VII- England lay off the charm- we love you already!

The lads exploring the sprawling
Mill Road Cemetery near our flat

With the differing school schedules, this has been a very very long summer for us. Gettysburg area schools started back up last week and Gettysburg College kicked off the new semester this week making me feel rather out of step with the all the people back home. Even Leif and Klaus have admitted on several occasions that they are ready for summer to be over. Going so far as forgoing protest when I tell them that they must write a few sentences or do some extra math before they get to play on the tablet.
  The end is in sight however with school slated to resume next Wednesday. In my last post I prattled on about our bad luck with the school admissions process but we have traveled through the stages of grief and have settled comfortably on the idea of Abbey Meadows. To steel our resolve I took the boys to the local superstore and helped them pick out their uniforms (yep these items are sold in the grocery often in 2-packs) light blue polo, red sweatshirt, grey trousers, black dress shoes. They were much more excited about the uniforms than I could ever have imagined, loudly exclaiming how cool they were to all the shoppers nearby.
  I won't lie that there have been increasing moments exasperation with the kids as our summer lingers (In an unfortunate series of absentminded events Klaus locked us out the other day- this time there were no open windows to climb into and we had to play in the garden until Kurt got home). But there have been some significant adjustments in their interests that I am pretty pleased about. For instance they are currently both sitting on the living room floor drawing!!!. With all the distractions of their toys in G-burg I could only rarely convince them to draw or do crafts at home. Now our place is covered with their paper creations and writings. Obviously this warms my heart as I live for these activities and find so much human fulfillment in them. I'm also a realist though and will not push this farther than the boys are interested- I don't need them to be aspiring artists, I just want them to find some level of enjoyment in arts and crafts.
 Another fantastic development is their new found love of the Harry Potter series! I was hoping this would happen during our time here as a way to try to get them excited about their own new school experiences. We just crashed through The Chamber of Secrets and picked up a used copy of Prisoner of Azkaban at one of the charity shops. Klaus gets a little nervous in some of the more tense moments but we are normally able to soothe him by assuring him that Harry, Ron and Hermoine all make it through the series alive.
 

Last weekend's tourism took us back to the train station for the first time since we arrived to Klaus' full delight. We took a short ride to the nearby town of Ely, so named for its years as a major market for eels thanks to the quantity swimming around in the fens that surrounded the area. Our first destination, the grand Ely Cathedral, was actually paid for stone by stone in eels. It is a magnificent structure, steeped in history and astounding in its construction and artistry. Sometimes I feel like you almost have to be an American to really appreciate places like this- they are so surprisingly/seemingly impossibly ubiquitous in Europe that it would be nearly impossible for Europeans not to take them for granted. Ely Catherdral dazzled us completely and it is not even worth mention in our three-inch- thick England guidebook. The building is on the site of an early Anglo Saxon monastery started by St Etheldreda that was destroyed by Vikings and later rebuilt by Benedictine monks. There are several evident phases of construction the most prominent being Norman but much of the current decoration, including an unbelievable ceiling mural, is actually from the Victorian era.
  We took one of the free tours offered by the staff, this one centering on the old monastic buildings surrounding the Cathedral. One of the most fascinating spots was the old infirmary which exists now as an alley, its roof gone and its outer walls reversed to comprise the sides of other buildings. The arches of it, with their patterning that echos that of the Cathedral, are visible and embedded in the other buildings. Wish we were so frugal in our building methods now.
 We also were given a special tour of Prior Crauden's Chapel, a small private chapel with a famous clay mosaic floor depicting Adam and Eve in the garden which survived Cromwell's iconoclasm (unlike the Cathedral) because it was being used as a house at the time. 
  As could be predicted, all this history bored the lads (we had to ask Leif repeatedly not to audibly yawn) and seeing as we were all pretty hungry we headed off to one of Ely's famous tea houses, Peacocks. Kurt treated us all to an eye-popping official tea, each of us receiving our own elegantly stacked plates of crustless sandwiches, scones, and dessert. After their lackluster performance during the tour the boys were amazingly well-behaved during the tea, eating, reading, and chatting good-naturedly.   

