Christmas/Boxing Day - Southend on Sea

     Early Christmas morning, our friend's parents packed us up and we headed out to Southend on Sea to spend Christmas and Boxing Day stuffing our faces with delicious foods. The celebrations consisted of several families that over the years of migrating as childhood friends from Bengal to England for uni studies and careers getting together to celebrate and eat. The first unfortunate turn of events was being given a horrible Christmas sweater(and no, it's not a stupid jumper, that's something your mom wore in the 1990's, see example) to wear. We laughed at Izzy's because it looks just like one of our dogs. Soon after we arrived, the cooking was in full swing and we were being taken all over the house for introductions.

       Fortunately, we weren't the only ones with ridiculous Christmas sweaters on.

      The day kicked off with the Christmas tradition of gift giving. Somehow, this group spread out between Southend and London and down to Madrid were able to draw one person's name and had to buy them a gift. Deep played Santa and distributed gifts. Most of the people were laughing and ooohhing and aaawwwing over their gifts in a garbled mix of Bengal and English. Not having any idea what anyone was saying and not having a gift to exchange with anyone, we just sat and watched.

      Around 1:00 or 2:00, food started to trickle out. We weren't able to take many pictures of the feast as we were too busy stuffing our faces. We started with this large shrimp appetizer and a delicious sauce. The next course was turkey with delicious sides and somehow, someone though a whole ham would get eaten after all of that. Everyone was too delirious to think of eating anything else.

      Below is the ham that had to wait until Wednesday morning to get eaten as a breakfast meat. I had a quick bite to eat and then caught a ride to the nearest Underground station of Upminster.

      As much as I would have loved to have stayed and eaten more, I had other plans for Boxing Day. After a good hour from the furthest station to middle London and a transfer to take me north, I found myself in the Tottenham area of London. I walked a good half hour to White Hart Lane for the Spurs vs. West Brom game. I walked around the stadium to take in the sites. It seemed like home. There were bars decorated in Spurs decor, tons of people selling food, souvenirs, programs, and of course, ticket scalpers. It's good to see ticket scalping is a worldwide business. I had no need for one as I'd purchased my ticket weeks ago but they were in full force. I still don't understand their tactic of screaming "I need tickets". I just assume they're trying to say what you're thinking but that's just my guess. After a quick stop at the shop to buy a jersey and some other things, I grabbed myself a thick burger and headed in.

      No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That is a blue sky in London in December. I couldn't believe it myself. The sun was out but it was cold as could be in the stadium. I helped myself to a beer and marveled at the very British selection of meat pies behind the food counters. There was no messing around with hot dogs or burgers, it was meat pies and beer or nothing at all. I had a beer and almost had myself kicked out of the stadium for trying to take it into the stands with me. How dare I think English people can drink alcohol while watching a sport live and fight the urge to recycle their drink receptacle onto the field in the general direction of a player they've been abusing all game!

      The sunshine faded fast and the night time brought an even colder air to the stadium. I was fortunate to be sitting by a nice guy and his son out for a Boxing Day match. The bloke and I spoke about different players and different points of the match. His kid yelled at anything he could and tried to always keep his father's attention. It was cute and annoying all at once.

     When the match let out, I had plenty of time to kill so I meandered through Piccadilly Circus looking in stores to see if anything was worth a purchase. I caught the Underground to Brixton where I stopped at McDonald's to use their internet for a quick second. While working out plans for everyone's return from Southend, I listened to a guy tell everyone about his recent trip back to Jamaica. It was an entertaining finish to a fun day.

