Jane Austen vs. Terry Nation

Allow me to tell you a sad sad story. Once upon a time, there was a little Lod who had never driven on the left side of the road. The end.

But don't worry, in the sequel she finally gets to drive on the left side of the road, as you can see in the picture below! Our flight from Munich was...well, silly, but it was the cheapest we could find. We flew from Munich to Dusseldorf which took about an hour and a half. That was mid evening. Then we spent the night in the airport. Then we took an early morning flight from Dusseldorf to London (the Stansted airport, not the more centrally located Heathrow airport), which was a couple of hours. No wonder it was so cheap! It was a bit surreal, looking down at the ground as we departed Germany, to realize I was saying goodbye to mainland Europe, so I suppose my excitement was mixed with a bit of bittersweet thoughts.

Now I suppose I should mention here that there is a group of countries in Europe called the Schengen group. This group of countries does not enforce passport control between their borders, making travel between these countries much easier. Without a special visa, you can be in these countries for 90 days altogether within a year. We could have opted to buy a special visa, which wouldn't have been extremely expensive, but we decided to save the money if we could. So we planned the trip accordingly and found we would have almost exactly 90 days within those countries. However, in the end, passport control was so lax, even between countries that weren't part of this group, so we figured it wasn't that big of a deal. How wrong we were. Oh, those countries couldn't seem to care less. Germany didn't say a thing about it when we left. But England...God save you at their border control. They're not even part of said group. But apparently they have a close relationship with them and so if you've broken the Schengen rules, they won't allow you entrance to the country. Not that they could ever have proven how long we were actually in those countries since the borders didn't sufficiently document it in our passports (which is why she eventually let us through). But then, we've been led to undertand that they try to hold up everyone at the border...even their own citizens. Bless their hearts.

Moving on. We arrived at the airport, were picked up by a 1car1 driver (the company we were renting from that has terrible customer service save one person, but they're cheap so whaddaya do?), and taken to our rental car for the next twelveish days. Our plan was to drive up to stay with Matthew (who we met at L'abri) in Newcastle, then west to stay with Margot (who we also met at L'abri) in the Lake District. They call themselves the conveyor belt. Apparently we're not the only ones to go from one to the other in this manner. We were shown some fanatistic British culture, first at Matthew's where we watched scads of Doctor Who, and then at Margot's where we watched some great BBC shows, like Sense and Sensibility. And so I pose the most important question this post can offer...who wins? Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility) or Terry Nation (Doctor Who)?