 Unfortunately this good behavior did not extend to our next tour. Last Monday was a bank holiday here in England and so Kurt's boss/colleague, Ulrich offered to give us a tour of his college, Gonville and Caius (Pronounced 'Keez' because Kays was actually the founder's name though he preferred the latin version, Caius) which does not allow the public to tour it's beautiful grounds and buildings. So we were getting a private tour from someone Kurt wants to impress and our kids could not have been less interested, less respectful, or less responsive to all the threats we whispered to them. Luckily Ulrich and Melanie were too polite to notice and gave us a fantastic tour of the green spaces, lecture halls, combination (common) rooms and even the fellows' (faculty's) private dining room. The Keysers being German were often rolling their eyes about all the formality and rank-based rituals surrounding the operation of the college but you could tell there was also a bit of pride to know that they were deemed worth of the club. I would be the same way.

A Gonville and Caius lecture hall

The famous "Honors Gate" 

The oldest building of the college- the chapel

Act VI - End of Summer Blues

 Due to our somewhat subdued social schedule here, I have found myself checking Facebook with increasing frequency in order to feel socially connected. But unfortunately all the adorable pictures of kids going back to school in the US this week has just gotten me homesick. To make the infection worse we just received Leif and Klaus's school assignments and the diagnosis is grim.
  The school system in the UK seems to vary somewhat in different regions. Our friends in Scotland for instance were able to directly contact the individual schools they were considering and even changed their admission the day before their kids were supposed to start. Here in Cambridge there is a central admissions board to which you have to apply and it doles out students to all the schools in the area. This means that kids do not necessarily go to the school that is closest to them but to where their parents apply (but ultimately where there is space available). This is in some ways a nice idea for I am sure it helps gives those kids in economically depressed areas more of a chance to go to a better school. But for us, being late to the game, it has meant that our kids have been offered admission into, from what I can tell online, is the worst school in the area as it is the only one with space available. The school is called Abbey Meadows and from its website looks perfectly pleasant but its Ofsted rating (Ofsted be the Office for Standards in Education) is "inadequate".   So now I am on a hourly roller coaster which vacillates between statements like "We need to appeal this decision and fight for a better school" or "What does it really matter? We are only here for a few months" to " I bet they gave us this school in revenge for the Revolutionary War" to "We are not citizens so we should be grateful we got in anywhere" and then again "What if this sets them back in their education? This is not what I had envisioned for their overseas school experience" to "'Inadequate' British schools are probably better that US good ones".... it just goes on and on. Luckily the school year does not start until September 4th so I still have two more weeks of self torture over the issue. Kurt of course is much calmer about it all- he claims he went to one of the worst schools in Pennsylvania and, I have to admit, he did turn out great. Though last night after discussing the issue with our friend Naomi I had finally resigned to Abbey Meadows and was about the write to them accepting the assignment when Kurt piped up and said he still wanted to call the admissions council. Argh! Will keep you updated on how that goes.
  In other news, life after our amazing Scotland trip has settled nicely back into our schedule of

museum craft events and local tourism. Before we left for our trip, the boys, of course, noticed that a small carnival with rides and bounce houses was being set up on Parker's Piece, one of the large downtown green spaces. Figuring that it would be gone by the time we got home I tried to dampen their hopes for a visit. Amazingly (and not amazingly) the carnival seems to be a school holiday tradition and will be up from now until September. Last Friday we took advantage of its flat-rate all-you-can-ride fee and the boys spent a few glorious hours perfecting their avoidance of friction burns from the inflatable slides and how to use the various seemingly unnecessary buckling systems on all the tame rides.
 

Over the weekend we visited two very different Cambridge landmarks: The Center for Computing History and the Botanic Gardens. The Center for Computing History, tucked away in what seems like a small industrial park, is a shrine to all things electronic and has hit upon a nice balance of informative displays about the history of computing and a decades-spanning arcade. There is whole room set up as a 1980's computer classroom, complete with working green-screen computers made by a small Cambridge-based computer company called Acorn. Right next to that is a wall of working arcade console games which of course included PacMan and Space Invaders. In the main room, various home gaming systems are set up sequentially around the room starting from the 1970's to about 2010. The whole family spent the entire afternoon hopping from console to console to check out each system's offerings. My favorite was actually a text-based game from the 80s where a description of your situation pops up and the screen and you type in various things to try to figure out what is going on and where to go. This particular one followed the story-line of "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy". Not knowing the book all that well I kept getting killed when the bulldozer rolled over the house and, even when I was able to find a way out of the house, a brick would fly off and kill me. We are planning to buy a membership not only to keep the boys occupied on weekends but also so I can conquer the snarky narrator of that game.
  The Botanic Gardens, being set in Cambridge, were of course gorgeous though not spared by the

current drought just as the rest of the city. We particularly enjoyed the Scent Garden and the greenhouses. Every time we visit one of these early 20th century display greenhouses, I try to plot out a plan for how to get funding to turn the Gettysburg College Greenhouses into just such a tour-able space. In my experience they are a pleasant way to experience the variety of natural phenomena in the world- like a zoo without the guilt. If anyone has advice and what I need to do to make it happen I would love to hear it. A girl can dream.
  Oh, also there is a lovely cafe on the garden grounds that serves an amazing Victoria Sponge Cake as Kurt and I can::burp::attest.
 

As far as museums trips this week: Monday the kids and I headed back to the Museum of Classical Archaeology, this time to an event focused on the Greeks. The boys were able to build block temples, fashion their own weapons and armor, collaborate on some large black red figure amphora, and replicate some common Greek toys using clay. Luckily the museum was not quite so hot as it was the last time so it was a little easier to get the kids interested in completing all the offered activities.

 Yesterday I may have pushed this all a little too far by suggesting we try two separate museum crafts. Both the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Museum of Zoology (which we had not yet been too) were holding fun activities and I couldn't pass them up. First at the MAA, the boys made antler headdresses meant to teach them about those found at Star Carr, a nearby prehistoric site. Those, of course, were made from actual deer as a graphic video in the exhibit hall will demonstrate for you but, for a bit of a softer reality, the organizers sensibly had the kids make theirs from paper. Despite the boy's expression in the picture they were still having fun at this point.
   After a quick lunch (I let them select the restaurant- they chose a 1950s American-Style diner in the mall- I could feel the waitstaff's silent laughter) I cycled them to the Museum of Zoology (which is coincidentally right next to the MAA). The crafts this time were a paper book in which the kids were suppose to write and draw their observations of nature and some small animal habitat/lifecycle shadowboxes. Klaus was ok with the first one but started breaking down with the second one continually saying "No, thanks." when the craft helpers suggested different materials or methods to him. In the end it was only the colored gel paper that saw him through the activity to the end. Our crafts completed, I was ready to concede defeat and take them home but Leif wanted to fill the book he made with observations from the museums extensive collection of preserved animals. Never one to stifle them when they show serious academic interest I compromised by carrying Klaus all through the gallery so that Leif could look around at all the pale creepy crawlies encased in clear resin and rarely labelled. I'm going to have great arms if this keeps up. 
         

Act V- A Jaunt up North

 My weekly post is a little late this week. Why you may ask /demand ? The simple answer is that we were having too much of a good time up north for me to stop a record it all. Luckily I took a lot of pictures so hopefully I won't forget too much of what we did. For a more complete picture you can check out my friend, Jenna's blog , for it was for her and her family that we headed up to Scotland in the first place.
 We found out only a few weeks ago that the Alfonso-Reinbold family was going to be spending the semester a mere six hours north of us in St. Andrews, Scotland. Since their kids were to start school this week we decided last minute to run up there and visit in the interim between their arrival in the country and the start of school. At the time trip planning needed to take place I was busy finishing up a commissioned painting before a hard deadline so Kurt took on all the planning and I must say he did a masterful job :)

