Portals to the Past

This Saturday, we took advantage of £5 tickets on Chiltern Railways, and embarked on a day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace and home of William Shakespeare. Graced with absolutely gorgeous January weather (albeit quite cold, but beautifully sunny), we bumbled along on a self-guided historical walking tour of the town, ate lunch at Vintner Cafe Wine Bar, housed in a building dating back to 1492, and visited three of the town's homes associated with the Shakespeare family, including Shakespeare's childhood home, parts of which still contain the original stone flooring! Settled on the River Avon, Stratford is about as charmingly historical as an old English town can be. The streets are lined with old-world facades, with architecture steeped in both documented tradition and historical speculation, several buildings claiming supposed ties to the life and family of the famous playwright. Modern businesses and cafes have nestled into buildings with original door frames and stone-laid floors, allowing visitors to very easily imagine life during the Elizabethan era in England. As evidenced by the majority of photos taken during our day, the town boasts many, many unique and enchanting portals to the past....


-B&B

"What's past is prologue." - William Shakespeare

A BBC Retraction

Hi all! It has come to our attention, by a very devoted reader, that the quote from our most recent "Holiday Happenings" blog is a repeat, from our New Years blog 2 years ago. We do apologise for this unfortunate oversight, and hope that we have not disappointed too many of you. :)

Thus, we would like to offer the following quote instead....

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot." - Michael Altshuler

-B&B

Holiday Happenings

Rounding out a very busy and festive December, we are finally getting around to a brief update about how we spent our last holiday season in London (well, at least the last holiday season for this chapter of the book...).

In celebration of our 5-year anniversary of dating, we decided to cross off an obligatory event from our London bucket list - the super posh, but lovely afternoon tea (something we absolutely would not indulge in outside of a very special event...). Dressed up for the occasion, we had high tea in the tea lounge at Brown's Hotel in Mayfair, said to be the oldest hotel in London where Alexander Bell made the first successful telephone call in the UK. With unlimited amounts of tea, mini sandwiches, homemade scones, and tasty desserts, accompanied by a fantastic pianist, a window-side table, and holiday decor, it was a perfectly British anniversary indeed. Tick that off the list!

About a week or so later, we embarked on our Christmas trip - Cologne, Germany and Luxembourg. Cologne offered everything we could have asked for in terms of enjoying the holiday season (except for snow) - we visited and fully experienced all 7 of the city's Christmas markets (mostly food, spiced wine, music, and crafts!), added our own love padlock to the Hohenzollern Bridge (aka the lock bridge), took a delicious and extremely fascinating tour through the Chocolate Museum (tracing chocolate from the cocoa bean, to the finished product, complete with a chocolate fountain for dipping), and enjoyed late-night dessert alongside a live street pianist performing in the rain, just outside of the city's main Cathedral entrance, a very romantic and a surreal moment for both of us. Following our very festive, relaxing, and indulgent few days in Cologne, we embarked on a 4-hour train ride through the countryside to Luxembourg, where we continued to enjoy the holiday markets, completed a self-guided walking tour through the old part of the city, and ventured via bus into the south of the country, known for its wine region along the Moselle river. With tiny residential villages literally surrounded by vineyards, we had the opportunity to taste some of the locally-made wines, and returned to London with a couple bottles in tow...including a mini bottle of Moselle Valley sparkling white wine for our wedding toast in August...assuming, of course, that the bottle makes it back over the pond unscathed :).

Cologne

Luxembourg

Upon our return home, we set out for a very busy week of fun activities, as Bryan continued to enjoy time off of work, including a double-feature Tuesday at our cheap cinema in Notting Hill, and a sushi making & scrabble night at our flat with Ruth. Having won a bottle of sushi rice vinegar a couple of months ago in a contest at a sushi-making course that we took in London, we decided to roll up all of our California favorites... spicy tuna with cream cheese, California rolls, shrimp tempura rolls, a rainbow roll, and even a dessert roll of tempura plantain (a bit like the Shauna roll at San Diego's sushi deli!).


And there it is, a lovely holiday season (albeit sadly, with no snow this time around). On to the new year - beginning to tackle the massive to-do list for 2012...including the rest of the London bucket list, a few more trips, and A LOT of planning for our late spring move back to the US of A!

Happy New Year everyone! Also, a massive congratulations to all our friends who have announced engagements in the past month or so! We are so excited for all of you, and can't wait to share this very exciting year ahead!

-B&B

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T.S. Eliot

Madrid Amigos

Madrid - the capital and largest city of Spain; home of Real Madrid, one of the best futbol teams in the world; known for the famous El Prado museum; but best known as the city Brandina studied abroad in during her Junior Year of college. Due to this fact, it wasn't really a city on our radar, however one of Bryan's best friends, Reid, and his girlfriend Danielle, were planning quite the Spanish tour, so we decided it was a perfect time for Brandina to walk down memory lane.

It was a quick, but fantastic weekend getaway in early November, led by a quasi-local in Brandina. I know...we're a bit spoiled to be able to take a quick jaunt to Madrid for the weekend, but I digress. We learned early on that we're not huge museum people when we travel. We love to soak in the city tastes, smells, and sights by just walking around and immersing ourselves in the culture, where we often stumble upon a local street market, peaceful park, or vibrant square. Reid and Danielle were on their last leg of literally seeing all corners of Spain, so they seemed to be quite happy to just follow us around the city (by us, I mean our local tour guide, Brandina), enjoying some of Spain's famous churros and hot chocolate at Brandina's old stomping ground, noshing on a few tapas, or watching the urban city go by.

Reid and I spent the entire weekend chatting it up - we tucked the ladies in after arriving to the hotel late on Friday night, and grabbed a pint at a dive bar a few blocks down, continued blabbering on the next morning in between exhibits while at the Prado Museum, kept rattling away as we waded through El Rastro, Spain's largest and oldest flea market, and joked as we watched street entertainers in the Plaza Mayor.

Danielle and Reid graciously planned a great night for us on Saturday, partly to celebrate our engagement, partly because they're awesome. We had some girlie (but still tasty) umbrella drinks at a fun bar, before an amazingly delicious dinner at a restaurant down the road. We had such a great time, we basically closed down the restaurant.

There's something about meeting up with friends in countries across the world that has a bit of a surreal feeling to it - embrace it, bask in it, enjoy it, and always keep up the chatter...

- B&B

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson