And a Warwick New Year

December 28 & 29th, 2017: Getting There

My plan had been to sleep through the overnight flight and to wake up somewhat prepared for the jetlag that inevitably awaited at the Gatwick Airport for me to crash and burn. The universe (or flight attendants?) had other plans.

Our flight left at 9:15pm from the Toronto Pearson airport, and although it would have been logical to do meal service in the "morning" closer to our arrival around 9am in England, Air Transat thought that it would be better to serve dinner at 10:30pm EST (or 3:30am GMT). Right. If anyone can explain to me why this happened, I'm very curious and would be happy to find out.

I put the "Do Not Disturb" sign up on my seat's screen device and had my eye cover on. The flight attendant shouted at the people in the seat's next to mine and made sure to bump into my shoulder at every occasion. I do my best to be gracious but it was well past my bedtime and I was already annoyed when I sat down and realized that seats are shrinking on flights - not horizontally but vertically. I could see every head in the rows ahead of me. It's like sitting back in grade school with desk in a row. On a flight costing over $1000, it would be great if we could maintain some semblance of privacy and if we were allowed to sleep!

Okay.

I feel better now.

There was joy on the other end of this special trip across the ocean, however.

I made my way uneventfully to the Marylebone train station where I was meeting Brittney (the purpose of my trip) and had time to sit down for a vegetarian breakfast at Gino's coffee bar. English breakfast is my ideal breakfast. It makes me so happy that it's taken for granted that brown beans and mushrooms will be included.

Even more joy awaited at the Warwick train station where Brittney and I met up with Hattie! It was the first time I had seen her since her visit to Canada in 2014. It's hard to believe that it was immediately before my first teaching job and that I am now in my fourth year as a teacher. (Throughout my trip, my Facebook memories kept recalling my trip to Scotland with Talaira during my exchange as having been 5 years ago. Freaky.)

This is the house used as the setting in The Holiday

I held out until 9pm before I needed to crash. Hattie's farmhouse was beautiful and enormous as it normally houses 4 couples and a baby. Dinner was wonderful as usual, and we even managed to sneak in a walk around the farmland just beyond her fence. It was a damp cold, but the walk was invigorating and the whole layout reminded me so much of The Holiday. The road to her house was a single lane, so if you suddenly came across runners or bikers or other vehicles, you had to quickly pull off to the side. Remind me never to volunteer to drive in the English countryside.

December 30, 2017: Cadbury World

Hattie had compiled some choices for our itinerary, promising it would not be as vigorous as Arthur's Normandy tour, and we were in consensus that we should visit Cadbury World.

This was an excellent choice. The history of the Cadbury brothers and the ethics they used to develop their business was pretty fascinating. As Quakers, they thought it was necessary to support the entire community, creating a healthy and supportive working environment for their employees. They essentially created the village of Bourneville to combat the growing problems related to poverty in Birmingham as a result of the industrial revolution.

They moved from the coffee/tea business into the chocolate business as a result of growing popularity among the upper classes at the time. They sort of skirted over the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism's role in procuring sugar and cacao beans for the production of their chocolate, but hey, that would be a downer, and this place was aiming to be the next Disneyland. They have even created 4D cinema productions where you get to live the experience of production from the bean to the chocolate bar. There are also characters called Chuckle Beans which would totally trip someone out if marijuana was legal in the UK. It was great fun.

Mondelēz purchased Cadbury as part of their acquisition of part of Kraft in 2012ish. Dairy Milk bars are one of the only mainstream chocolate bars that has Fair Trade certification, but only their pure milk chocolate bars have the logo. (Side note: I have emailed to enquire about this because I don't understand why they would go to the trouble of certifying their biggest product and not do so for their candy bars with almonds in them, etc.)

Always taking photos for my students.

In any case, we left with our arms full of Curly Wurly, Freddo, Wispa, Fudge, and Creme Egg bars which disappeared gradually over the next few days. New Year, New Self-Control, or something.

For dinner, we went into Stratford-upon-Avon and waved at Shakespeare's birthplace (JK it was too dark, so I don't know if we passed it or not, but I've read the plays so does it really matter if I see where he was born?). We had super delicious Indian food at Balti's Kitchen. Brittney and I devoured our korma curry and papadams. It was the perfect blend of sweet and spicy. The bonus was it was bring your own drinks. We all had to roll ourselves to the bowling alley where the music was much better than any skill demonstrated by our group. I got put on the "bumper" team and scored the highest score of my life. I barely even used the bumpers, probably! The other team had some competitive members who made us put the bumpers down when our score got too close to theirs....

December 31st, 2017:

Bright and early at 2pm, we went down for some "breakfast" of left-over korma and prepared for our big day out at Warwick Castle.

We laughed about each castle having its own claim to fame - Visby, Sweden has the most intact wall for a medieval city, the castle in Blarney has the Blarney Stone, the castle in Edinburgh is the inspiration for Harry Potter, and apparently Warwick is the most well-preserved medieval castle in Europe. We don't know how true any of these things are, especially as we learned that Warwick Castle had been purchased by the company that owns Madame Tussaud's when the family that owned it went too far into debt to be able to repair it.

New Year, New Me?

It was beautiful in any case and well worth the trip. Different parts had been constructed in different eras. Initially, it was an Anglo-Saxon stronghold made out of a wooden wall. Then William the Conqueror started establishing stone forts according to Norman architecture which introduced the stone structures at the top of the mound. Later, towers and walls were introduced by the Earls of Warwick and the statesrooms as well. This was a castle whose various owners helped determine the outcome of the War of the Roses (British Civil War) and which was abandoned by the Tudors. Hitler's Nazi Secretary was held prisoner here for a night. War was the predominant source of funding for this castle.

We saw a birds of prey show that was pretty spectacular and had some interesting tour experiences, but ultimately it was just good fun.

 

We returned home to dress ourselves up and get ready for a night of fondue, picture telephone, Auld Lang Syne, political discussions about Canada's decision to legalize marijuana, and Taboo. It was a blast and I can't share the details, but I can highly recommend any of the above for a stellar New Years Eve.

January 1, 2018:
We benefitted from crepes the next "morning" at around 2pm. Nutella and banana for me. Lemon and sugar for some. Butter and jam for Brittney (to amazed looks for some reason). Yum. I don't understand why these things are called pancakes in England though.

We said a fond farewell to Hattie with big hugs at the train station, hoping to make it to Canterbury before it got too dark. What a wonderful way to spend the holidays!