 Last Thursday we set out bright and early aiming to break up the trip with a stop at Hadrian's Wall. For those of you who are a little spotty on British history, one of the many peoples who invaded this fair island was the Romans at the height of their empire, staying from 55 BCE to about 410 CE. They conquered most of the Britons in the south, pushing those that would not submit to the north and eventually erecting what came to be known as Hadrian's Wall to keep them up there. The wall ranged in height from 10-20 feet high and was dotted with forts and watchtowers. One of these forts was called Vercovicium (today called Housesteads) and its ruins still grace a high hill in Northumberland, possessed on one of the best preserved Roman latrines and the remains of a few buildings with central heating. The day we visited was absolutely gorgeous and the boys spent quite a few hours climbing all over the place and while we enjoyed the view.  Our recent the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge turned out to be a great asset when trying to explain all the history of the fort to the boys. They at least had a starting point and it made it even more amazing to see the Roman technology in practice. 
  That evening we ate on the patio of a lovely pub still in view of the wall and stayed at Ald White Craig Farm Cottages. The inn keeper was very friendly and just happened to be watching her two grandkids that day. She invited our boys to help them settle the chickens for the night employing Leif to pick up one of the less cooperative hens and push her into the hen house. As a reward for their good behavior throughout the day we let the kids watch the second Harry Potter movie (though we haven't finished the book yet!) I'm just so happy that they are finally getting into the series- I'm hoping it will make them more ok with having to wear school uniforms when the time comes.
 

The next day we struck out for Edinburgh after a brief visit to another of Hadrian's watchtowers near where the wall abruptly ends due to the position of a later quarry. The view was still great and it was fun to look out over the fields and guess at which houses and walls were made from stone siphoned off the Romans' great project. 
   Both Kurt and I have been to Edinburgh before and found it to be nice but not really somewhere we had vowed to go again. So the impetus for this particular visit was really a fine men's clothing shop, Walker Slater, recommended to us by Kurt's rival for best dressed Gettysburg prof., Professor Ian Isherwood. I did not have any good gift ideas for Kurt's last birthday so I made him promise that he would get a suit at said suit shop while we were here. Thinking it would help him to not be bothered by the kids and I, we left him there, waded through the crowds at the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival and went to tour the Edinburgh Castle. Owing to the festival, everywhere we went was crowded and so our tour of the castle probably wasn't ideal (we skipped the crown jewels entirely due to the line). Also the kids just seemed disinterested in old things (unlike the Roman ruins) that they could not climb all over.

After about an hour Kurt texted to let us know that he was ready but when we met up with him, to my shock and horror, he was empty-handed having been unable to pull the trigger on such a high-priced purchase. I was not having it- I forced him to go back to the shop and this time I set the boys up with some activity books so that I could monitor his shopping progress. In the end, he came out with a beautiful three piece that defies color description. It needs hemming but fortunately I know someone that can take care of it. Only 7 months late Kurt has his birthday present.
  That evening we finished the drive to St. Andrews at last meeting up with Joe, Jenna and their adorable kids Isaac and Eleanor. They took us to dinner at Forgan's, a restaurant with one of those fantastic interiors that make you feel like you are in a movie about super-hipsters and to top it off the food was amazing. Afterward because they were good and because it was Eleanor's birthday (Happy Birthday, Ele! We felt so lucky to spend it with you!) we let to kids partake in some of the activities at the carnival that just happened to be taking place in St. Andrews that day. For 3 pounds a pop the kids climbed all over one of the coolest bounce houses I have ever seen, complete with a raft that periodically bucks its passengers and a child swallowing cheetah. Meanwhile we laughed with Joe and Jenna about how this "medieval festival" and 3 Octobre in Leiden fell short of our American expectations when thinking of what a medieval festival in Europe would be like.
 

Next morning we went for a walk on the Lade Brae's path, a beautiful walkway that cuts through the city, and had a picnic at one of Isaac and Eleanor's potential schools and its obstacle course playground. Later that day we toured some of St. Andrew's famous ruins- its castle and cathedral. The castle having changed owners and shape throughout history is most famous for being the ocean-front home of a prominent Catholic Archbishop, James Beaton. After sentencing a protestant leader to a fiery death, Archbishop Beaton was inturn murdered by a group of Protestants who then took up residence in his home. In an effort to retake the place, the Catholics secretly began tunneling under the walls only to be discovered and routed by the Protestants who dug their own intercepting tunnel. The castle is now in ruins but the tunnels are still there and open to the public for touring. The kids made it through no problem with Kurt and Jenna but I lost my nerve a few feet into the tunnel, my claustrophobia spectacularly overriding my interest in history . 
 