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London - Christmas 2013

     It's been two long years since Izzy and I stepped foot on European soil and our travel ready selves were getting tired of not having been to the continent we think of as our second home. After a visit from one of our old roommates during the summer of 2012, we decided that Christmas and New Year's would be the perfect time to make a return. So we packed our bags and headed out for two solid weeks. We planned to spend Christmas in London and Southend on Sea having a Bengali Christmas with our old flat mate and his extended family and return to Madrid where the old family we had made would reunite and ring in 2014 with a bang. It's funny to think we spent nearly 3 years in Spain and we'd never rung in the New Year's Spanish style.
     We left Friday evening from Atlanta to London. The flight was good, arrived an hour early yet, in typical London Heathrow fashion, landed on time. We circled for an hour in cloud cover that made it seem as if the plane was sitting suspended in the clouds. The crosswinds forced our captain to make an interesting landing that kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Ah, London, I never get enough of your white knuckle entrances. Our old roommates met us at the arrivals hall and took us to their flat. We had a nice lunch of cheeses, hams, and crackers with a nice red wine to wash it all down. Oh European diet, how I missed thee. We spent the evening at a London pub catching up with old friends and acclimating to the time difference.

      Sunday morning, we headed south to Brighton for the only day of sun we would get for that portion of the trip in England. Brighton was windy, a bit gray, and reminded me of the Jersey Shore. There were old abandoned amusement rides on boardwalks extending out into the ocean. Another boardwalk seemed to have gone up in flames years ago and left to rot. I can see how it would be a booming town in the summer for the five days of sun English people get a year and temperatures that might touch 80 F if they're lucky. I'm not trying to pick on the Brits for their weather but lets call it what it is, shit. We had a lunch at a local seafood heavy restaurant and grabbed a pint while watching a football match before heading back to the capital for an evening wandering around. Of course, we stopped for some obligatory sweets before getting on the train. It was a great start to our trip back to Europe.

     We bid a temporary adieu to one friend as he headed off to Turin to spend Christmas with his girlfriend and future in-laws. We wanted to have a wander around the Crystal Palace and see the ruins of the once famous glass structure that lost itself in WW2. Instead, the lovely English weather with its flooding rains and gale force winds forced us to keep our activities indoors. Instead, we were spoiled by our friend's mom who cooked some homemade food for us and we caught a movie and some bowling at a local place. It felt strange to be traveling and not feel like we had to get out and see the town as we'd been to London in 2010 during a Spring Break trip that was just as cold as it was in winter.

     On Tuesday, the weather was a bit more amenable and we headed to London to wander around. Izzy wanted to visit Liberty of London to wander around. While she looked around, I had to go find a bank that would swipe my credit card and give me cash against because I stupidly forgot to pack our debit cards and I had no other way of getting cash out of an ATM. Travel note - don't forget debit cards when going abroad. It took a couple of different places but a bank finally understood what I wanted and helped me out. We had a late snack at place called Jackson & Rye in the Soho area of town. They attempted and succeeded fairly well at serving cajun style food. After our tasty late lunch, we wandered around a bit more, had a drink at a local place our friend used to frequent, and headed back to south London to prepare to head out Southend-on-Sea for a Bengali Christmas feast.

      Of course, our friend and I had to have a go at some of the carnival games crowding the Piccadilly Circus area. What's a small fair without wasting money trying to win stuffed animals no one wants?

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Boston, MA

     With our traveling away from Boston out of the way, we had some time to roam around the city. We caught a bus from our home stay to downtown. We wandered the streets of Boston taking in the sights. We had more time to see some of the places we had to rush to see back in our visit to Boston in November 2011. We found a slew of pianos all over town. They were each decorated in different ways and are open for anyone who knows how to play to give it a go. Of course, if you don't know how to play, you can showcase your lack of talent as well.

     We wandered past a memorial to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. People tied ribbons as a memorial to the bombing on a fence near where it happened.

     Boston was hosting an exhibit of globes painted and decorated in different themes. It was interesting to see the exhibit that we had seen during the summer of 2010 in Marseille, France. Some of the globes were personalized to Boston and one memorialized the Boston Marathon.

     We ventured along the Freedom Trail for a bit. We visited the bay where the Boston Tea Party took place. The weather was beautiful and gave us a great view. There is a museum to visit but we weren't in the mood to go through it. Long story short, people were made about taxes on tea and tossed it all in the harbor. From there, we headed to the church near Paul Revere's house. The house is also a museum that requires around $10.00 to visit.

