Going Glenn:

Happy Halloween!

Frightful fun has been afoot at the Glenn home this past week. In the inky blackness of Newcastle’s Trewhitt Road, creepy creatures have been brought to life, and subsequently murdered, and plastic bag ghosts are descending from the rafters.

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Saturday was the most ghastly night of them all. That was the night we gave life to pumpkins, then stuck knives in their heads.

I won’t gross you all out with the details about their gut removals or the way we peeled the skin from their eyeballs … I’ll simply sum it up as just a fun night. And add that David would like to be a surgeon some day. 😉

Our pumpkin carving was followed by my most ambitious meal to date – dinner in a pumpkin. The rice still needed a little time, but all in all, it turned out OK. I would like to let you all know that the person who thought a pumpkin would make good bake wear was the village idiot. Those things do not retain heat.

The scary dinner was followed with a desert of fried eggs, snake and white rat. Happy Halloween everyone!

These were a novelty to me. Really? Nothing else here is “mansized.” We are in the land of the Mini Cooper and the bite-sized Big Mac for goodness sake. They don’t sell “lady-sized” or “child-sized” tissues here. For Dave and I, this little box provided hours of entertainment.

I think that the tissues here have to be mansized because all the scarf-wearing, Gucci clad guys are well …

You can come to your own conclusions 😉

It snowed in our backyard!

Just kidding. It snowed in our refrigerator. The little thing’s top shelf seems to build up ice as if it were Jack Frost’s kitchen. Saturday, I ventured into the frosty depths and cleaned out the thing.

Ta da! The snow is now where it belongs. Outside. Not in my fridge.

Finally! A connection! While we still do not have internet at the house, David took my computer in today and set up a connection with his school’s free internet. Apparently, Macs don’t get along well with Northumbria’s network, so hooking in required a trip to the campus IT office. I am so glad that they believed the computer belonged to a student – even with the cute picture from our wedding day that is the desktop background. 🙂

On to Durham.

So David comes home one night and announces that some friends from school are headed to Durham Saturday for a day trip. Before I could fire off a question, he wisely interjected that train tickets were only £5.

SOLD!

Needless to say, that Saturday morning (Oct. 16), bright and early, we were headed to Durham.

Thirty minutes later, we were there. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what I saw.

This place and its beauty was incredible. The tacky gift shops and overpriced eateries were noticeably missing from this quaint little northern England town. This was no tourist trap. When we crossed the bridge into Durham, umbrellas sprouted like big black mushrooms from every hand. It was raining.

However, despite the rain, street vendors were setting up their tents and arranging homemade scones, cakes and roasted nuts on propped up plastic tables.

We ducked into an underground market for a while to get out of the rain, but found nothing more than flea market fare. Among the fabrics and Zippo lighters, I was delighted to find not a single piece of merchandise with “I ‘Heart’ Durham” written on the front of it. If I had to pick one word to describe this hidden gem of a town, it would be “unpretentious.”

Our ultimate destination was Durham Castle and Cathedral. However, the cheap seats on the train got us there so early that the castle was not open yet. So we wandered and goofed off – a great way for broke students to pass the time.

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The blurry one of me is meant to be a companion to David’s jump picture. But I guess his trigger finger isn’t as sharp as mine 😉

Our partners in crime that day were Rob, Matt and Lindsey – each fellow med students with great senses of humor. Rob and Matt are roommates at the Northumbria dorms and Lindsey is just, well, cool.

A little wandering later, we made it to the castle and cathedral. In more sacrilegious moments, I wish that I would have ignored the signs and taken pictures inside the cathedral anyway. It was amazing! Or maybe it was just our sharp little old tour guide who made it seem so. The sweet woman with curly grey hair seemed to have been working at the cathedral for eons. She also knew how to roll a story off her tongue so that your attention was wrapped around every word.

Started in 1093 by a motley crew of Catholics, it was meant to enshrine the remains of St. Cuthbert. Despite his many good deeds while alive, Cuthbert is really famous because his remains are said to have not decomposed after his death. When the people dug him up to put him in the cathedral, they claim he still had all his skin and looked like a person “just sleeping”!

The Cathedral also houses the remains of the Venerable Bede – a great 11th Century scholar and the claimed founder of the modern English language. This guy’s remains are a little older than Cuthbert’s – his scholarship dates from about 673 A.D. While his flesh seems to have rotted properly, he has a funny story about how he came to rest in Durham. One of the Prince Bishops who controlled Durham Cathedral for a while was a big relic fan. He especially went nuts for the remains of Bede. So, one morning, this Prince Bishop got up early, made his pilgrimage to Bede (wherever he was at the time) and came back with some extra baggage. He had stolen Bede’s bones!

The old cathedral is full of stories like this – all enclosed in a building that has attracted art and architecture scholars from across the globe. The technology used to construct the building is a mix of Romanesque (aka of the Romans) and Gothic. According to our spry little guide, the engineering technology was also far beyond the rest of Europe’s capacity for many years. Apparently, these northerners knew their stuff.