The Cathedral ruins left me feeling more comfortable though it somewhat challenged Kurt's fear of heights. He, however, overcame it with a bit more grace and climbed the extant central tower of St. Rule Church (the predecessor of the Cathedral located just next to it) to enjoy the view of the ruins and St. Andrews itself.   From both up above and down below we marveled at the remains of the cathedral and its extensive graveyard. The building, which judging by its outline, was enormous, was begun in 1158 and completed in 1318 but fell into disuse at the time of the Protestant reformation and was just left to rot. Like Hadrian's Wall, later town residents carted away many of the stones for other building projects leaving just one remaining wall and only 3 of the 6 towers which once made up the place. As much fun as it was to walk around the place, I couldn't help but grieve for all the wasted hours of labor all the medieval craftspeople must have spent on the cathedral, which I am sure they believed would last forever.
  On Sunday we left St. Andrews with the Alfonso-Reinbolds and headed to Stirling Castle, our first

stop on the way to Loch Long. Like Edinburgh Castle, Kurt and I had already seen this particular Scottish attraction but unlike Edinburgh I definitely wanted to return to Stirling, which upon our last visit was undergoing some restoration. This restoration of the Renaissance Palace
part of the castle had included a ambitious project to recreate the Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries. The originals, which are housed in the Cloisters in New York State, were flown one by one to Stirling and London where two authentic looms were built and a handful of weavers copied their compositions using old techniques and materials. At the time we last visited the weaving was in-progress and as amazing as that was to witness, the finished projects are even better and I could have spent hours in the Queen's reception room where they are now displayed. Alas our kids won't stand for that kind of thing but they did let us have a pretty through gander before we got back in the car. We had planned to visit a distillery that day but due to some unforeseen car issues we all decided to head straight for our vacation rental on beautiful Loch Long. 

 


 Loch Long is what is know as a sea loch. Like a fjord is it open to the ocean, has a layer of freshwater atop a layer of heavier salt water and has tides that go in and out every 6 hours. Our rental house, The Rossmay, was right on the water and the kids spent quite a few hours exploring the shore while we adults enjoyed a wee dram and the impressive hills that surrounded the place. There was plenty of room in the house for everyone (four bathrooms!!!) which was nearly fully carpeted in blackwatch tartan carpeting and sported such a beautiful view that we pulled rank over the kids and the adults took the front bedrooms. 

 
I awoke happily to this view the next morning but mostly I was drawn out of my sleep by the nearby flapping of small but frantic wings. At first I thought that it was merely a bird bathing itself outside the window but quickly came to realize that this little sparrow was on the same side of the glass as us. Luckily Kurt deftly caught the poor thing in a towel and shoved it back out the open vent window where it had presumably flown in unwittingly.



 After breakfast we attempted a group hike up one of the many
beautiful hills of the Trossachs National Park but we didn't make it too far. Between the misty rain, the height of the place, and the narrow slug-filled trail the kids were not super interested in completing the prescribed hike. Seeing as this was supposed to be their vacation too, we had some mercy on them and abandoned the trail for a boat ride on nearby Loch Lomand. Lomand has a history of rich residents and residences which has made it a generally more touristy place. It was a very low-key tour, too quiet and relaxing for the kids really but they managed to stay on the boat for the entirety and then burned off their excess energy on the grounds of the Balloch Castle, a 1901 version of a medieval castle.

 The next day it was time to say good-bye to our friends but not before we squeezed in the distillery tour that had been denied to us previously. After a tearful good-bye to The Rossmay, we arrived at the Glengoyne Distillery just in time for the 11 o'clock tour with Gordon. The last time I toured a distillery I was not a fan of single malt whiskey but luckily my tastes have changed and I was able to enjoy not only the setting and the process but also the final product. Glengoyne unlike many Scotch whiskeys is not dried with peat so it is distinctly un-smokey, which the operators claim makes their delicious whiskey an even greater achievement as there is no smoke to hide behind. Needless to saw we were impressed.
  After a great lunch at the Beech Tree restaurant, which advertises itself as a "beer garden with animals" we at last had to part with our friends but with promises of hosting them in England the next time. 
 

