Last full day in England, Wednesday November 28. Shopping, shopping, shopping at the Manchester mall - basically window shopping and having something to do with Stasys without sitting and watching television. I only bought some licorice allsorts napkins for my mom and drooled over a beautiful expensive party dress that I would have nowhere to wear. Mew. 
Still wet weather, and so stopped for coffee at a cafe called Zinc and Stasys took artsy photos - oh look, the Lithuanian flag colors! Coincidence? I think not...Back in Littleborough I knew I should go to bed early since I'd have to be up at 6:30, but Stasys and I of course were up until about 3:30 watching the BBC and talking. I set three different alarm times so I wouldn't hit snooze and sleep through my flight and actually woke up before the alarm miraculously. Probably nerves...Took the train to the airport and got there with plenty of time to have a Coke at the little cafe and spent some of my remaining pound coins. Lovely chat with Staska, and then I reluctantly went to my gate...bye England...hopefully see you before too long!
Again, I know this is posted late, but better late than never. The Tuesday I was to leave to Manchester was first going to be another out of town adventure - 
Regis and I were off to Chipping Campden and Broadway, small towns a short TomTom visit away. The weather was overcast, but not rainy and so our journey started after a breakfast of Regis-made porridge, we were off! Chipping Campden is a town known for its sandstone buildings and the huge cemetery and church as we entered town was breathtaking. We found a parking spot and walked back to the field with the church in it and upon setting foot on the grass, my feet were soaked immediately. Worth it! Sheep were in the adjacent green, green fields and everything was so English! 
It was a perfect setting. We climbed the wall into the cemetery and looked around at the old tombstones, some dating to the 1800s. The sandstone was beautiful, and very different looking than ordinary old red brick or stucco. The town reminded me of Solvang, the Danish village near my house, but on a less kitschy scale. There were antique shops, tea rooms and little inns. There were Toby Jugs and Bunnykins in one antique shop, and the funny pairs of porcelain dogs my mom has in tea room windows. All of it reminded me of the English knick-knacks we have in our home.There was a hill Regis wanted to find, so we trekked up the narrow streets trying to find it. The cottages all have names - Emily's Cottage, Meadow Manor, Foxenwood House, etc - no numbers, just the names! The new guy at the post office must have his work cut out for him when delivering mail...but they were just darling! 
There was one for sale on a corner lot with a cemetery attached and so we fantasized about the clearly low price of 100 pounds on account of the location...we both had 50 pounds in our wallets, so clearly it was fate...if it were true. I do wonder how much those cottages are though, as they were so cute and who wouldn't want a cottage in England? We did not find the hill right away, but found a farm trail and a stack of sugar beets and tie-dyed sheep munching on the vegetables. The view was great, but the overcast weather did not lend itself to breathtaking photos. As it was afternoon already, we decided to trek back to the car and head to the other little town of Broadway for lunch.A short drive later, we arrived in Broadway - a clearly more upscale town with more upscale-looking tea rooms and castle-like inns and boutique shops. We walked around a bit, taking cliche photos in the red telephone boxes and quickly realizing that the restaurants were already closed and wouldn't reopen until dinner time. Lame. We ended up staying about 10 minutes in Broadway and left for Coventry again to find food and get me to the train station. Pub food, repacking and a tearful goodbye and I was on the 2 hour train to Manchester. Poor Stasys was waiting for me for quite a while, and Manchester was wet, wet, wet. Happened to stop at the store to get peanut butter cookie makings and made a better batch to redeem myself for the 'used the wrong brown sugar last time' batch. Yum.
Someone posted some advertisement on this blog, so I deleted it and 
started over since I couldn't edit the comment itself...so, Back to Coventry...thankfully I was able to get 'funfares' for bus trips and save some money, or travel on the British Isle would have proved expensive. Regis met me at the bus station, and we decided to go out to Coventry and see what there was to see. We took a bus downtown and sat on the upper deck to see the city at night. When we reached the city center, we got off and started exploring.The Coventry Cathedral was one of the first things we saw, and it was breathtaking. I love ruins, and so to see the ruin of the old cathedral next to the rebuilt cathedral was a treat for me. After doing some reading, 
I found that the original cathedral was bombed in World War II - "On the night of 14 November 1940, the city of Coventry was devastated by bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe. The Cathedral burned with the city, having been hit by several incendiary devices" - Unfortunately, it was dark and so my photos of both cathedrals do not do them justice, but the glass wall shown was etched with figures, which I found different than I had seen before because they were not the typical angels and saints one might expect, but stylized so that they looked almost skeletal. The spire is all that remains of the old cathedral - the only thing that survived the bombing. There was also a huge bronze statue of St. Michael on the front of the church, and since I also love statues, I wish I was able to take a better photo of it, but maybe Regis will go there in the day time once and I can steal photos from him.Continued on to more of the city, passing various pubs and closed shops until we found a little nice-looking Chinese restaurant called China Red. The pricing was fair and there were so many things to choose from, it was hard to narrow down choices, but in order to be adventurous we ordered frog legs as an appetizer and found them to be quite good actually. 
