Who knew!

 

 

Who knew the country right next door to England, Wales, right on the same island, would have a different language?  But all of England is not a very big island, so it’s not going to be very different, right?  Maybe more like a dialect.  Wrong.  Completely wrong.  I looked up Welsh on Duolingo, the language program.  It’s crazy.  It seems mostly consonants, very stingy with the vowels, and a lot of two and three letter words.  My best description is that it brings to mind a Monty Python skit where they’re just making up silly words.

 

The street we live on is named Allt-Yr-Yn Crescent.  Prynhawn da means good morning.  Merch dw i  means I am a woman.  Bachgen a dyn, a boy and a man.  Noswaith dda, Good evening.  Nothing like English.  Why would they make up a language that is so different from the one that is right next door?

 

That’s because Welsh is more like the original languages here.  A completely different root.  English is a mishmash of the Latin, Germanic, Norwegian, and French languages of the waves of conquerors and invaders.  Welsh is the language that survived.  It all works out though, because even though all the street signs are in Welsh, everybody here just speaks English.

 

 

Shoes shopping with Taylor

 

 

 

 

Nailed it!

 

Because no one is allowed to walk at graduation in “trainers”, not even archaeologists.  Not even if they’re not muddy!

 

To get to the shoe shopping required a walk past Newport Castle, a waterfront fortress built in the 14^th century.  Not much left of it now but hints of its former grand scale.

 

 

 

Judy and I have now gone with local style and adopted proper British scarves for this cold English winter weather.

 

We’re not yet mistaken for locals though.  The first thing the Uber driver said to us today when we got in was “Oh boy.  I love listening to your accents.”  And we’re enjoying every version of British accent we get from the people we meet as flavored by their places of origin.

 

A day in the life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re not in Kansas any more

 

 

We’re not in Maidenhead either.  We’re in Newport Wales.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Maidenhead,+Maidenhead/51.596707,-3.0081178/@51.3539977,-3.8654878,7.25z/data=!4m10!4m9!1m5!1m1!1s0x487662409cc2c793:0xde54c6f43e749cf6!2m2!1d-0.7242048!2d51.5218209!1m1!4e1!3e0?entry=ttu

 

That’s where Taylor and David live.  David is attending a Master’s course in nuclear engineering in Bristol.  David and Taylor can each get at what they need from here.  Judy and I are here because they are.

 

Asian cuisine at Wagamama in town.

 

David got home later from a presentation at school.

 

On the train.

 

It’s a pretty cool ride.  Not as reliable as usual because there are rolling train worker strikes, but they cycle where and when they are, so we’ve been able to shuffle schedules to accommodate so far without missing anything critical.

 

Now there are more of us

 

 

Judy and I have moved on from our flat in Vauxhall and are out in Maidenhead with Becky and Brian.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vauxhall,+London/Maidenhead/@51.5472884,-0.7768372,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604f37390a219:0x261185c6bcdba9c2!2m2!1d-0.12172!2d51.4861671!1m5!1m1!1s0x487662409cc2c793:0xde54c6f43e749cf6!2m2!1d-0.7242048!2d51.5218209!3e0?entry=ttu

 

 

Today, we rode the train back in to London to meet Christie and Andy, Kyle, Kylie, Cameron, and KB.  We all had dinner together at the Victoria Pub while we tried to keep the new arrivals awake as long as we could to help them adjust to Greenwich Mean Time.  When we first got there, the nice people at the small table next to us moved over so we would have enough room, then chatted with us in British throughout our evening there.  I hope they thought our American accents as charming as we thought their British.  Thanks to them for the photo of all of us together. 

 

We’re gathering for a celebration of Taylor Achieving a Master’s Degree from the University of Reading later in the week.

 

It’s a sunny day in London

 

 

 

Right over there in the view from our flat.  See that building in the distance, gleaming.  That’s it.

 

A walk in the park produced pigeons.  And parakeets!  Rose-ringed Parakeets.

 

 

Becky taking a direct hit.

 

Some other people having great success attracting parakeets.

 

 

Brian and me.  A pigeon that really liked my shoulder.  Brian got a parakeet on his head.

 

 

London

 

 

Another time-travel.  Six time zones from home, it’s tomorrow here already when it’s still today there!

 

Thursday was our lost day.  We left Austin in the early evening and flew all night.  A nine-hour flight.  A couple of hours of activity (food and such), four or five hours of pretending to sleep.  My mind wandered a couple of times, maybe that counts.  Then another couple hours of feeding and morning coffee.  On the ground in England by ten in the morning Thursday.  Out of the airport by noon.  There was a little delay getting our plane to a gate.  By two o’clock we were finishing up our trip on the underground and congratulating ourselves about how we weren’t feeling tired at all.  At four o’clock the sun went down.  By five o’clock, we were lights-out.  Woke up and chatted a few times during the night but went back to sleep each time. 

 

Hung out with Becky and Brian all day today.  Walked around some Royal Parks and ate fish and chips at the Black Dog Pub before they headed back to their place for the night.

 

Our location relative to Heathrow.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vauxhall,+London/Heathrow+Airport+(LHR),+Hounslow+TW6+1QG/@51.4337245,-0.4792388,9z/data=!3m1!5s0x43d378bb50c5fead:0x39c134ec4d579ba7!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604f37390a219:0x261185c6bcdba9c2!2m2!1d-0.12172!2d51.4861671!1m5!1m1!1s0x48767234cdc56de9:0x8fe7535543f64167!2m2!1d-0.455051!2d51.4679914!3e0?entry=ttu

 

 

And a couple photos of Londony stuff from our walkabout today.