Cheers Y'all: November 2011

We have been living in Nottingham for about 2 1/2 months now. I have been thinking about doing a blog for most of that time, so now that I have finally gotten around to it, I guess I should start with what the last 2 1/2 months have been like.

We live in a flat in the city centre of Nottingham (notice I am already trying spell things the British way) :) It is a 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. It's a lot smaller than what we are used to but it is plenty of room for the 2 of us (and visitors!!) Being in the city centre is so convenient to everything! We have a small grocery store at the bottom of our building and another one across the street. There are restaurants everywhere and the shopping is endless. We still haven't tried all the restaurants here and they keep opening new ones. The only disadvantage to being in this location is the noise. At night, all the college kids come out and take advantage of all the pubs and such and they are not quiet about it :) It takes some getting used to but we can now usually sleep ok through it. I do have some "just in case" ear plugs in the night stand.

We spent the first few weeks just trying to get everything set up. We had to use rental furniture until our sea shipment arrived. It only took about 2 weeks though. We were very grateful for that. It makes a big difference having your own stuff! Getting things delivered and set up do not happen fast around here. We were here for a month before we had broadband and we started working on it on day one. I still have a pay as you go phone because we can't get a contract phone until we've been here for about 3 months. We also had to get a home phone for us to have our broadband set up through. And the restrictions on it are like the ones for cell phones when they first came out - free minutes on nights and weekends, and you get charged to make calls on it during the weekdays. Fortunately, I don't really call anybody :)

The city had a lot going on in the month of October. They have the oldest pub in England, Ye Trip to Old Jerusalem and it's built into a cave. They introduced their seasonal ale, A Knight's T'Ale, and had people dressed up as knights and squires to bring people out for it. They also have Goose Fair every year. It's a travelling fair and what makes it such a big deal in Nottingham is that there are several small ones that travel around the country, and they all meet up in Nottingham and set up so it's the largest one. We went one night and it was pretty impressive and it was a lot of fun, The next weekend was the beer festival at the castle. Very interesting! They had over 900 varieties of beer. It was more fun just people watching though. They also have the Robin Hood Pageant on the castle grounds each year. Mark was really afraid I was taking him to a beauty pageant, but it just shows what times were like in the days of Robin Hood. They have a jousting tournament, games with kids, falconry, they have tents set up with people showing different trades of the times (candle-making, pottery, alchemists). It was really neat. We have enjoyed discovering the city we live in. Now it's time to travel!!

winner of joust at Robin Hood pageant