Road Trip for my Mum's birthday

Geo and I are already a few months into placement, and while working life is tired we seem to be both enjoying our jobs. Training is over and the real thing has begun! No idea how we will go back to studying and uni life but that is still a while away.

Last week my parents have come to visit me and to see London. During their last weekend here and for my mother's birthday, Geo and I decided to take them on a three day road trip around South England.

Day 1
Our first stop was Milton Keynes, mainly to visit my dad's Open University so that he could see the place that he received his degree from. It was interesting to see a different type of campus and my dad's excitement was definitely worth it!

From there we drove to Bletchley Park, a World War II territory, most known for code breaking and the place where Alan Turing and his team broke the German Enigma code. My research had failed me with this one, as I just expected it to be a house in a park that we could quickly see, but ended up being a massive territory with many small museums inside it. We ended up spending longer than planned but worked our way through it quite quickly as everyone was craving lunch.

1.5 chickens and a massive sandwich later we continued our journey and arrived in Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived the house itself was closed, but we had a lovely walk around the town and looked at the sights from afar.

Our day finished with another drive, which took us to a beautiful hotel in the countryside. Billesley Manor Hotel, was hosting a wedding that same evening, so while our dinner was a bit prolonged, it gave the hotel another flair and some pretty groovy songs to vibrate our guestroom walls.


Day 2
The second day started with an extensive photos shoot on the ground of the hotel, making use of its beautiful facade, garden and abstract hedge art. This was followed by my mum opening her birthday presents and some time to explore them.

From there we drove to Blenheim Palace only to discover it was closed... for a private wedding of the Lord's son. It was bold on the website... once again my research had failed me... (a pattern is emerging isn't it) on the bright side, on the way there we had discovered a wonderful pub and stopped there for lunch.

Next stop was Oxford, where we wandered the streets, enjoying the feel of the town and the beautiful and extraordinary campus of the University of Oxford.

Lastly, we finished the evening off with a tasty dinner and some Gin and tonics/lemonades by the hotel.

Day 3
The last day had the most touristy programme as we spend the morning in Blenheim Palace (home of Churchill and his family) and the afternoon at Windsor Castle (main residence of the Queen and her family). Both were fascinating in their own way, and I couldn't say which one I enjoyed more.

Geo drove us back to Welwyn, where we had dinner (sooo much foood) and finally let Geo go home, ready for work Monday morning. (Thank you for driving us! I hope you enjoyed yourself too!)

 -KK

Pictures from my DSLR

I thought that if I add them to the days they might get missed, so I thought I'll add them here. I'm not very good at pictures, and Geo's are generally better, so I will just add ones not represented by Geo's yet!

St Petersburg, Day 8

It was the last day on our trip to Russia and we wanted to spend it in city centre.

We started the day with listening to the noon cannon at the Peter and Paul Fortress. Wow ... just wow. They do this every day at noon, and we were in the courtyard below it with a great view of the cannon, we arrived perfectly timed as well. The blow was massive, like not even sound-wise more like the shock wave! Geo and I were flabbergasted, the shock wave blew the air out of my lungs, it actually felt surreal.

So after that unusual experience we headed along the river enjoying the weather St Petersburg spoilt us with and watching the ice plates float along the river. Due to the chain of sunny and warm days we had during our trip all the snow melted and the ice on the river broke. It was an amazing view.

Then we walked past the St. Isaac's Cathedral (finding it was closed on Wednesday's) and on to our Pelmeni lunch (Russian dumplings). Geo really enjoyed them and I love the potato mushroom ones so who am I to object! 

The main goal of the day was the Hermitage. We got free entrance as students so that was really nice, but we couldn't buy tickets to the golden chambers because they only had Russian excursions and apparently a non-Russian can't join that....stupid but oh well, we got to see the rest:

With all its intricate wooden floors...

...grand halls...

...the famous peacock clock...

...and mosaic tables. (YES it's mosaic, it's so small you can hardly see it!)

On the way back we browsed through a large grocery store, buying snacks to take with us and looking at anything we might have missed.
With that we rounded up our touristy side of the trip and spent the last night with my relatives eating and talking. While wanting to stay up the whole night until we had to leave for the airport at 3, we ended up falling asleep after all. But we still had a smooth trip and safely got home.
It was a wonderful trip showing the touristy and homey side of Russia and seeing my relatives. I was super happy to be able to introduce Geo to that part of my culture.

-KK

St Petersburg, Day 7

So as you can see we are not doing the alternating order anymore, but that is more because I want the blog done while it's still fresh in the memory and Geo unfortunately has a lot of university course work right now, so I'm finishing off the blog when I get the chance.
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Right, so our second to last day started with a follow up visit to the doctors (yay..) but all was good so then we returned to the house for some rest. Having walked so much in the past days really wrung us out so we just had some down time on the bed with the cat (Need to enjoy having a pet around while we have the chance!)

