Durham With the 'Rents

Thanks for your patience everyone! Let's get this party started.

Our journey started last Friday, the day my parents flew into Heathrow from LA. Nathan walked across town to get our rental car and picked me up at work at noon.

Sidebar: I fully confess right now that I am a nervous wreck in the car as a passenger, making involuntary gasps when frightened, stomping at the imaginary brake pedal, closing my eyes and holding my breath, and even clawing the window to get out if it gets really bad. During particularly stressful journeys, I sometimes just put my seat all the way back and close my eyes. It drives Nathan crazy (no pun intended... at first) and I've worked really hard to reign in the theatrics over the past five years. Let's just say that I absolutely do not miss driving or riding in cars, especially on the "wrong" side of the road, since we've moved here. End sidebar.

To avoid "traffic," he decided to take the longer (read: muddy, sludgy, snowy) way home and, in the process. managed to completely slosh two very hoity toity, dolled up girls with slate grey, very wet snow. I totally saw it coming.

He was driving too fast, "testing the abilities of the car," and the cobblestone lane was quite narrow. There were still abandoned cars on both sides of the road and snow on the pavement, so most pedestrians were walking on the street. When we came roaring down the quaint little lane, the hottie college girls jumped up on the icy sidewalk to avoid being hit, but then they saw a huge puddle that we were about to drive through.

I can still see their teased out hair and big bows, their creamy cableknit sweaters, their ubiquitous leggings and Uggs, their overdone makeup. They opened their mouths wide and tried to scratch their way up the stone building, as if they could climb up the wall to avoid being splashed. They screamed...

I moved my hand to Nathan's arm, which I'm sure was shifting into at least third gear, to signal him to slow down. He turned around and gave me a look, like "What?! You're criticizing my driving already?" and then I started laughing.

"You totally splashed those girls!" I looked in the sideview mirror to see their mouths and eyes still wide open, this time with mud all over them. I'm pretty sure they were already wringing their hands and crying.

He laughed a big laugh. "I was wondering why they were screaming! Should I throw it in reverse and apologize?"

Thus began our long journey down to Heathrow. What should have taken four hours took more than six because of traffic and road construction (with no one working - just lots of cones and a sign that said "Disruptions likely until 2013"), and my poor parents had been waiting over an hour in the airport before we found them. We turned straight around and came home, arriving at the barn at midnight. I'm sure all of the English people reading this will conclude that we are completely mad for driving so much in one day. I don't disagree with them.

We explored Durham for the first few days. We went to a winter concert at the castle, pictured above in the day time, where students played and sang a variety of Christmassy music, including the Nutcracker Suite. They all filed in and were about to begin when the first chair violinist came up missing. The student in charge left the stage to go look for him, but not before saying something that still makes me chuckle, "Off to a flying start...".

Here's Mom, Dad, and me on the Palace Green with the castle in the background.

Nathan and I got our picture taking in front of the Castle food hall Christmas tree. Don't ask me what I was thinking with that outfit. I was just cold.

As per Mother's request because of my previous post, we went to Leonard's cafe for some hot chocolate and sandwiches.

Nathan got a baked potato (called a jacket potato) with just mayonnaise and bacon. That's just gross.

We spent the rest of our time shopping, going to church, decorating the barn for Christmas, making Christmas treats, and having friends over for Sunday lunch. It was awesome to have them here, seeing where we live and interacting with our world.

Oh, I forgot that we all climbed to the top of the cathedral to see the view, which was amazing, but I failed to bring my camera. Curses!

Next up... Edinburgh. I promise not to double up too many pictures from our Thanksgiving trip.