Norwich Beer Festival.

Around the end of October, Tina and I headed to St. Andrew's Hall - which used to be a church - for the 2010 Norwich Beer Festival, put on by Norwich CAMRA [Campaign for Real Ale: "campaigning for real ale, pubs and drinkers' rights since 1971" - now that's a charity I can get behind!]. I put on my Angkor Beer shirt from Cambodia for the occasion.

Around 11 on a Friday morning, we made our way to the back of a very long line. While we waited for about 45 minutes to get in, we noticed that the line was mostly full of guys. Beer festival? More like sausage fest!





Once inside, we bought tickets and glasses and headed over to the cider kegs. These were nothing like Strongbow, though - very different taste and almost no carbonation. I got a perry, which is a cider made from pear instead of apple. The older gentleman who was pouring cider out gave me a couple samples first, and when I chose one and asked for a half pint, he just looked at me and said, "A hahlf pint." I said, "Yes, a half pint." He said, "No - a hahlf pint." So I put on my best British accent and was rewarded.

In the area featuring Norfolk beer, we started talking to three guys - a father-in-law, a son-in-law, and the son-in-law's friend. They come here every year, and the friend even comes all the way from London, where he now lives. He knows he's going to be made redundant soon, and he's planning on taking up brewing - so we listened to his recommendations for what to try out.

I finished up the experience with a Scotch egg ["a shelled hard-boiled egg, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried" - wikipedia] and a beer called Hey Pesto, which did, in fact, taste like pesto. I was appalled and intrigued at the same time.

Norwich: serendipitous music.

A few weeks ago, a few of us went to the university to see the tea-drinking DJ Mr. Scruff lay down some phat beats.



It's a fun show, with Mr. Scruff's own drawing accompanying the beats. It started a little slow, though, and by the time it seemed like it was getting more interesting, we couldn't really get into it anymore and a particularly inebriated member of our group [not me or Ella, just to clarify!] was insisting we leave.

Thank goodness for that particularly inebriated member of our group, because the timing was perfect - after the 30-minute walk home, Ella and I were just coming up to her place right when a big white van was parking right in front of her house. We noticed it had a German license plate, and when multiple handsome young men started piling out of the van, we decided to strike up conversation. It turns out they're a Danish "death indie" band called Mimas, they had played a show that night elsewhere in Norwich, and they were spending the night in a house just down the street. Since I generally know I like indie music and adorable Danish men, I bought their album despite not having heard the actual music - they were very excited about their first-ever street sale.

We got a picture and hugs from Mimas.

It turns out we loved their music, anyway, so it all worked out. Here's a taste [and if you like this, also check out Dad Rocks!, a solo project by one of the guys]:

P.S. Some of Ella's roommates really like Bon Iver, Eau Claire's hometown heroes. It's very exciting to rock out to Bon Iver in a student kitchen in England and tell the roommates that Justin Vernon, the group's leading man, lives a few miles from my parents! [And if you like Bon Iver, also check out Volcano Choir, another Justin Vernon project. In fact, I couldn't quite get into Bon Iver at first, but after listening to and loving Volcano Choir, I gave Bon Iver another chance and fell in love with them, too.]

Passive houses are the best thing ever!

I finally got around to reading a New York Times article from September on passive houses in the US and how they're lagging far behind the passive house movement in Europe, especially Germany.

Exciting quote:

...homes using [the passive house standard] can be up to 80 percent more energy-efficient, over all, than standard new houses and consume just 10 percent of the heating and cooling energy.

The past two years, I've been involved in translating the Passivhaus Institut's annual conference proceedings, and although by the end of the month-long process I'm a little burnt out and threaten physical and/or psychological harm to anyone who dares utter the words "blower door test" or "shape factor" near me, I actually think they're really fascinating and a very important future-oriented, sustainable construction option. The upfront costs scare a lot of people away, but over time, they more than pay themselves back by saving on heat, etc. - especially since it's likely that energy prices will just keep rising.

I'm pretty sure the Brits have never heard of double-glazing [and triple-glazing is probably up there with fairies and minotaurs - the stuff of legend!]. Even when windows are completely closed here, the draft [or draught, as they call it here] still rustles the curtains. Ridiculous. The heating bills in this country must be through the [insufficiently insulated] roof.

I want a passive house when I grow up!

Norwich: cats.

