A Sunny Yorkshire Weekend

Summer has finally arrived in England! We've been having a few days of absolutely gorgeous weather, and it really makes me realize how much I need the sun after having so many dreary days in a row. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I enjoyed every minute of it this weekend.

Because I have a lot of travel planned for the next few weeks (that's another blog post in and of itself!), I decided to stick around Leeds this weekend. On Saturday, I went to the Leeds Food Festival, which took place in Millennium Square and is about a 5 minute walk from my apartment. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of Leeds restaurants had stations there and everyone was in a great mood with the sun being out. I grabbed a Pimm's cup and took in the sights, sounds, and smells of the delicious food. I bought myself some peanut brittle from a company that is based in Leeds but gets its recipes from the owner's mother-in-law who is from Alabama.

 Millennium Square in Leeds packed on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

After walking around the food festival, I decided to walk across the street to the Leeds City Museum to see an exhibit they have going on in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. For those of you who have not heard, this is Queen Elizabeth's 60th anniversary of being Queen of England and the whole country is getting ready to celebrate next weekend with a four day weekend and festivities throughout the country. To be honest, I haven't seen anything like it before. Everywhere you go you see signs congratulating the Queen, and in stores there is everything from commemorative plates to British flag tea towels. The Leeds City Museum has an exhibit of portraits taken of Queen Elizabeth by her official photographer.  I spent about an hour and a half looking the photos of her as a child, her coronation, and her as a mom. 

On Sunday I decided to venture out and took the train to Harrogate, a town that is about 35 minutes away and is known as Britain's "spa town". The town became really popular throughout the country in the Georgian era because of the water that was discovered in the city, which has high concentrations of iron, sulphur, and salt. The wealthy of Britain congregated in Harrogate for respite, and to this day, it's known for its spas and Turkish Baths. 

I arrived in Harrogate around 11:30 am and walked around to get my bearings. It's not that big, so it was pretty easy to get the layout of the city. The train station is in the midst of the city centre, so I was just a short walk away from shops and Betty's Tea Room, which is where I knew I wanted to stop off for a light lunch. Betty's is a Yorkshire chain of tea rooms, and the location in Harrogate is the original location. 

After lunch, I had some time to kill before my spa appointment (um, I couldn't very well go to a spa town and not spa it up), so I walked to some of the beautiful parks in Harrogate.

I made an appointment at the Turkish Baths & Health Spa in Harrogate, the official spa in town. Amazing. That is all I have to say. I had a facial and massage, and while the massage was not the best I ever had, I was so relaxed that I fell asleep during my facial! 

Next weekend I'm going to London to spend the weekend with friends for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee! Can't wait!

Hope all of you in the States enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend!

Another Guinness Please!

After two short work days, Laurel and I flew to Dublin for a few days. The plan was to have Friday to do some site-seeing on our own before meeting up with our friends Kristen and Phil who were flying in from Houston on Saturday.

The first day our first stop was the Google offices in Dublin. After being offsite for the last couple of months, I had to get my free food, free coffee, free snack fix. I'm an addict! We had lunch at the office and checked out the different buildings. We then decided to do the hop-on, hop-off bus tour to get a sense of how the city is laid out. After the bus tour we decided to see a movie because our bus dropped us off in front of a cinema and we both wanted to see Dark Shadows. If you a Johnny Depp or Tim Burton fan, you should see it. It was entertaining!

The next day we did what every good tourist to Dublin does - the Guinness and Jameson Whiskey tours. The Guinness tour was not that great to be honest. It's one of those things that you know you should do because you are in Dublin, but I found the Jameson tour to be way more interesting and substantial. It may have something to do with the fact that the Jameson factory gave us a full sized drink after the tour and Guinness gave us a small sip!

In front of the Guinness sign at the factory

Jameson Whiskey cocktails

The next day we met up with our friends Kristen and Phil and walked around the city a bit. We ended up in the Temple Bar area and had dinner at Gallagher's Boxty House for some traditional Irish cuisine. We made it a relatively early night because the next day we were meeting to take a drive into the Irish countryside and check the Powerscourt House & Gardens in County Wicklow.

We had a lunch reservation at the Tinakilly Country House on the way to the gardens. The house is situated amongst the Wicklow mountains and the house was built for a captain of the Great Eastern ship.