After a great lunch at a “Varsity-style” restaurant, it was time to go home. The castle itself would have to wait for us. But I didn’t mind. I look forward to any excuse to go back.

Scotland!

Here it is. After weeks of anticipation, we are proud to publish the pictures from our adventures in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The 11th of October started out like any Newcastle day – cloudy with mother nature teasing us with the chance of rain. But it didn’t matter. We were off on our first real whirlwind European travel adventure.

As it turns out, the sun was waiting for us up north.

Edinburgh, Scotland is about an hour and a half train ride away from Newcastle. The stations are almost more fun to explore than Newcastle itself. Can you see the literary reference I am making in the first photo? 🙂

If you look closely, you can see my maiden name behind us. Probably one of my favorite pre-Scotland pictures.

Train is, in my humble opinion, the only way to really see the countryside. The sweeping pastures and rolling hills were amazing. David also loved the views, but as a Med student, loved sleep more.

When we emerged from the train station in Edinburgh, a towering castle set on a rocky cliff was there to meet us. Below the cliff spanned a beautiful park with monuments scattered like huge chess pieces across its long, narrow walk. The largest of all was to Sir. Walter Scott, Scotland’s national literary hero.

You could climb to the top for a small fee, but we were holding out for the grandest view in all of Edinburgh. The one from the top of Edinburgh Castle.

A castle has rested on that rocky crag since at least 12th Century, but archeologists say that the spot has been inhabited since about 850 B.C.

Over the years, it has played a key part in the battles between England and Scotland, the Jacobite rising and many other conflicts. Mary, Queen of Scotts lived there and gave birth to James IV in a pretty posh part of the castle. Recounting the history of the castle would take years, so I will leave that up to you and your Google savvy.

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One part of the castle, though, was pretty cool for us. It was David’s tower – no, it was not named after my husband. But cool nonetheless. It was named after David II, the son of Robert the Bruce, who rebuilt the castle after a few wars with the English left the thing in crumbly pieces.

Another cool piece of history is that the crown jewels were hidden here during World War II, when the English thought there was a chance Germany could take over the world. Very few people knew the location of the jewels – maybe 6 people total. Most were in the British government, but one was a Canadian ambassador. We trust Canadians.

We had plenty of other fun adventures including a haunted ghost tour that took us through graveyards and an underground city. Yes, Edinburgh really has a secret underground city! Cool.

At the end of the day, we relaxed at a great little hotel that is about 10 minutes away from the busy city center by bus. Our hosts were great and I was so happy with the hotel.

Those are the highlights. I will post more when our internet starts working again on Nov. 4. In the meantime, I need to hurry up. The city library computer is about to kick me off.

The Coast

David had a three-day weekend after midterms, as well as a brain that needed a little decompression. So we decided to head to the coast for our weekend of adventure, Part I.

Adventure Part II is planned for Monday/Tuesday. Stay tuned, it’s going to be a doosey!

For those of you who don’t know, The Coast is where northern England meets the North Sea. The salty sea chill met us as we got off the Metro, numbing our fingers and noses. St. George’s had picked a blustery time to give its students a three-day weekend!

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Looking over the mouth of the North Sea, where the river Tyne (as in ‘Newcastle Upon Tyne’) begins, sit the ruins of a castle and priory built in the 7th Century A.D.  On Saturday, it had two goofy guests, me and the Huz.

The original monastery, destroyed by the Danes in 865, was finally abandoned in 1008. It was refounded by the Benedictines of Durham in the latter part of that century, according to the Newcastle government’s website. The body of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, was buried at Tynemouth after he fell at Alnwick in 1093 in one of the many medieval skirmishes between the Britons and the Scotts to decide where England ended and where Scotland began. Seventeen years later, they say St. Oswin was also buried there, making the priory a new tourist attraction for pilgrimages. But a sign on the grounds claims that traveling worshipers of St. Oswin’s alleged bones were probably hoodwinked. However, St. Oswin became a pivotal figure in establishing the castle.

Those Darn Danes

The castle was once, and still is, a strategic strong point for the military, protecting northern England from seaside invaders. In the 800s, the enemy was the Danes. The Danes eventually killed all the Nuns who had gathered there for safety in 870 and they completely destroyed the priory in 875.

For the next few centuries, the Normans, Scotts and Northumbrian locals fought over the castle and Tynemouth.

It is believed that in 1095 there was a castle on the site consisting of earthen ramparts and a wooden stockade. In 1296 the prior of Tynemouth was granted royal permission to surround the monastery with walls of stone, which he did. In 1390 a gatehouse and barbican were added on the landward side of the castle. Much remains of the priory structure as well as the castle gatehouse and walls which are 3,200 feet in length, according to local historical records.

