April 25. Back from the slammer

Priceless moment: telling your boss that you are going to be a few minutes late to a meeting because you are just getting out of prison. Dan and I visited the Clink prison @ HMP High Down, a few miles away from our home. They are running a charity program where inmates are taught cooking and service skills that they get to apply at a restaurant run inside the prison. Once they get out, they would have attained some useful skills and certifications and many are able to secure the jobs upon release. I've been trying to make a reservation since reading about this on the news. Several months ago was fortunate to have nailed it.

It was an interesting experience. We arrived and parked on visitor's parking. We had to leave cell phones and cash (and sharp objects :)) in the car. Then we spent some time looking for the visitor registration center.  Once we found it, we exchanged our passports for visitor passes and in a group of other patrons walked inside the prison. The place seems pretty hard to escape from - high fences, barbed wire, cameras, locked in compartments between the areas. Dan looked concerned.

The restaurant itself looks like any other nice restaurant except they only have plastic cutlery and no alcohol. Inmates are dressed like waiters. The one who was serving us was very nervous. We were nervous too. How do you keep a conversation: "What are you in for?" "How soon are you going to be out?" "Are you good at remembering people's faces for the future reference?" He had a long scar on his face and tattoos on his arms and did not look like a hard core criminal. The food was very nice. Desert, waaay better than nice. As far as eating out as concerned we highly recommend Clink prison. Keep in mind that only the inmates who work at the restaurant eat food there. Everyone else get's their food from the regular cafeteria.

Speaking of the slammer, I have 3 last weeks to catch up with. We are guest free (so boring and empty already!!) for the next few weeks and so I will fill in the gaps as we go. 2 months and 3 days until we return.

April 19th-24. Bill and family visiting

Eventually to write something.

April 11-16th. Northern and Southern Wales

To write something in...

April 11th. Jumieges Abbey and back to Kingston

April 10th. Bayex, D-Day Beaches and Honfleur

Need to write about the tapestry - 1000 year old story told sewn in comics.

April 9th. Mont Saint Michel

It is not an island!! But until we read the guide on the way out we were sure it is a matter of tide before it would get flooded. As we walked through the sticky mud around the outside perimeter of the town, reading the signs about the quicksand it made for a fun experience (even though Isabella did not think so). She remembered the other Mount Michel too well.

Happy Birthday, Alenka!

April 8th. Rouen

Trying to catch up before the next trip. So this time, I will try to upload pictures instead of the text first.

Some highlights: Almost everything is closed until the small window between 3 and 6pm. Some merchants vary 2-5 or 3-4. And several, don't even open at all - based on the amount of mail stacked up behind the doors. But fortunately Doree was open, alas without the chocolate tarts.

We mentioned potentially adopting a little boy a day before. Isabella started the day by very seriously telling us that "If you get another kid, it does not mean you have to throw out all the prior ones." She must have given our discussion some serious thought.

Normandy - the capital of apples

April 7th. Wissant, Boulogne-Sur-MerDieppe, and Rouen

It was a very long and fun day. We've started out at our Hotel du Golf in Calais. The hotel receptionist maintained that we ate our breakfast out of trays on the table. Such incredible obsessive efficiency.

We started our way along the coast in the South direction stopping on the way at a couple of scenic spots to admire the views and check out decaying fortifications. Some were put in place during the first world war but others were put in here by Germans to send rocket shells over to England and to prevent landings by Allied forces. There are lots of war museums along the way. Many feature all sorts of military equipment. Once we got out to see the giant cement structure used to house an enormous cannon. The cannon is gone and the building is only a graffiti covered shell but a scary ugly looking one.

We've stopped at Wissant and Boulogne-Sur-Mer to sample the views and some baked goods. This will not be an easy journey to recover from. Our late lunch/early dinner stop was at Dieppe. It is a beautiful town that has some key elements: beautiful castle on the hill, elaborate churches, views of the channel filled with boats. We had the local specialty - scallops. Based on their appearance they were undergoing some transformation (mating?? :)). Anyhow it reflected very positively on their taste. We also had some lovely herring, smoked salmon, and oysters (Georgia). Dima had his beer out of a giant glass. Even though the waiters did not speak any English they understood our expressive looks and gave us a brand new glass to keep.