We drove a little further to get to Powerscourt Gardens. The gardens are considered to be one of the best in the world takes about an hour to get through the gardens.

Powescourt House

Japanese Garden

Dolphin Fountain

Laurel and I in front of a fountain at Powerscourt

Work has been good - keeping me busy and traveling quite a bit actually. I just got back from a few days in London for a conference where I presented to small to medium size businesses looking to start with online advertising. I love spending time in London but unfortunately, this time around was mostly all business. I did stay the weekend, but slept as much as could after getting four hours of sleep a night during the week.

Next up is London again next week for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee! Excited that I'll be in London for that and that I'll be seeing my girls Jackie and Kate!

I promise it won't be another month before my next post. Hope all of you are doing well.

Chocolate & Scotch

Hi again everyone! So sorry that it's been a month since my last post. This past month has flown by and I really can't believe that I've been in England for two months now. Where does the time go?

I've been a very busy bee the past month since my last post. My very good friend Laurel came to visit the second week of May. We did quite a bit of traveling and we have the British national rail system down pat! Our first adventure was to York, England which is a short 25 minute train ride away from Leeds. York is one of the oldest cities in England and is a walled city that was founded by the Romans in 71 AD. In additions to the Romans, the city was also inhabited by Vikings and became a very important city for the Viking kingdom. When we got there, we walked around the city for a few hours and then checked into our hotel. During our walk, we stopped at the chocolate museum. York is home to many famous chocolate and candy brands like Kit Kat, Smarties, Rolo and the Chocolate Orange. It was very informative (and delicious)!

In front of the wall surrounding York

Selection of Kit Kats over the years

Laurel and I in front of the wall near York Minster

One of my colleagues from work lives in York and enjoys giving tours of the city. He met Laurel and I after our chocolate tour and gave us a 2 hour walking tour of the city. Our last stop was York Minster, one of the most renowned cathedrals in the world. It's the largest cathedral north of the Alps and the construction started in 1220. We stayed for the Evening Song mass where the boys and girls choir sing the Book of Common Prayer.

Sign for the shortest street in York

Outside of York Minster

Inside of York Minster

In our planning, we decided to spend the night in York and then the next day continue on to Edinburgh for a few days. The train ride from York to Edinburgh was about two and a half hours but the views on the way are breathtaking because the train route is on the eastern coast so we could see water for a good portion of the trip.

We didn't have much planned for Scotland other than our hotel. We found a hotel on Jetsetter called the Hotel Missoni. Yes, that Missoni. Who knew that the iconic Italian brand got into the hotel business? Apparently, there are only a few Hotel Missoni's in the world. It was one of the best decorated hotels that I've seen, and typical Missoni. One of the best things about the hotel is that everything in the mini bar and all of the movies on the TV are complimentary! Laurel and I enjoyed quite a few cans of free Diet Coke.

As soon as we checked in we freshened up and took a walk around the Royal Mile, which was literally right outside our hotel. The Royal Mile is a street with shops, restaurants, and tourist traps. At the top of the Royal Mile is Edinburgh Castle. We are suckers for castles! We spend a couple of hours stolling and took in some beautiful views.

View from Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

Laurel and I love castles, but we may love hop-on, hop-off bus tours more. Whenever we travel together, we always do them because it's a great way to get oriented to a city and figure out what spots you want to explore some more. We randomly stubbled upon the Scottish Parliament building on the tour, and decided to get out to see some more of it. It was designed by the Catalonian architect Enric Miralles (for those of you who know about architecture, that probably isn't a surprise looking at the building!).

Scottish Parliament building

Inside Scottish Parliament building

Edinburgh was a great experience but I won't forget how cold it was. At one point, Laurel and I were walking back to our hotel when it started to hail! In May. Despite the weather, we had a great time and now I can cross another country off the list.

We couldn't leave Scotland without having some scotch! I won't get into the detailed conversation that Laurel and I had trying to figure out exactly what scotch IS, but we knew we had to have it. Our last night in Edinburgh we had dinner at Ondine, a restaurant next to our hotel. The waitress gave a good after dinner drink recommendation, so we went with it!

After Edinburgh, we took the train back to Leeds. I worked for the next couple of days before Laurel and I went to Dublin to meet up with some other friends. Check out the next blog post for Dublin details!