This Other Eden, etc.
May. 20th, 2008 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechWell, it's a pretty sure bet that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lythandra and I won't have gone to the U.K. this past March, considering that it's now May. ;) Although that conclusion was more or less foregone when we decided to bite the bullet and buy a house.
I still want to do it, tho; it doesn't look likely to happen before 2010 now, as we'll have to save up and do that whole "get a passport" thing still. And of course, there's the whole question of what we'd do once we got there. My initial plan was Portmericon, and I'd still like to get to that, but it's not so much for the event itself as it is for a framework to put it into.
I realize the irony of wanting to actually go to England on holiday, but there are lots of reasons I want to go there. The most obvious one is my ancestry … I've got Scots-Irish (hence the hair and eyes), I've got bits of German, bits of French, and depending on if you believe the rumors even a few wandering bits of Native American in there — but most of it is English, from somewhere in that northwest corner somewhere near Carlisle. It'd be nice to connect with my roots, as the saying goes.
There's also just the affinity I feel with British culture, as opposed to a lot of American culture. I read British books, I watch British television, I laugh at British humor; once in high school an underclassman was apparently under the impression that I actually was British, because I "seemed like it," whatever that meant.
The climate change is another factor; I recently found a webpage posted in 2001 by an American in England, and I was amused by the passage, "The British love to complain about their always mild weather." As anyone who has known me for a while can probably attest, I am famous for hating Virginia summers and longing for a place where long sleeves in June is a perfectly rational thing to expect without having to deal with 32" of snow starting in November. The closest thing we have to that in the U.S. is the Pacific Northwest, which is another place I am prone to going to when I have the opportunity. But there I miss what old-worldiness there is to find here — which presumably would not be the case in the U.K., by definition!
So anyway, I'm just rambling, I guess. Point is, "going to the U.K. someday" is still in my plans, even though it's been shoved back a bit due to buying a house.
-The Gneech
lythandra and I won't have gone to the U.K. this past March, considering that it's now May. ;) Although that conclusion was more or less foregone when we decided to bite the bullet and buy a house.I still want to do it, tho; it doesn't look likely to happen before 2010 now, as we'll have to save up and do that whole "get a passport" thing still. And of course, there's the whole question of what we'd do once we got there. My initial plan was Portmericon, and I'd still like to get to that, but it's not so much for the event itself as it is for a framework to put it into.
I realize the irony of wanting to actually go to England on holiday, but there are lots of reasons I want to go there. The most obvious one is my ancestry … I've got Scots-Irish (hence the hair and eyes), I've got bits of German, bits of French, and depending on if you believe the rumors even a few wandering bits of Native American in there — but most of it is English, from somewhere in that northwest corner somewhere near Carlisle. It'd be nice to connect with my roots, as the saying goes.
There's also just the affinity I feel with British culture, as opposed to a lot of American culture. I read British books, I watch British television, I laugh at British humor; once in high school an underclassman was apparently under the impression that I actually was British, because I "seemed like it," whatever that meant.
The climate change is another factor; I recently found a webpage posted in 2001 by an American in England, and I was amused by the passage, "The British love to complain about their always mild weather." As anyone who has known me for a while can probably attest, I am famous for hating Virginia summers and longing for a place where long sleeves in June is a perfectly rational thing to expect without having to deal with 32" of snow starting in November. The closest thing we have to that in the U.S. is the Pacific Northwest, which is another place I am prone to going to when I have the opportunity. But there I miss what old-worldiness there is to find here — which presumably would not be the case in the U.K., by definition!
So anyway, I'm just rambling, I guess. Point is, "going to the U.K. someday" is still in my plans, even though it's been shoved back a bit due to buying a house.
-The Gneech
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Date: 2008-05-20 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-20 06:55 pm (UTC)-The Gneech
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Date: 2008-05-21 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 11:30 am (UTC)-TG
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Date: 2008-05-20 08:57 pm (UTC)Edit: Well, look at what I wikied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odell_Castle).
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Date: 2008-05-21 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 04:07 am (UTC)Why hell, you're a mutt like me! I've got the same European background.
First, let me wish you congrats on the choice to get a house. That's awesome.
Second I wish I could go to England (the British Isles in general) as you and yours are contemplating. I would love to renew ties with relatives in Sheffield, and to track down my Scot-Irish roots.
Frankly the only traveling I've ever done has been to Ozark, Missouri, and Sitka, Juneau, Skagway, Alaska and Victoria, BC. I loved Alaska, but I still would love, as I wrote, to visit the British Isles.
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Date: 2008-05-21 04:32 am (UTC)-=TK
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Date: 2008-05-21 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 03:56 am (UTC)-=TK
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Date: 2008-05-21 01:07 pm (UTC)I've been there 4 times and always enjoy it. Hire a car and go mad on the B roads.
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Date: 2008-05-21 01:09 pm (UTC)Start passport application now, or at least get the forms. You never know what diabolical loopholes the government may want you to jump through. This can be frustrating if you want to travel in 2 months only to find out the waiting time for passports is 90 days , or you need a triple-signed birth certificate stating that the 3rd eye fell out on it's own....
Oh yeah, have a nice trip when you do eventually go
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Date: 2008-05-22 09:22 am (UTC)