As with our trip up, Kurt scheduled another stop to break up our journey home, this time in the Lake District of England. We stayed in the small village of Portinscale, right next to Keswick. We arrived a little too late to really enjoy either town but enjoyed a comfy rest in the pleasant Derwentwater Manor house. Good thing too as Kurt had big (and early) plans for us the next day. Indulging my attraction to prehistoric stone circles, Prof Andresen bundled us all in the car at 7:30 a.m. and drove us to the nearby Castlerigg Stone Circle. While not as impressive as Stonehenge, this 4,500 year old megalith is also a celestial calendar created solely with the diligent observation and sweat of a prehistoric people. We only had time to visit this one be apparently this area sports the largest concentration of stone circles in the British Isles.
 
     After Castlerigg, Kurt led us on the reportedly "family-friendly" hike up to the Cat Bells ridge and
peak. I'm convinced that guide book writers do not have children or must think that the only parents considering a hike with children are ones that have "children" who are upwards of the age of 12. In the end our kids made it through with a surprising lack of complaint but had I known the trail previously I would have said there was no way they could do it. The hike was 3 hours start to finish with a 500 meter assent (and later dissent) often straight up with several hands-and-feet scrambles. To my pleasant surprise the boys really embraced the adventure of the hike though I think they were a little scared by the winds at the top which seemed like they could easily push us all off (see picture).
   Exhausted we all piled in the car for the four hour ride home and made it just in time to return the car with only one pit stop and one tooth loss along the way.

Act IV- A little local tourism

England understands my children

So far, I cannot lie, life in Cambridge has been an absolutely lovely dream! But, coming from our fabulous and busy social life in G-burg, there is a nagging hole in our daily lives without our friends to share everything with. Since it is sadly impossible to bring all the people we love over here with us we are trying to scope out some similarly social families here. Happily another Gettysburg professor (Thanks Rachel!)put us in touch with a friend of hers from graduate school who grew up here and is also here on a sabbatical from Harvard. Naomi and her husband Sam were kind enough to give us some renting advice before we arrived and this last week we were finally able to meet up with them for a picnic on the Jesus Green (one of the larger green spaces in town not to be confused with Christ's Pieces). Their kids are a little younger than ours so it probably wasn't the social score that the boys were hoping for but it was really nice for Kurt and I and we hope to get to know them better. As an added bonus Naomi studies Ancient Greek Theatre!
  In our first week here Kurt happened upon a "Summer at the Museums" guide that listed a healthy number the kid-related activities happening at the various museums in and around Cambridge. This has become a crutch for me in my attempts to keep Leif and Klaus occupied in the absence of their friends and the majority of their toys. Last week we went to a paper weaving event at the previously mentioned Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology and a silhouette craft hour at the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Fitzwilliam is another free admission Cambridge institution that houses a decent collection of art and antiquities. Arriving somewhat early we took a few minutes to peruse the Dutch Art room and plan to roam the rest of the place at a later date. In the courtyard, the boys made dragon silhouette puppets and were then able to make their own show behind an set of screens. Check out the video for a taste of the final product. There was also an official puppet show set up in one of the galleries. It was a really clever presentation of a Chinese folktale that involved the use of two overhead projectors and some creative staging (Leslie, I think Puppet Cinema would have loved it!)
 

Earlier this week we went to another craft event at the Museum of Classical Archaeology where the Cambridge Classics Department displays its large plaster cast collection. The Museum was great aside from the natural lighting which I am sure is cozy in the winter but on the day we went just turned the place into an oven (I encouraged the kids to think of it as actually experiencing the climate of ancient Greece). The theme of the craft was classical science so we learned about various Greek/Roman medicines, building innovations, and inventions. We made paper astrolabes which look cool but were not meant to be anywhere near functional (nor could the guide even really tell us what the what the function was). There was a really cool Roman arch building block set that the kids and I enjoyed playing with as well as a marble run meant to illustrate the workings of the aqueducts. Posters on the wall indicate that the museum often hosts drawing nights. I can't make it to the next one but plan to keep it on my radar for the future.