After another wonderful home-cooked lunch, of chicken cutlets (totally got the recipe, they were that good) with Russian salad we got a ride to the naval village and fort of Kronstadt outside of St Petersburg. Being the defence of St Petersburg and being one of the main naval bases it had a lot of navy based artillery, submarines, ships and a naval cathedral, which was the main attraction of the trip.

St Petersburg, Day 6

A bit late but here is what we did on day 6:

For breakfast we went to a specialised pie bakery, to try some Russian pie - and it was amazing. Geo had a salmon filling while I went for the more traditional cabbage filling. They were really nice and Geo asked me to try bake them some day *gulp* really not a good baker, but I'll give it a go some day.

Next was, the less exciting and more unfortunate, visit to the doctors, as I had gotten an infection...sigh.

In Russian hospitals you have to wear these on your feet to keep the floors clean (ironically we also had to wear them at the Catherine Palace to preserve the wooden floors

Thankfully it didn't take up too much of our day and accompanied by extraordinary weather of sunshine and 19 degrees we headed into city centre for a walk. Our plan was to walk around town and then head into the Hermitage, as we had explored some of city centre already and the museum had to be seen. What I had totally forgotten that Monday was a museum maintenance day, meaning that it was closed... Well then, at least it was nice weather so we went for a stroll along Nevskiy Prospect (High Street).

Venturing to the old and very elite looking Elisey shop in which one of my relatives worked many generations ago, we were in awe by the extravagance and prices of this place.

While walking back towards the other sights we had stumbled upon a caricature artist, and remembering our fun experience in Seoul, Korea, we decided to get one here as well. After some very awkward 10 minutes of standing and smiling here is the result:

Lastly, we went to the Island on Neva river to look at the columns and walk along the promenade. We also considered going into the Kunstcamera - an ethnographic museum famous for its room of unusual animals - however it was closed for Monday maintenance, too.

Once again, greatly underestimating the distances on the tourist map we ventured to the next metro station that felt a life time away, but oh well walking is healthy right?

When coming back to the place we were staying we thought that our walk was not enough and wanting to help my relatives to retrieve some things from their other flat, climbed the stairs to the 23rd floor. Unfortunately for me, on the way down Geo realised that I had forgotten one of my bags upstairs (thankfully he didn't realise it on the ground floor, but it was already floor 8) so I had to walk 15 floors back up.. my legs were not amused.

We were thanked with an amazing home cooked meal and appreciation from the cat for bringing it, its claw stretcher. This was the end of a long day of walking and adventure.

-KK

St Petersburg, Day 5

The day started off very chill as we had a bit of a lay in and as it is Russian Easter were treated to some eggs and traditional sweet dishes. From there we headed to the miniature museum Grand Maket, which is a model of Russia. It had amazing attention to detail, with gradual night over the room due to Russia's many time zones, tiny flashes on cameras of model people, moving transport and so much more.

Afterwards we met with family to let them try some Korean food. It was a very nice place and according to Geo pretty authentic. 

Lastly, the highlight of the day was our visit to the famous St Petersburg circus and its current show "Dreaming of Flying". It was Geo's first time at a circus and he seemed to enjoy it! We both were quite neutral about the animal numbers, as we felt bad for them and they weren't very thrilling. The clowns were quite funny, however Geo was laughing more than me (I think, I lack some kind of humor -_-). Most impressive were the acrobatic numbers, which thankfully were every second one. There were acrobats being thrown in the air, jumping between trapezes, leaping from swinging platforms and doing aero shows without any support. Those were mesmerizing and completely worth the tickets. We both agreed that a circus with just those numbers would be 10/10. 

-KK

St Petersburg, Day 4

Chill but Surprisingly Busy Day

Arrival @ St. Petersburg

As Ksen wrote previously, we arrived at St. Petersburg @ 7am ish.

Compared to Moscow it was much colder at St. Petersburg which was a shame cause I only had a wind breaker.... yay me. 

None the less, we carried ourselves out of the station and made it back.  

We had to reorganize for the "thrilling" day that we had set for ourselves.

Cheerleading(?) Competetion

You read correctly.

We did in fact watch cheerleading on this Russian trip. 

It was a moment that made me realize I'm really unhealthy and can't flip. (sad face)

Catherine's Palace

From the event hall the competition was held, we took an uber to Catherine's Palace.

We got food from a cafe/restaurant near by. Twas classic let's say XD

We were too hungry to get any pictures so use your wildest imagination as to what they looked like.

It was quite late in the afternoon after the competition but we were lucky enough to have reached the palace  with enough time to go through the exhibit but in a non rushed manner. 

We were warned that usually the line to get a ticket takes nearly an hour but there was a single group infront of us when we went, so yay us. 

Have I mentioned we've been extremely lucky with the weather during this trip?

Any who, we found out that the whole palace was destroyed during WWII, but the government has been constantly restoring the palace to its former glory. 

Apparently to rebuild one side of a door way in the palace, it costs approximately 5 million rubles. 

Although photos were prohibited, the most interesting room has to be the Amber room.

Although it was a  recreation as the original is a mystery to this day, it was quite impressive.

After that it was just going back and resting for future days of the trip to come. 

- GK