Oh the Highlands...

Went up to Edinburgh last week with Tom and Arnold. We hired a car and, like the Canadians that we are, drove for hours and saw as much as we possibly could. We did take our British friend Tabby along, but she loves road trips, so she was cool with it. I did have to tell the guys to stop saying, "This looks like BC!" because it was probably annoying Tabby (but of course it wasn't because she's awesome)! Some areas of the Highlands definitely reminded us of BC, but I am not sure if it's just because we have been in Southern England for so long--anything with mountains and lakes looks just like BC to us!

We ventured up to Stirling, and Loch Lomond (which we kept pronouncing wrong) the first day. The second day we went over to Dundee (by accident) and then up to Inverness through Perth and the National Park area. Wow, the drive was incredible. It did not look anything like BC the second day(too bad Tabby wasn't with us)...rough terrains, amazing moss covered mountains... you look at all the soft grass and rolling hills and can't help but think, "no wonder the Scottish invented golf!". We finally arrived at Inverness, a city in Northern Scotland. I think it is the biggest city in the North, but I could be wrong. It boasts of being the "Highlands of Scotland" antd o give you an idea of where it is latitude-wise, it's almost equal to the Yukon border. Oh and yes, we did go to Loch Ness, but I didn't see Nessie...only in the souvenir shops!

We also saw lots of Highland Coos! I love them...especially the famous "Hamish" the coo. Here's a picture of one--took it myself!

Customer Service

One of the things I won't miss about living in England is the customer service. Not only are they rude (more often than not), but they also have this strict 'can't think out of the box' attitude. And this is not just my opinion, I have talked to several people, foreigner and Brits, who agree that the customer service here sucks--and is frustrating in a 'tons of paperwork and no flexibility' kind of way.

For example, today I went in to discuss a monthly bill I pay. Because I won't be here for the entire year, I asked them to break my payments in 12 months instead of 10 months which they currently do. You pay the same at the end of the year, but if you are only staying for half the year, then you would pay more each month (and not get the benefit of two months without pay).

Let me walk you through the conversation I had to endure, and I have simplified it-- I am not even doing it justice:

Me: I would like to have my bill changed so that it is distributed over 12 months, and not 10 as it is now.
Them: Oh I am sorry we can't do that.
Me: Why not?
Them: Because this is the way that we do billing by 10 installments.
Me: Okay. But this is for an annual fee and I am not staying for the whole year.
Them: Yes but you are actually charged per day, so we need to do 10 installments.
Me: Okay, if I am charged per day, then please distribute my bill over 365 days.
Them: No we can't do that because I would have to go back and talk to someone in charge.
Me: Okay, let's try that then. Why don't you go back & ask.
Them (becoming all fidgety because they never want to do more work than the minimal amount): Well, you could write a letter or send an email asking, and they will review your reason and maybe let you do it but probably not, because we don't do that.

Oh my goodness---not even logical reasoning. A serious inability to think outside the box of 'rules'. And then they try to say the same thing a different way to convince you. Or there was the time Tom tried to get our mail forwarded and they made him bring all this documentation of where we lived and then said they don't do university addresses-but we didn't live at a university address, just housing for Marrieds & Couples 'affiliated' with the university. Tom actually had to convince her that we do in fact get mail delivered to us by the postman (she accused Tom of thinking it was the postman when it was actually someone else like a university worker) I'm sorry, do you actually think that Tom could do a PhD at Oxford and not know what a real postman looks like?

There is no such thing as putting the customer first here...at least I have barely ever seen it. Sometimes we get friendly people, which is great, but often we get people just making things up in order for us to go away (no seriously, we know this has happened for a fact). Our Aussie friends just bought a house here and they said it was a nightmare of paperwork and illogical customer service stories. Oh geez. Yep, won't miss that. Especially since I really take my rights as a customer seriously (I am a Martin after all) and I can't get no R.E.S.P.E.C.T. in this country! I have rights people~!

Le Provence

Tom and I went with my sister/hubby to Spain and Southern France last week. It was amazing and even though Barcelona was cool, and we saw lots of great things--including the coast, going to Les Baux de Provence was by far the coolest experience.

We got there early with lots of time to visit the Chateau and see all the history. I highly recommend going to see this 'town built on a rock'. It's surrounded by Olive groves and beautiful skylines...and we were so lucky to have a hot sunny day to see the sights.