  Today we went to a paper stained glass event at All Saint's Church, a 19th century church decorated in the Arts and Crafts style, my favorite era of design. While I enjoyed the beautiful stenciling and tile that covers every inch of the entire interior, the boys wrestled with some glue and tissue paper, emerging victorious with some lovely paper windows. The docent was super sweet and took a few pictures of the boys that might be used in later promotional materials. Next week- windsocks!
 

Over the weekend we got to do a few more touristy things with Kurt. Having seen the crowds on previous adventures, we arrived a the punt rental place as it opened on Saturday morning. Thanks to Kurt's muscle and stellar balance, the boys and I enjoyed a smooth punt down the Cam, passing under its string of famous bridges and encountering very little river traffic. We marveled at a blue crane on the shore and laughed at a fellow tourist who had given up on the correct punting method, deciding instead to use the pole as a sort of ineffective kayak paddle.The only problem with our early excursion is that we missed out on the traditional punting cocktail, the Pims cup.  Not to worry though as I am assuming that most of our guests will want to punt on their visit and that at least one set of them will opt for a post-noon time-frame.

  After we left the Cam we took a quick gander at Trinity College's beautiful courtyard (its chapel was closed for renovations) where tradition has seen many a contender try to run its perimeter in the 43 seconds of the noon bells' toll. Only one person, a Mr. Sam Dobins, has to date accomplished this feat.
  By this time our stomachs were grumbling and so we had lunch at the famed Eagle Pub where Watson and Crick of DNA-discovery and, dissapointingly, racist-comment-fame, spent many an hour. the food was great, the beer even better, and the atmosphere dreamy.

 On Sunday we checked out one of the theater mega-plexs in town, The Light Cinema, having promised to take the kids to the Teen Titans Movie. The theater complex was awesome with many a comfy-seated theatre (you actually specify the row you want when buying tickets!), an IMAX, a handful of restaurants and a ten-pin bowling alley and arcade. Many rainy weekends await us there.

 After our cinematic experience we went to another park in the vicinity, this one sporting a free splash pad in addition to its awesome playground equipment.

  Tomorrow we leave for a 6-day trip to Scotland where we will meet up with some good friends from Colgate University. Knowing these friends it will be a Scotch and laughs filled weekend so check back next week to see what wee sort of trouble we get into.

Act III- Dutch Dreams come true in England

 In my last post I signed-off by alluding to an impending quest to buy a bakfiets. It would be a journey that would require the backing of a great patron, the blessing of two small blond knights, and the aide of a diver of Uber.
 I have been seeking one of these fine feats of bicycle engineering since we first glimpsed their use in the Netherlands five years ago. Expensive and rare in the U.S. I was never able to get my hands on one at home but,here in Cambridge, need and availability have converged into one great possibility. We tried for several weeks to find a decently priced used one on the craigslist of the UK, Gumtree. When that did not prove a viable route we started checking in at local bike shops. While Cambridge sports and healthy number of bike shops only a few sell cargo bikes. I described our first visit in a previous post with a pleasant but ultimately unhelpful shop nearby. We then widened our search radius and found Outspoken Cycles, a good hour's walk from where our flat is. Kurt spoke to one of the salesmen on the phone who said they had a decently priced off-brand, Bertus, that might suit us. So on Thursday last I packed our bike helmets and a snack and called up a pleasant Uber driver by the name of Lawrence. With Lawrence's help the boys and I made it across town to the industrial area where Outspoken is located. Like the other bike shop the staff was friendly and laid back, quickly accessing our need and means. The Bertus was bigger than the Bakfiets that I had tried previously but was just as easy to handle. After a bit of a test-ride, a good once-over and exchange of credit card details the Bertus was at last ours! We bid farewell to the staff who seemed somewhat astonished at the ease of the sale, and embarked on our first real ride. The bike lanes in Cambridge are not as well defined as those in Holland but are still amazing- I particularly enjoy the subterranean bicycle traffic circle that runs underneath one of the larger automotive circles in the east side of town. Superb!
 
