I recently took a trip to the UK...It was absolutely amazing! I got off to a bit of a rocky start...ended up stuck at the airport for 10 hours. My plane that was originally scheduled to take off at 6, didn't leave until 1 am....my first and most astounding impression of the country was at the airport waiting for the plane to take off...It was mind blowing to look around and see all of the little groups of families laughing and smiling and playing games with eacher....at one point all of the kids gathered in the big open space for a game of soccer/keep away, while the parents watched and cheered on their kids...I hate to think and compare the difference of how it would be were you to put a mass of American families in the same situation...instead of having the kids crying and whining about being bored and hungry with the parents frustrated and yelling at their kids....everyone just sat and smiled and played with eachother. I was extremely impressed to say the least.

I spent my first four days in Llandudno. A sleeply little traditional victorian vacation town set in the hills above the sea. The landscape was beatiful...The people were extremely nice...and the pace was that of "sit back, relax, and enjoy your life." Eating dinner (or afternoon tea as they call it there) is an event...the service in every restaurant, is that what you would get in only a five star establishment here in the States. Every meal is at least two courses and it's typical to go through five or six bottles of wine. (which we did.....every night!) And you are typically sitting at the restaurant laughing, drinking, talking for three or four hours. The food is delicious...lots of interesting dishes. Chips and gravy is your typical hang-over food and lamb is served twenty different ways in every restaurant..and lets not even get into the black pudding (dried lambs blood)! I think I ate more this past week than I have in the last fiver years combined.

In Llandudno, I spent some time exploring and taking pictures. The people are all very nice, however, not really "friendly". One night I was on my own, so I stopped into one of the popular pubs for a few drinks, hoping to meet some interesting locals...but no....the mind-set there is that you go out with your group of friends...and you stay with your group of friends...people sit around in little cluster and don't tend to associate with anyone outside of that. I did get the chance to meet some really great and interesting people, but they were from Estonia, and a couple from London, but I have to give big points to Americans for being so "friendly".

I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and mentality that comes with British people. It may suck that every store shuts down at exactly five in the afternoon, but it was nice to be enveloped with a sense that work isn't what your life is about..it's what goes on afterward.

The Hotel I stayed in was very nice! I was greeting with flowers sent by the office I was there to work at... It was very old and very victorian...the shower head for the bath tub was linked to faucets, and didn't hang over head, so I had to take a bath every night at then rinse off. The toilet had a wooden seat and a pull string to flush (which, by the way, you had to pull five times!) There was a sitting area in the lobby with furniture older than America...I had a great little chat with a very old British man one of the nights while I was enjoying a drink and writing in my journal.

Sunday evening Mike and I headed out to spend two days in a small farming town...out in the middle of nowhere, called Holmes Chapel for the managers seminar. We stayed in a big conference center that reminded me of an old English boarding school. I ventured out down the street to snap some photos of the local sheep one of the nights, but there was basically nothing else to do there but hang out with my class mates and eat...and drink!!

My last night was spent in Manchester. I loved Manchester....it is a perfect mix of old traditional architecture and bold modern buildings. The population is extremely diverse, not like anything you would see here in the US...I sat at a pub to have a drink and met some people from Pakistan....we talked about love, peace, religion, and family...Afterwards I did some shopping and wandered aimlessly through the streets, taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. Manchester seemed to be a great city, and I could definatley have used a few more days to play there. I was really dissapointed I didn't get a chance to haunt some of the local pubs and check out the music scene.

My first trip out of the US...I know it was a pretty safe and accomidating one, seems how the Brits love Americans! But I was still surprised how easy and laid back the atmosphere always is, and how proud they are of their history...they are a culture very rooted in tradition...yet somehow, through the hundreds of years their culture has on ours have come to a perfect balance between work and play, and a perfect understanding of how to treat others!

Here is the link to my pics: s68.photobucket.com/albums/i...K%208-06/