Then came Henry VIII who just had to mess with everything. He dismantled the priory but left the castle standing. After years of being unoccupied, the whole thing just kind of fell apart. In the late 1800s, it was used as a barracks and a few new buildings were added. In World War II, the British army used the place as a coastal defense station.

However, today, it just amuses goofy sightseers like me and Dave.

In other adventuresome news, before visting the castle, Dave and I ran almost 5.5 miles through Jesmond Dene – a beautiful run, but by the end of the day our feet were sore!

“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.” ~Charles F. Kettering

Today, I stumbled on a castle.

The story started with the sunshine and a bad case of cabin fever. It was a nice day, so I figured why not take a walk to the city? I needed to find a casserole dish anyway, plus I heard that Fenwicks had canned pumpkin – a rarity around here but a necessity for any good Thanksgiving.

So I set out with my partner in crime, Stephanie, another medical student’s wife who was just as antsy to get out of the house as I was. After finding the sought after casserole dish and some successful canned pumpkin hunting, we found trading the sunshine for the dull glow of our computer screens just about as appealing as a root canal.

So we walked. And talked. And walked. Just as our tired legs prompted us to think of home, there it was. Newcastle’s New Castle.

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The city we are in gets its name from a literal “New Castle” built on the Tyne river in the 11th Century by Edward the Conquerer’s son Robert. They weren’t very creative in those days. Robert built a castle here on return from a raid into Scotland. He called the building his New Castle, and the name has stuck ever since. It was a new castle because there formerly was a wooden Roman fort on the spot. The old wooden “castle” soon met its total demise. Some of the photos are of the “reserve” well where castle occupants would get their water in case of siege. The other is of the royal “throne”, ahem.

The straight slabs are grave stones found before the castle was originally built, meaning they pre-date 1000 A.D.

For the first time since arriving, I felt like a tourist. Here we were, camera’s intact snapping away at everything that looked interesting. It was quite a historical find and I can’t wait to go there again with others.

The top of the keep provided stunning views of Newcastle, especially on a clear day.

See the “Our Photo’s” Tab for a few other historical spots that I stumbled upon today.

If today taught me any lesson it is that you can’t meet up with opportunity unless you stand up and walk out the door.

What, might you ask, is that? It is the pamphlet piddle that is left almost daily at our front door. They are very sneaky about it, those Brits. When you are just expecting the mailman, they strike. Sometimes multiple times per day.

I have gotten very few Spam e-mails since my arrival here. But what is missing from my inbox has gathered in my entryway.

These are just some samples from this week. They are mostly pizza and other restaurant ads. One was for a gym. The odd thing is, I actually read them! Goodness. I need a life.

Yeah! Here comes the first midterms week of medical school! You know, the one test that determines almost half your grade in every class? Can I hear a big “hooray!” No? Oh.
Well, I guess I am alone in my excitement. David is in the other room where he has probably, by now, made a permanent impression on the desk chair he has occupied relentlessly for the past week or so.

While the med student’s heads might be ready to explode, it does mark a significant milestone in their first year. It is just about halfway over. Wish Dave luck!

I debated several titles for this post:
“Gimme more gigs”
“It’s 8 a.m., do you know where your internet is?”
and the most direct and accurate title, “PlusNet Sucks.”
In the end, inter-webs is just a fun word so I will use it to explain the online mess we have found ourselves in this past week. In short, we ran out of internet time.
For a little background, it was an extreme hassle getting the internet set up here in the first place. For a couple who was apart and survived on daily Skype calls, this was clearly going to be a problem.
Just before I arrived in Newcastle, the internet at our apartment was finally set up and working. However, we were operating on 10 GBs of data per month. That might seem like a lot, but when you are spending a lot of your day Skype calling family and friends back home and your computer is your only source of digital entertainment (we are not hooking up the TV here), it goes fast.
It especially went fast when I had to talk to my wonderful husband for a minimum of an hour and a half a day in the days immediately before I got here. What can I say? I missed the guy.
That gets us to this past week. We were running out of internet. Fast. We of course called and upgraded to the next bigger package (60 GB) but in the meantime, our source of home communication was cut off.
Today is the 2nd of October – the day that the internet billing cycle starts fresh and we get a new lease on …. well … communication. Or so we thought ….

The Web Thickens

We open our online monitoring site to find, to our surprise, that we still are only allotted 10 GB. The hours-long YouTube date nights and the echoes of extensive conversations with family back home seemed to fade into the ether. What happened?
Well, after a curt phone call with PlusNet customer service, we discovered that the company had run into several bugs when trying to upgrade people on their system. So rather than call customers and tell them that there was an issue getting the change to go though on time, they simply put off the upgrade until the next billing cycle. So we are all set for increased internet in November, but were promised increased internet in October.
Sometimes I feel bad for people who work in customer service call centers. You could tell that the poor girl I harangued really couldn’t do much about the problem. However, what I said did force her to take our issue to the higher ups.

I wonder if she thought I was being sarcastic when I said “have a nice day” at the end of our conversation?