Sort of a cross between fish and chicken in flavor, and quite spicy. For our main meals, I was boring again and got chicken chow mein and Regis got some kind of garlic sauce beef. Both were outstanding and complimented well by the chinese pints of beer - If I go back to Coventry, I'll want to go back there.More wandering around the closed malls and I was surprised at the lack of people walking about - we were some of the only ones on the street. After goofing off for some time, dessert of McDonald's milkshakes was decided upon and caught the bus home. A fun night on the town!
London for the weekend - left Friday afternoon and arrived late because of traffic, so after running to the tube station and being held up by slow French students who couldn't figure out the automated ticket machine, 
I arrived at a theatre where I was to meet Cambria 5 minutes after 7:00, too late to go into the show. I had to wait another 40 minutes before all the late people were allowed in, when finally I was ushered to my seat to see the last half of a play that I had never heard of. The consolation prize was that Ian McKellan was in the play, as was the British guy in Anaconda and the brunette in Vanity Fair. It was called The Seagull, and the brunette from Vanity Fair was awful. After the play, Cambria and I went to pizza and then to her house via the underground. In the morning I joined her at a rehearsal at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) for one of her group projects and got in touch with Ieva and set up a meeting later in the day. Cambria and some of her friends ended up having tickets to another play called The Arsonists that afternoon, and there was a cheap ticket left for me to attend as well - it was a modern, short play that was interesting enough. Then Cambria and I had dinner at Giraffe, which was delicious and then waited for Ieva in the Waterloo tube station. Ieva met us and Cambria went home and Ieva and I went to London-China-Town for dinner for her. It was a highlight of my London trip to see her, if only for a few hours! Then I went back to Cambria's house for a girly movie and giggling...
Photos posted here!
(I know this isn't on time, but better to document the rest of the trip late rather than never) Stratford-Upon-Avon & Oxford at night! 
Regis and I drove there after he came home from work and thanks to TomTom, arrived in no time. The drive was beautiful, even at night - we strayed from the freeway and drove the scenic route through the English countryside and tiny towns along the way. Stratford is known for being Shakespeare's birthplace and so there are many statues of characters from his plays and the town is just darling. It was decked out for Christmas, with a Christmas market in the center of town. I ended up buying two pairs of Baltic amber earrings, because as much amber as was in Lithuania, the selection of green amber was limited. We then wandered around taking photos and looking for a restaurant that wasn't going to cost us such a pretty penny. We settled on Usha, an Indian restaurant that was reasonably priced and yet fancy looking. It was delicious! I was boring and ordered chicken tikka masala and Regis was adventurous and got something he'd never had before - chicken pathia - both dishes were wonderful and we then treated ourselves to a coconut ice cream sundae for dessert. More walking around, then headed back to the car to give TomTom a new destination for the evening - Oxford.Arrived at 
Oxford and had a quick coffee in an Irish pub and then proceeded to walk around and explore one of the hearts of England's academic world. We saw Oxford castle and walked for some time while Regis tried to remember where one of the university's main buildings was. The streets were full of loud teenagers, most sounding drunk and we walked by a 'let's take this outside' fight between two groups of young men. Heart of England's academic world indeed...but the trip was fun, we ended up finding an ancient library and set of university buildings and then wandered back to the car and headed home. It was late and my knack for falling asleep in the car was not helpful for Regis, who was also tired and so I tried telling stories to keep us both awake, but that proved easily ignorable and so I resorted to a random question game. "Would you rather eat a snake or an eel?" etc...
Still wet weather, and so stopped for coffee at a cafe called Zinc and Stasys took artsy photos - oh look, the Lithuanian flag colors! Coincidence? I think not...