Here, I am, proudly driving our rental car. This was a manual, so not only did we have to drive on the left side of the road, but also we had to shift with the left hand. Fun stuff! Being in an English speaking country now for the first time in months, I was excited for everything to go so much more smoothly. We pulled into a gas station right away to fill up on gas and ask if we could buy a pay-as-you-go local phone so we could get hold of our friends there if...no, when we got lost. The guy barely spoke English. Gaaahhh!!!!! So ironic. I did discover that I developed a complex earlier in the trip. I became deeply hesitant to ask anyone directions or questions unless I had to, for fear that they wouldn't speak English and we wouldn't be able to communicate. I had trouble shaking this in England, even though most of them (with the exception of the first person we met) do speak my language. Sure, they say things a bit funny, like tomahto and shejule, but still...
After driving through Scarborough, we followed our excellent directions to Matthew's home and were delighted to see him again. He has to be one of the most friendly people you could ever meet. Just see how many friends he has on Facebook! Facebook cannot lie. We managed not to get lost getting to his house, which was a huge testament to validity of the directions. Now, getting back out of Newcastle would be a different story, but never mind that. We'd pretty much been up all night at the airport and driving all day. So of course we went to a New Year's Eve party, as you see here. And I fell asleep on a bedroom floor after humiliating myself at Rock Band (Hey, I was off to the side and could barely see the screen, okay?) I woke up just in time to welcome the new year with some champagne.
This is the spiffy cool concert hall in Newcastle. It's called The Sage. There are actually three concert halls inside those domes. They're not even connected, except that they're covered by one giant bubble. It was awesome! Apparently, if you donate a certain amount of money, you can get different things in there dedicated to you. If it's a ton of money, you can have one of the halls. For less money it could be a music stand or maybe a chair in the hall, one of the instruments...etc. I wanted to know how much for one of the toilets to be dedicated to you. Matthew didn't know.
This is the old new castle. The one Newcastle is named for. It's obviously not very new. Actually, this is the keep that replaced to new castle in the twelfthish century, so even the new castle isn't really there. I think. Matthew's quite the tour guide.
One day we went to the park to hang out with Matthew and his friends. Listening to them talk is amazing. They're so witty, and it comes so naturally to them. Listening to them talk is like watching a tennis match (with more than two people). The British really are dry and quick-witted. Who knew? I'm so jealous. I wish it was like that here. While they were playing football (first their football and then American football), Elizabeth and I wandered around the park. It was a beautiful park, but the best part was that they had a maze. As you see here. I was thrilled beyond words!
Here are the guys playing American football. That evening Matthew took us to see the nightlife with some of his friends, and we went pub-hopping. I've never had so much fun with nightlife before. I'm not usually a big fan of nightlifeing, but they were were so fun, and of course there's no smoking in bars in England, so I didn't feel like I was dying from a cloud of second-hand smoke. I had a blast. We had a great time with Matthew...walking around Newcastle, driving to Durham (which has the most wonderful cathedral...beautiful but not gaudy like so many are), watching Doctor Who, going to church with him, and staying up until the wee hours of the night.
Okay, this was a very exciting moment. That silly little scamp, the elusive Hadrian, had been avoiding us for the whole trip. But this time he failed. One day while Matthew was busy, we found our way to Hadrian's wall, which borders England and Scotland. Okay, not really, but it's really really close to Scotland. I'm sure you can see it over there.
And here I am in two places at once. One leg in England, and one in Scotland. Shut up. It's true, okay? I'm in Scotland!!!!!
Of course we tried traditional, fatty, English food! We got pasties, sausage rolls, and fish 'n chips. I was highly impressed with the fish 'n chips, since I'm not usually a big fan of fried food. But this was really really good.
And then we had more goodness at Margot's home. Mmmm. Custard.
Since Margot was working for some of the time we were there, we drove to some of the lakes and walked around by ourselves. They always have a path that goes around the lake, and we always misjudge the distance, but we still had a good time. Here I am walking up ice. The ice on the path was actually sticky, so it was safer to walk on than the rest of the ground.
No, seriously! Snivellusly! I know it's sideways, but I am walking up an incline there. The ice is sticky! It was very trippy.
That's my sister. In case you didn't know. And isn't the view just lovely? In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth was disappointed she wouldn't get to tour the Lake District as had been planned (although I think in her case going to Pemberley was a better option), and now I can see why. This was lake Buttermere.
And that's me. In my fun, baubly hat that I bought in Munich. Since my other hat was...'sniff'...lost...'sniffle'
Sadly, and please don't ask me how this happened, this is the only picture we took of Margot. That's me in the brown, and Margot up ahead of me. For shame, I know. But we had fun. She got off work and took us to the coast, where we hiked a little and then watched the sunset.
This was a view from our hike. In one direction you can see Scotland in the distance, and that, I think, is the Isle of Man. But maybe that's Scotland. I'm not exactly sure.