The final stop was Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Really really lovely town full of even more elaborate churches that could easily put Notre Dame de Paris to shame. It has great numbers of timbered buildings. Kind of like York to the tenth degree. Very dead looking city too. We walked around late into the evening stopping over at an area of relative light and activity to get a few beers with salami and tea for kids. 

Novotel Hotel is awesome - modern suite rooms with separate areas for kids and business area with a large table to do our work next week. But Internet barely working again. So frustrating!

April 6th. Calais

We took Eurotunnel to Calais on Saturday afternoon. Kids were entertained by driving into the train that was driving though under the channel. The goal was to get situated in Calais and start our exploration down to Normandy on Sunday. We arrived at around 5pm local time. Situated at the Hotel Du Golf – empty-looking abandoned-looking hotel across the beach. There were rows of white storage boxes on the beach. We’ve never seen anything like that. If they were in Yalta or old Sochi they could possibly rented out to house people. But here it looks like most are used to store the beach supplies.

We walked to the center town stopping to wait for boats to pass over the moving bridge. The town was pretty empty on Saturday night. One possible reason for it was because all of them were at the city hall celebrating some event. We saw the tower of the building from far away and were drawn in by its beauty. As we got closer, we saw  the lovely building that went with it. We got inside and started to look for the ticket office. But there was none in sight and everyone was too busy drinking the Champagne.  So we took the elevator to the next floor and the next, walking alone around the magnificent meeting rooms. We could not get as far as the tower but enjoyed the "private" tour with no one to stop us :) When we got back downstairs Dan dared me to join the party :)

We continued our walk but the town is really nothing to write home about. Dmitry found glorious local restaurant for us to have our dinner. It was amazing. Starting from the perfect decor which included tapestry style armchairs, chandeliers and all the works, to the incredibly nice and accommodating waiter to the food itself.. We are not used to such rich foods and so painfully dragged ourselves back to our rooms and lamenting the absence of the functional wifi connection went to sleep.

April 4th. Dima is here!

Dan swiped out Coray & Nikkie for Dmitry at the airport. And our fun life continued just like it was in November. During the day we worked, and during the evening walked around to grab some beer.

We accidentally discovered the coronation stone right across the street next to the police station. 7 Saxon kings were crowned upon that stone and that’s how Kingston derives its name. It’s only been 9 months of us living here. We were actually trying to trace down where swans go in the evenings along the stream that passes our building and came upon the stone on our way. There is a lot of egg laying around and soon we will have some cygnets, ducklings, and other baby birds (my vocabulary pretty much exhausted itself after the first two. 

The week was still somewhat jumbled. On Wed I went to Utrecht for one day business trip. I liked Utrecht – it is small and pretty and the most impressive town I’ve seen to date that gives so much space to cyclers. There is a separate wide 2 lane path on both sides of the street in the center of town. 

A whole column of parents with kids, business men and women, students are moving in both directions in the morning. Hardly anyone seems to be driving or walking. I felt strange to be one of the few people walking. Also, having been used to the fact that in the UK, as pedestrian I am the lowest type of moving creature, cyclers coming from all directions were a bit scary.

Malie Hotel was not that great – the Internet barely worked, which for a business traveler was pretty useless, despite the staff being very nice. I took the UTC cab from Amsterdam airport to Utrech. Going there was 50 euro, coming back was over 100. Rip off and they don’t even take credit cards.

Kids are off for the next few weeks. We are going to go to Normandy next week. See the town/dirve in the morning, work, have dinner and work some more. They better have good working Internet over there.

Since there was no activity on the HR front we told our landlord that we are leaving ourselves. After a string of emails with the landlord and rental agency to find out who will be walking us out we finally ended up back with the landord and no certainty on how it all will end. The agency got to work bringing in candidates, and at first had requested that we would be present, which I told them was ridiculous and so they've stopped communicating. It would be nice if the landlord had got the boiler fixed prior to starting to rent the apartment out again. The next victim will have their hot showers cut out for them, literally.