     That night, we spent some time catching up with an old friend from Madrid that is from Boston and had returned home. Always an interesting moment to hang out with friends in our actual country instead of our adopted one where we met and formed so many memories together. She took us to eat at the market next to Faneuil Hall. It's kitschy but full of crap food. Do avoid if you want to eat good food. If, on the other hand, you are a student on a budget, it might be the place for you.

     On our last full day in Boston, we headed over to Cambridge. It's famous for being home to the illustrious Harvard University. While Harvard had its heyday and still tries to hang on to its yuppy title of being an impressive place to study, the areas around it are surprisingly full of people begging from food and money. It's a strange juxtaposition of kids from well to do backgrounds feeling proud of themselves for attending a cultural legacy passing by and ignoring those in need of basic necessities.

     We had dinner that night with an old friend who happened to be in Boston on business at, of all places, a southern Cajun place. We followed the recommendations from the show Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. While they make a noble effort to bring southern soul food to northerners, its still not the same. Since all of us at dinner except our local Bostonian were from the south, we were charmed by the effort but the actual end product was far from what we would call authentic southern cuisine.

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Plymouth and Cape Cod, MA

     On Tuesday morning, we headed out towards Cape Cod to explore one of New England's favorite beach getaway. We took I-93 south until we found state road 3, the Pilgrim's Highway. Highway 3 turns into Highway 6, which takes you to Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod. Izzy's parents had been there recently and told us it wasn't worth the 2 hour drive to see a small lighthouse. We decided we'd drive halfway up to around the eastern coast near Loagy Bay. On our way there, we meandered through some fun named places like Braintree and Sandwich. It's fun to ride through places with fun names like England has. Our first stop along the Pilgrim's Highway was in Plymouth.

     Below is a picture of the rock with the year the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts engraved on it. I wasn't terribly excited to see it as I had recently read some interesting notes on the actual history of the pilgrims arrival in Bill Bryson's book Made in America. Most Americans have a vision of our history that involves Plymouth Rock being the initial landing site of the pilgrims. In fact, Plymouth Rock was the fourth or fifth place they tried to come ashore. None of the documents that survived from the initial colony even made mention of the rock. It's first mention was nearly a century later in 1715. The rock was actually made famous by a Welsh poet(Felicia Dorothea Hemans) that had never heard of nor seen the rock until fate would have it that she had some parcels wrapped in old newspaper that mentioned an anniversary celebration in Plymouth in 1826. She rushed home and dashed off a poem that would forever cement in our modern history the imagery associated with the pilgrims landing. Along with the rock, there is a boat made to be a replica of the Mayflower. It costs a few dollars and seems like something to entertain the kids. Across the street from the harbor were several trinket and souvenir shops looking to make a buck off of tourism.

     We wandered back towards the parking area and noticed some statues and plaques up on the hill. Not letting the tall stairs deter us, we headed up and found that they were all paying homage to the Native American Indians that lost their lives after the pilgrims arrived. As Bryson documents further, the natives were a bit reserved at letting the newcomers approach them and fled each time into the woods. Finally, a native named Samoset befriended them and helped them to learn how to grow food and catch animals. Both Samoset and Squanto spoke English as both had had contact with English explorers years earlier. Squanto was even taken to England where he learned English.

     We marched on east, stopping in Barnstable to have lunch at a nice French cafe called Pain d'Avignon. The weather was perfect out and we even were able to watch some small local planes landing at the airstrip next to the cafe. From there, we meandered through Yarmouth, Brewster, Kent's Point on our way to the beach. We stopped at Nauset Beach. To our surprise, when we walked out on the beach, we found a group of sea lions swimming just off the shore. They splashed and played and put on a show for everyone there. To my surprise, there were actually people swimming too. It felt nice out but not quite hot enough to merit and dip in water that cold.

     From there, we headed back to Boston as we had plans to see a friend from Madrid that moved back to Boston. She took us to a bar that has a great view of the city.

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