A lot of the lakes were frozen over. Well what do you think? Of course I had to walk on it!! This was in Keswick.
There was a circular hike in Keswick that a book of Margot's had recommended. So we decided to try it. Some people had warned us about ice, but we decided to try it anway and keep going until the ice started getting bad. And then it started to get dark. And yet we were determined! We got to a point...you know that point...where you keep thinking it's just a little bit farther until you reach the peak...just around that bend...and you never seem to reach it...and it's getting darker...and you're getting tired...and cold...well, we finally reached to top. As you see here. Elizabeth was quite pleased. It turned out to be one of those things she cared more about than she originally let on. Like anything blue and white. If she ever says she doesn't care about something blue and white, she's lying. Anyhoos, then we headed back down. The trails there (at least this particular trail) are not really marked. But in this book we had written directions of how to follow the trail. Up until this point, it had been easy enough to follow with the visual map. Unfortunately, we had taken the trail backwards, and the map wasn't as easy to follow at this point, so we had to take the written directions. Backwards. It says to cross a bridge and turn right, we had to turn left when we saw the bridge and then cross. Etc. And also, that ice those people had been talking about...was on this side.
Hey look, I found the bridge! Though I say it myself, we followed the backwards directions quite wonderfully, with only the minimal amount of discussion as to whether we should turn around and go back the way we'd come, were we really headed in the right direction, had we been stupid to take this adventure in the first place...the usual.
After leaving Margot's, we passed through Chester (near the border of England and Wales), and then went to Stratford-upon-avon and saw the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Isn't it amazingly preserved? Either that or they've reconstructed it...but no, they wouldn't do that! Hem hem. It was a nice town, though we didn't have much time. After that we drove to Oxford where we stayed in an adorable little apartment next to the home of a man who often speaks at Summit Ministries and his charming family. He also now runs a smaller version of Summit Ministries over there at Oxford. We used this apartment as our base and drove out from there for the next few days.
We did, of course spend some time in Oxford our first day there. We also saw Twilight there. This was a lovely pub, which is famous because the Inkling's writers' group would meet there, which included J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They also happen to have very good food and ale. By the way.
On our second day staying in Oxford, we elected to have a mystical day. First we drove to Avebury. Though not as in tact as Stonehenge, it is way, way, and many more ways bigger. Well, maybe just two more ways. Because it's four times the size of Stonehenge. You can kind of get the idea from this picture. The little village of Avebury is cute too.
But of course we did go to Stonehenge too. That was our next stop. The funny thing is, they charge twelve pounds to go in to see it. You pay, then walk through this tunnel under the highway, and then you follow this path around it. You still can't actually walk among the stones, but just around them from a short distance. But if you don't want to pay, you can park, walk across the highway, and look at it through the chainlink fence, which isn't that much farther away than the payed-path is. We got some fun laughs out of that one. Thanx to Margot for the tip. Having grown up playing on the GeoSafari, I have to admit, it was quite exciting to see this for real.
Our third and final stop for mystical day, we went to Glastonbury Tor. Supposedly King Arthur was buried underneath the tower. It's connected to quite a few myths, legends, and mysticism. I wanted to go because it was featured in the third (and best) Broken Sword game. Yay! Fun day.
On the last day of our roadtripping, we caught a few more sites and then turned in the car. As we were leaving we caught a few pictures of where we had stayed. Adorabley enough, the houses there are named, and the house we were in was the Lane House. Here's a picture of our lane. :-)=
Our first stop (I think) was Bath, which is supposedly the first tourist site ever. Ya know, people would travel there. For the baths. Hence its name. Jane Austen lived there for six years, and as you can see in the picture, she and I got on quite well.
This is Devonshire. We only drove through it before heading east to return our car. It was very beautiful though. I'd love to spend some time there.

We had a bit of trouble...okay, a lot of trouble re-finding the car rental office. We couldn't find the right exit, and the woman who worked there whom we spoke to on the phone was quite unhelpful. So we did some circling on the Motorway (which took quite a bit of time between exits) with our gas almost empty. Stressful times. So in the end we had to pay a late fee because it was past closing time, but meh. At least we finally found it. Without running out of gas. (We did eventually find a gas station while scrambling about.) We relievedly returned the car (though it had been a blast!), were shuttled back to Stansted airport, and from there caught a bus into central London...

So, did Jane Austen or Terry Nation win, do you think? I mean, we loved them both. They're both very British. One speaks to my romantic side, the other to my geeky side. Jane created Mr. Darcey, Terry created the Daleks. I suppose, when it comes down to it, I met Jane Austen, but never did make it to the BBC House. So either Jane wins for making herself available, or Terry wins for being cleverly elusive.

Did ew know...?
The BBC still hasn't managed to completely eliminate the mullet.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.