(no subject)
This is a photo post from the last... Two? Three? Four weeks? Something like that. Needless to say perhaps this is a graphics heavy post. And warning for any expats who are pining for Torquay, this post might induce Missing England Feelings ;p
Additional warnings for Instagram filters.
There's stuff about Olympics, friends visiting and Skyler's folks' two week visit to the UK.
So I've not been a big on the whole Olympics thing, but dressage is Skyler's sport so we got tickets to some of the team dressage. We saw one day of the qualifier and then we saw the team championships, including Charlotte Dujardin taking gold for England. There was a fair bit of discomfort going on with blind nationalism going on, but being in a stadium when the home team wins gold? Well, that's its own experience.
...And then it rained. A lot.
I mean, I don't know dressage but Skyler got a lot of out of this and I spent almost £10 on really bad noodles. I don't like bad food...but I like expensive bad food even less. Boo. But yeah, it was all quite an experience.
The wonderful![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laboratory and the lovely annals came to visit us about a week before Skyler's folks came. There was a carnival on the heath as part of the Olympics. And there we saw:
A very handsome Cap...
And Iron Man. And Thor. And... Wolverine. And hidden Spidey :|
We also went into central.
Chaplin in Covent Garden.
Forbidden Planet provided me with my new favourite tea-drinking item. :')
And we found a place that sold marginally cheaper TimTams. This is so thrilling.
Skyler's folks being here was...a production. A lot of planning on Skyler's part to keep them interested and entertained and show them a lot of lovely parts of London and the South West. So we started with the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.
We also ambled into the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall just before closing.
For all the exhaustion of the parent-visit, we were definitely spoilt for food and drinks :')
We also took them to Kew Botanical Gardens, which was unfortunately rather anticlimactic for all it took to get there and cost. There were some lovely old trees and buildings dotted around, but really? Not that impressive. The food was also bad and expensive; as mentioned above, the only thing worse than bad food is expensive bad food :\
And then for a week we stayed in Torquay. Cockington, specifically.
This was the view from the room Skyler and I had. I actually didn't take any other photos of the inside :\
We had one day of rain and during this time we...watched all the MCU movies leading up to Avengers. Skyler's dad was a big fan of the first Iron Man so we watched that...about five times.
The little Rose Cafe in Cockington Village with the guy who plays piano outside. Which is great at a distance, can be hit and miss up close, and when you're with a classically trained pianist (Skyler's mom) that also something. But that said, it's a lovely little cafe :')
This was also an opportunity for both pairs of parents to meet, and luckily everything went wonderfully. Both sets of parents got along very well, really seemed to like one another and would like to get to know each other more. So one of the days we spent together as a group was on Babbacombe Downs.
And we had tea in Angels Tea Room.
And scones.
Lovely scones.
The day included a stroll (read: we used the Babbacombe Cliff Railway) down to Oddicombe beach...
And a walk around to Babbacombe beach.
And then we sat down at the Cary Arms for a drink, and the view was lovely.
We also took Skyler's folks around Torquay and up to where you can get a great view of the harbour.
It was also the Regatta so while we were out and getting dinner we saw the Red Arrows fly over the harbour, which was nicely timed. During dinner...
Which was tasty. The starter I had looked like dessert.
Later in the week, my parents rented a people carrier for the day and we all went to Dartmoor.
...With Faith-dog in the back on our laps.
And it was a great day for photos of the tors. We went to Hound Tor this time.
Fun fact for anyone who doesn't already know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set Hound of the Baskervilles on Dartmoor, not far from Princetown. So, yeah, punny food shacks :')
We were supposed to have dinner at a place on the moor, but when we got there the builders they had on site had somehow cut through the main gas supply so there were only about three options for dinner. Boo. But we did get tasty food elsewhere.
We also went to Totnes before we left Torquay. We took the steam train from Paignton through to Kingswear, a ferry across Kingswear to Dartmouth, then a boat along the River Dart to Totnes. Fun thing about people from outta town coming to visit a place you grew up in/live in: you get to do all the touristy things that you never need to do. The boat down the river? Was actually amazing. I didn't get any photos because I was too distracted looking at how beautiful everything was and listening to our amusing guide over the speaker.