The streets in this town are super narrow and jam packed with character. And because it was March, there were hardly any tourists there (which is rare and we heard in the summer it's just swarming with people) so seeing it in the spring and basically feeling like we had the place to ourselves was amazing. Honestly, it wouldn't have been half as nice had it been packed with people. We stayed for a night in Le Prince Noir, one of two small hotels found in the village (only 20 people live up in the village and 3 families pretty much own the whole town). As described by the all powerful wikipedia, it is "set atop a rocky outcrop crowned with a ruined castle overlooking the plains to the south. Its names refers to its site — in Provençal, a baou is a rocky spur." Our hotel, like most of the town was built on the rock face, so we had some of the landscape right in our room (see below)---it was fantastic. Here's some pictures to give you a feel for it. Definitely gave me a new appreciation for France. Oh and it didn't help that I shoved my face with baguettes and croissants the whole time, that made me love it too :)

The view from the roof of our hotel

The hallway in our suite, yes that is rock face.

A typical street in Les Baux

Visitors.

My sister and brother-in-law have come to Oxford just for a short visit before heading off elsewhere in the UK, and then eventually meeting us in Spain next week (so excited!!). We had about half a day to show them around Oxford and it got me thinking about the best places to see in Oxford. In MY HUMBLE OPINION, by the way. So here's my list, if anyone out there wants to start a tourism extravaganza in Oxford (for which by the way, you would make a killing).

1. Oxford University -- 2 -3 Colleges MAX! Oxford is made up of 39 different colleges, and really once you have seen a few, you have seen them all.
a. Christ Church (the biggest one)--Harry Potter/Alice in Wonderland fans, this is your
stop.
b. Exeter College (back Garden has the best view of Oxford, and the best view of the
Radcliffe Camera.
c. Merton, or Magdalen, or for something different, Keble College.

2. The Radcliffe Camera (see above)
3. The Covered Market (so cool!) - Best places: Pieminister, Mr. Moo's milkshakes, and Ben's Cookies, and the so amazing cake shop!
4. The Sheldonian Theatre
5. Cowley Road (see the ethnic side of Oxford) - The Kazbar (a Spanish/North African Tapas restaurant)
6. Head of the River Pub (great place, right on the river)
8. Jamie's Italian (just because it's one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants!)

Those are a few of the best places to visit in Oxford - especially if you only have half a day.

Necropolis

During our time in Scotland, we had a day where we took the students to the Museum of Religious Life & Art and the Necropolis. It was really fasinating to see the history of religion and go to the cemetary. One thing that struck me at the Necropolis was the cool epitaphs that were there...Here's a few pics of them with the writing below (because it's hard to read in the picture).

"Shall man's mighty mind that has mysteries unsealed,

the secrets of God's mighty temple revealed?

Can that mind become matter--a cold clayey sod?

No it shall reign evermore with eternity's God."

"With Christ which is far better"

"Though lost to sight to memory dear,

the faithful friend will drop a tear"

"Be ye also ready" (Powerful on a grave stone!)

"She rests from her labours

and her works do follow"

There were more interesting ones, but I will leave it there for now.

Confused.

I need to friggin' remember what city I am in. It's so hard because every other time I have been to Scotland, I have always stayed in Edinburgh (and that was where project was last year). This morning, I asked for 10 tickets to Glasgow...to which the guy replied in a great Scottish accent, "aye love, that'll be really cheap cause you're already here". Haha....oh dear. And later this evening I ran for a train to Edinburgh, while in Edinburgh. Good one Mindy. Sharp.

Birmingham

It's good to get out of Oxford sometimes. It's such a world of it's own (really a University town feel) and most people say it has a sub-culture of its own. And frankly, I get sick of it sometimes. It's nice to get out, it reminds you that generally people ARE actually down to earth.

Because of my work, I have been traveling by train to Birmingham a lot lately. I love taking the train, being able to work on my laptop (with wifi!) and look out over the countryside at the sheep. Yes. Loads of sheep. Last spring it was nice to see all the little lambs too :) The countryside is really flooded these days, after all the masses of snow melted, it's amazing the railroad doesn't get flooded or houses for that matter, they don't exactly build the land up to protect against these things.

Birmingham: good shopping (maybe just compared to Oxford too!). They have this shopping centre called the Bullring (pic below) near the downtown train station. It's a crazy building, and I can't remember how it got the name again, something about it being where the Market was in the Middle Ages. Not much else to see in the city, although I haven't seen much of it, so I am sure lots of people would disagree. The university is nice, feels like a Canadian university and I bought fresh vegetables for cheap there once (at an outdoor market). I love going to Birmingham because I get out of Oxford, and most of the time I am welcomed into a lovely, cozy home (the McNeill's) and I have a productive day working on the UK national training with my colleague Ruth McNeill. Apparently there is a botanical garden downtown that's really lovely, we'll hopefully work there next time.

So that's Birmingham to me. Not too exciting, but refreshing to get out of this crazy town I live in.