similar to the one we attended in the US: poems were recited by both the maid of honour and the best man, and in addition to the well-known "I do" both the bride and the groom had to say their vows to each other before the kissing. At last the papers had to be signed before the photographer dragged them into the garden for some serious shooting.


Later followed a dinner which in sharp contrast to its Danish counterpart was uninterrupted by neither songs nor speeches. The speeches which by Danish comparison were quite modest didn't occur until the dessert. And thus there was time for a couple of hours of disco before closing the doors around midnight.

Royal Mail

Our recent trip to northern England turned out to involve a more varied set of mailboxes than we had anticipated. The first one we saw (far left in the picture) is quite reminiscent of one of the mailboxes we saw in Lisbon. Soon thereafter we noticed also the twin model as well as a host of mailboxes much less dominated by roundness in their overall design.

Tyne and Wear

Gateshead Millennium Bridge over the river Tyne

Back in the fall we let ourselves be tempted by yet another offer from EasyJet and planned a trip to Newcastle and Durham here in the middle of January. Despite forecasts threatening the opposite in the days before the trip we ended up having sunshine for most of the weekend - and it certainly wasn't any colder than here in Geneva.

The old Baltic Flour Mills is today a museum for modern art

This was Lisbeth's first trip to this corner of England, but Tue was here no less than twice before: 3 months as an Erasmus exchange student in 2000 and again for one week of summer school in 2002. It was particularly amusing for Tue to see that although it couldn't any longer be same persons, the group of youths from the goth subculture was still hanging out at exactly the same spot on Eldon square.

A glimpse of the castle in Durham and the river Wear (rhymes with 'ear')

Although Tue was in the area before, this was the first time he spent time in Durham. Our locally acquainted guide, Alistair (whom Tue knows from his first trip to Newcastle), led us around showing us both the old cathedral, the castle, and one of the local pubs where we had a traditional British Sunday lunch.

We both agree that it was a great weekend. It was of course lovely to see/meet Richard and Alistair as well as their partners, Vivienne and Nicola, but we were also excited about being able to understand scraps of conversations around us on the train/in restaurants/on the street; to buy a pile of English magasines and books; to have lunch at Wagamama; to choose between a number of excellent beers in the pub; and not least that Lisbeth finally found a 'Lattice Pastry Cutter'!