But I did get a photo of the grumpiest cat in Totnes. :')
Aaaaand then we went back to London. Skyler's folks decided they wanted to spend the last three days staying at the Savoy(!!) in central and...yeah. Wow. Just. I don't know. It was pretty spectacular inside, but...wow. I don't know what else to say there. I didn't take many photos there either. Oops.
Anyways, we took them on more touristy things in London, including an open-top tour bus thing and a river cruise down the Thames.
And in the last three days I had the fanciest banoffee pie ever. It was tasty.
On the Tuesday morning of their last day here, Skyler and I went to see the Paralympic Freestyele Dressage Level IV. It was pretty awesome in terms of seeing what athletes missing entire limbs, in some cases, could do. Really cool stuff.
For the last half of the last day we went on a walking tour of London around Tower Gateway and then to a pub on Chancery Lane for dinner and drinks. I was reminded that I'm still really not a beer guy.
We said bye to them last night and then they went home this morning with Delta to Atlanta. All in all, it was a pretty successful visit and according to Skyler went about as well as he could possibly have hoped, which is good.
Maybe the next time we see them will be Christmas in Georgia, but we'll see.
In the meantime, the start of the new academic term is in the next few weeks. I have student union training on September 10th, Freshers' Week is a week after that, week after that I start work proper. I need to plan and finalise events for the year, and work my ass off in terms of making my face more known for the SU elections in the new year. And we have the NUS #demo2012 in November to prepare and mobilise students for. And of course I have my dissertation which I didn't do as much reading for over the holiday as I'd hoped. Actually, I've had several months of doing very little and I can't feel very guilty about that.
This year is going to be a doozy :')
Additional warnings for Instagram filters.
There's stuff about Olympics, friends visiting and Skyler's folks' two week visit to the UK.
...And then it rained. A lot.
I mean, I don't know dressage but Skyler got a lot of out of this and I spent almost £10 on really bad noodles. I don't like bad food...but I like expensive bad food even less. Boo. But yeah, it was all quite an experience.
The wonderful
laboratory and the lovely annals came to visit us about a week before Skyler's folks came. There was a carnival on the heath as part of the Olympics. And there we saw:A very handsome Cap...
And Iron Man. And Thor. And... Wolverine. And hidden Spidey :|
We also went into central.
Chaplin in Covent Garden.
Forbidden Planet provided me with my new favourite tea-drinking item. :')
And we found a place that sold marginally cheaper TimTams. This is so thrilling.
Skyler's folks being here was...a production. A lot of planning on Skyler's part to keep them interested and entertained and show them a lot of lovely parts of London and the South West. So we started with the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.
We also ambled into the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall just before closing.
For all the exhaustion of the parent-visit, we were definitely spoilt for food and drinks :')
We also took them to Kew Botanical Gardens, which was unfortunately rather anticlimactic for all it took to get there and cost. There were some lovely old trees and buildings dotted around, but really? Not that impressive. The food was also bad and expensive; as mentioned above, the only thing worse than bad food is expensive bad food :\
And then for a week we stayed in Torquay. Cockington, specifically.
This was the view from the room Skyler and I had. I actually didn't take any other photos of the inside :\
We had one day of rain and during this time we...watched all the MCU movies leading up to Avengers. Skyler's dad was a big fan of the first Iron Man so we watched that...about five times.
The little Rose Cafe in Cockington Village with the guy who plays piano outside. Which is great at a distance, can be hit and miss up close, and when you're with a classically trained pianist (Skyler's mom) that also something. But that said, it's a lovely little cafe :')
This was also an opportunity for both pairs of parents to meet, and luckily everything went wonderfully. Both sets of parents got along very well, really seemed to like one another and would like to get to know each other more. So one of the days we spent together as a group was on Babbacombe Downs.
And we had tea in Angels Tea Room.
And scones.
Lovely scones.
The day included a stroll (read: we used the Babbacombe Cliff Railway) down to Oddicombe beach...
And a walk around to Babbacombe beach.
And then we sat down at the Cary Arms for a drink, and the view was lovely.
We also took Skyler's folks around Torquay and up to where you can get a great view of the harbour.
It was also the Regatta so while we were out and getting dinner we saw the Red Arrows fly over the harbour, which was nicely timed. During dinner...
Which was tasty. The starter I had looked like dessert.
Later in the week, my parents rented a people carrier for the day and we all went to Dartmoor.