I mean, Norwich isn't one of those places where stray cats are running around all over the place, begging for food at cafes and hanging out at the beach. But there are a lot of cats here, for some reason. They seem to have free run of Ella's street, although they're not strays - they're well taken care of and are usually wearing collars.

This one was chilling at a pub down the street and had no qualms about jumping on Ella's lap and demanding attention.

There are so many cats here, the university even provides special parking for them.

Norwich: a couple churches!

Here's something interesting about England: it has churches!

And they're pretty.

Norwich: traffic cone thinking cap.

A statue in the main shopping area [don't know who the guy actually is, though].

Written on the back of the same statue: "is this it?" Not sure whether that's referring to life in general, the crass commercialism surrounding the statue, or traffic cone hats.

In a country where some pubs close at 11 p.m...

...of course 8 p.m. is considered "late night shopping."

How cute.

The wandering umbrella.

This umbrella has been around the world with me, but it rarely saw the light of day [or rather, gray skies of rain] in places like Egypt. I finally brought it out in a serious way here in England, and one day, upon returning home, I set it down, still partly open, in the shoe area at the bottom of the stairs to dry out.

A few days later I noticed that it had disappeared.

A day or two after that, Ella and I headed to the nearby Tesco Express for some groceries, and in the yard of a house halfway there, there was my umbrella - closed up and lying in a complete stranger's yard.

The most likely explanation is a drunk roommate, but I prefer to think that my umbrella had caught the travel bug and wanted to see more of the world for itself.

Although if that's the case, it should've tried a little harder - every time we walked by for the next couple weeks, it was still lying there. I'm not sure how the people in the house didn't notice a strange umbrella in their yard for that long.

But it's gone now, and I just hope it's fulfilling its dream and seeing the wonders of the world - although probably just on rainy days.

Norwich: revenge of the colony.

Haven't been to a game yet, but maybe I should look one up...after playing softball in Germany, I'm fascinated by American sports in other countries.

Apparently Uncle Sam's secret identity is Captain America.
I WANT YOU...to eat a hamburger.

Jesus dinosaurs in Cambridge.

Ella had to work at the Lush store in Cambridge for a day, so I went along for the ride.

I spent most of the day wandering around town and along the River Cam before finding a bench on the riverbank for a bit of reading and nap-taking.

Speaking of naps, the main thing I noticed about the town was its habit of naming things after that dude who took a three-day one.

A sign pointing to Christ's Pieces, one of the parks.

Jesus Lock Gauging Station on the river.

One of the colleges in the University of Cambridge is called Jesus College - because it's on Jesus Lane - but its full name is actually The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the Glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Fun fact from wikipedia: "The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely. It has been traditionally believed that the nunnery was turned into a college because the nunnery had gained a reputation for licentiousness."

Also, there are dinosaurs on the college's lawn. Licentious nuns and Jesus dinosaurs...my kind of college!

It was a glorious day with beautiful skies - here are a few other pictures from my wanderings.

The State of Suspended Animation, also known as England.

After one last night at home, consisting of dinner with the parents and grandmother, giggles with the friends, and packing, my dad drove me to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport to catch my flight to London.

The problem was, back in February, I bought a flight to London for the end of September, thinking I would have my visa for Portugal by then [I was planning on buying the flight from London to Porto closer to the time]. As it turned out, I didn't have it by then. But it cost far too much to cancel the flight, so instead of hunkering down at my parents', I decided to twiddle my thumbs in England until I get the go-ahead for Portugal.

I almost had to turn back around to Eau Claire, anyway - the check-in people at the airport almost didn't let me on the plane. I had no return flight and no long-term visa [yet!], so they were concerned that England would turn me away, and they didn't want to be responsible for getting me back to the US. After a few phone calls and reassurances that Germany had trusted me enough to give me plenty of visas, they grudgingly let me check in.

Of course, I spent the course of the trip terrified that I would indeed be yelled at and told to turn right back around the minute I stepped foot on British soil.

Of course, the passport person barely glanced at me, asked a few perfunctory questions, and waved me into Her Majesty's United Kingdom.

Since then, I've been crashing at Ella's, working a little, sleeping a lot, getting back into running, reading, meeting some incredible people from around the world [including enough Portuguese people to make my own Little Portugal right here in Norwich], and, perhaps most importantly, watching every single episode of How I Met Your Mother.

Also, some other stuff. But that's for future posts.