   That afternoon the boys and I celebrated our new mobility by pedaling out to the paddling pool at Lammas Land park. On the way home we experienced our first rainstorm since arriving in England. The bike handled well and the boys didn't seem to mind getting drenched (which is good because we did not opt for the Bertus raincover due to its price tag).
 
  On a side note, so excited was I when we got home with the bike, that I forgot my cardinal rule of unlocking the auto-lock on the door to our apartment. Thus when I went out into the yard to help the boys with something, I locked us out of the house. Luckily, Klaus is just small enough that I was able to boost him through one of the vent style windows of the kitchen and he let us back in (He was very proud of this rescue:). This little incident led me to the realization that if this happens again when I am home alone that not only will I be locked out but that I will be trapped in the garden as the gate to the street is also locked with a skeleton key. My only salvation will be a neighbor who might let me borrow their phone. With this in mind I have precautiously placed a card in the kitchen window listing Kurt's cell number. Fingers crossed that I have learned my lesson.
 

On Friday, we finally got to include Kurt on one of our adventures and set out on a road-trip to Bristol to meet up with another sabbaticaling Gettysburg professor and his family. James, Xingyi, and their son, Noah, are good friends of ours and so we were all thrilled to find out that we would be in the UK at the same time as them and immediately planned to meet up.
 Google maps reported the trip to be about three hours in length but apparently it could not account for all the summer holiday traffic and construction near London and after several detours through the adorable but winding narrow roads of the Cotswolds we arrived in Bristol two hours later than expected. The squeals of joy from the kids quickly helped us forget the trauma of the drive and soon we were all climbing onto a double decker bus headed for the cluster or restaurants around Bristol's harbor. After a lovely dining experience (minus the nearly full pint I knocked over) we took the kids to a grassy area to play a little football. Overall we found Bristol itself rather unexciting and unmemorable but the company was great.
 

The Pucketts are not staying nearly as long in England as us and so they opted for a small efficiency in Bristol. Despite this they were able to creatively house us all for the night and in the morning we all set out for the western coast. First stop was West Bay beach with its high cliffs, crashing waves, and punishing wind. It wasn't quite what we had envisioned when we planned to go to the beach but it wasn't unenjoyable; Rather than sand, the beach was covered in smooth fine pebbles, that were definitely easier to shake out of our shoes. The boys still splashed in the waves though the surf was too big for them to really go into the water which was just as well because the water was pretty cold. Next to the beach are some beautiful ochre-colored cliffs which James and Xingyi said were a filming location in the series Broadchurch . We climbed the long trail to the top and walked around a little enjoying the ocean view and the golf game that was happening on the course just adjacent to the cliff ledge.

After a pub lunch at The George, we drove a little further to a fossil beach James had read about called Charmouth. For the rest of the afternoon we joined the ranks of the other fossil hunters, breaking apart the soft gray rocks that had fallen down from the cliffs to the stony beach in hopes of finding ammonite fossils, small Jurassic-age creatures that look like the modern nautilus. After our crew spent a few hours breaking apart rock after rock caveman-style, Xingyi eventually figured out that searching through the sands of the beach was actually the best way to find ammonites. The Pucketts were definitely the better fossil hunters but the boys seemed happy enough with our small finds.

   That night we ate dinner on the Quay in Exeter. While the food was excellent, the wind ruined our plans for a relaxing dinner, often upending the lego kits that we brought to keep the kids happy. Best laid plans. 

 

On Sunday, we took the Pucketts to one of our favorite spots from our 2013 trip to England, Dartmoor National Park and Haytor. Haytor is a large rock formation at the top of a hill, the product of severe erosion to the earth around it making it an impressive presence on the moors. Just like last time it was a perfect English day- rainy and misty (Incidentally I found out that my "rain-coat" is not actually waterproof). The hike is a good one for kids- barely 15 minutes with a cool pay-off at the end in the tor itself. The boys clambered all around the rocks and while the adults sheltered from the wind and took pictures. Kurt and I tried as best we could to recreate a selfie we had taken with the boys the last time. We did an ok job. The similar weather helps. I think we are actually near the same rock!