...With Faith-dog in the back on our laps.
And it was a great day for photos of the tors. We went to Hound Tor this time.
Fun fact for anyone who doesn't already know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set Hound of the Baskervilles on Dartmoor, not far from Princetown. So, yeah, punny food shacks :')
We were supposed to have dinner at a place on the moor, but when we got there the builders they had on site had somehow cut through the main gas supply so there were only about three options for dinner. Boo. But we did get tasty food elsewhere.
We also went to Totnes before we left Torquay. We took the steam train from Paignton through to Kingswear, a ferry across Kingswear to Dartmouth, then a boat along the River Dart to Totnes. Fun thing about people from outta town coming to visit a place you grew up in/live in: you get to do all the touristy things that you never need to do. The boat down the river? Was actually amazing. I didn't get any photos because I was too distracted looking at how beautiful everything was and listening to our amusing guide over the speaker.
But I did get a photo of the grumpiest cat in Totnes. :')
Aaaaand then we went back to London. Skyler's folks decided they wanted to spend the last three days staying at the Savoy(!!) in central and...yeah. Wow. Just. I don't know. It was pretty spectacular inside, but...wow. I don't know what else to say there. I didn't take many photos there either. Oops.
Anyways, we took them on more touristy things in London, including an open-top tour bus thing and a river cruise down the Thames.
And in the last three days I had the fanciest banoffee pie ever. It was tasty.
On the Tuesday morning of their last day here, Skyler and I went to see the Paralympic Freestyele Dressage Level IV. It was pretty awesome in terms of seeing what athletes missing entire limbs, in some cases, could do. Really cool stuff.
For the last half of the last day we went on a walking tour of London around Tower Gateway and then to a pub on Chancery Lane for dinner and drinks. I was reminded that I'm still really not a beer guy.
We said bye to them last night and then they went home this morning with Delta to Atlanta. All in all, it was a pretty successful visit and according to Skyler went about as well as he could possibly have hoped, which is good.
Maybe the next time we see them will be Christmas in Georgia, but we'll see.
In the meantime, the start of the new academic term is in the next few weeks. I have student union training on September 10th, Freshers' Week is a week after that, week after that I start work proper. I need to plan and finalise events for the year, and work my ass off in terms of making my face more known for the SU elections in the new year. And we have the NUS #demo2012 in November to prepare and mobilise students for. And of course I have my dissertation which I didn't do as much reading for over the holiday as I'd hoped. Actually, I've had several months of doing very little and I can't feel very guilty about that.
This year is going to be a doozy :')
no subject
Wow.. Torquay.. SO PRETTY!!!11!11!!! Now on 'must see' list! And since I've always wanted to go to Dartmoor, hey! (Which yes, I do because of Baskerville. I grew up reading that book - and lots of Holmes, but I loved that one with the fiery passion of a child - so yes. Must go properly. I crossed once with chthonia, but that's all.)
Olympics and Paralympics are wow too.
You've had such full weeks. I'm floored. You must be exhausted now.
no subject
And yes, Torquay is beautiful. It ain't the English Riviera for nothin' ;p But it's definitely worth a visit if you ever have chance to do so, and indeed you can get to the edge of Dartmoor from Torquay in around 30-40 minutes, but there are a lot of notorious English country roads to navigate. It's definitely worth a closer look, oh yes.
I read Baskervilles only this year, actually, but quite enjoyed it; wrote on it for the class I read it for in the end, so it was good to go back with that in mind.
The Olympics/Paralympics were definitely something. I feel a little uncomfortable with how the Paralympics are treated like the Olympics Lite or the Not-really-the-Olympics and security is significantly reduced. It's just striking and not very subtle :\
It's been a few weeks, for sure. This has been the first day we've spent 'in' for a long time. It's been quite nice; we've just been enjoying some well-earnt vegging and watching of Burn Notice :')
...oops, sorry for the RP account--I wasn't paying attention to what I was logged in as /palmface
no subject
Really, truly stunning place. Definitely need to go there.
Hehe! Don't worry! I know the feeling ;-) Actually, I'm about to embark on some Tony/Steve/Bucky sl-ing. Which again reminds me we should compare notes on Tony some day. And I kind of feel like poking you about rp-ing sometimes, but… well… don't want that to be a pressure thing or something awkward like that.