HOWe Things Are…

Yesterday: Medieval castle in Skipton, which is in Yorkshire where people talk like Wallace and Gromitt.

Castle – super cool, looks like a movie set. But it actually is 900 years and also it withstood a three year siege during the civil war (1643-5). I learned how come it’s a pair of pants (because it was actually two stockings that attached) and various other fun facts. And then wandered around yet another Disney set (the town of Skipton), which we got to by driving on super narrow roads in the English countryside which looks like someone photo-shopped it to make it those bright greens, with the stone walls and the sheep…  it just looks very, very fake. It’s movie set fake.

Had tea at the Russian Tea Room. Realized I’ve been partaking of a whole lot more caffeine than …  than ever. Probably need to cut that back a bit. Had decaf something at the Russian Tea Room.

Today: My first run in England. On this canal/river path. It was very cool. It had a couple bridges over it, one of them looked like London Bridge in Lake Havasu (which yes, I realize, the London Bridge in Lake Havasu actually came from England). I’m just saying I was running along a path and there was a super cool bridge.

And then we went to church in Lancaster, which was very cool (the building and also the service, but it wasn’t a service you’d picture if you were in an old church with the stone and stained glass windows…  music my parents wouldn’t appreciate but at a volume they’d be fine with). The building: 1840s or something…  And then to a park in Morecambe for a brass band concert which is, apparently, “quintessentially British” (I’m just quoting other people). Morecambe is the village near the bay from day 1 of the mud and apparently when sea-side, there’s a type of icecream: Mr Whippy Ice Cream which has an optional (but really not optional) 99 flake. It’s a chocolate stick stuck in that cost 99 pence at one time when it got named.

So at church, I think I didn’t get distracted by the accent during the sermon (although I did during several other bits of the sermon) but I was terrible afterwards trying to talk to people. Well, one person, I caught most of what she was saying…  I think…  but I was concentrating and missing things partly because I wasn’t catching it and partly because I was forgetting to listen for content and not just listen to the accent.