Family Dinner

One of my co-workers, Jez, invited me over to his home for dinner tonight.

We left after work and headed to his home a few miles away. The meal was great - Lamb, broccoli, potatoes, etc. Jez and his wife have 2 little kids, 6 year old boy and a 2 year old daughter. It made me very homesick for my own kids, but enjoyed being there.

After dinner, Jez's son was showing me his lego's and wii games. Hmm who do know that likes those 2 things.

I told Jez we will have to play the wii online sometime. I know Ryan would like it.

Dillington House

After work I decided to see a few other things in here in Ilminster. This castle/house is just about a 1/2 mile from where I've been working all week. I never would have known it was there.



It wasn't open to the public without a reservation, so I didn't get to go inside, but took this picture of the garden.



I guess if you're going to have a house this size, you need some pheasants.

The Office

The rental car. I'm not sure why I got such a big nice car. (compared to the rest of the cars here) I almost wished I have a smaller car after driving the roads.



The office here in Ilminster. It is called the Lumber house. Apparently it was an old barn that was converted into an office park.



There are only 3 guys in this office. I'm the forth. This is the whole office. There is an upstairs part, that houses all their servers.



It's been great working here. I enjoy the office here.

The Village of Ilminster

It's been raining all day. Matter of fact, I don't think a day has gone by without rain here. 7 day forecast shows more rain. However, the rain stopped just long enough for me to grab my camera and head into town. I moved hotels after getting back from Paris. I'm now in the Village of Ilminster, Somerset, England.

A few pictures of my outing today.

Looking out the window of my hotel room.



Some of the older houses here have a thatched roof. Thatching is the craft of covering a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge, rushes and heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. After a while (with all this rain) moss grows on top of the roof.



Here's what it looks like up close. This looks like a newer roof compare to what I've seen around.



The old church in town.




We don't make churches like we used to. Last week I walked into this church. The stained glass was amazing.




Another hillside view. It's so beautiful and green here. I'm afraid to go back and see my dead yellow lawn.

One way street - right?

Wrong! And to top it off I have to drive on the wrong side of the road. As I come to intersections I find myself verbally saying: " Left, Left, Left" so I don't forget which side of the road to be on.


On a positive note, driving 40mph on the wrong side of the road with roads this narrow are an adrenaline rush. Feels like you're going 90mph.

New words

It's fun to hear new words or words used that I hadn't heard.

Here are a few I've heard so far.

billet - ticket (train ticket) - "Billets. please"
boot -trunk of car
rubbish - garbage and/or slang for "crap"
quid - Slang for A pound sterling (£)

Long Travels

I left Paris this morning around 7:30am. Jumped the subway ($12.00 one way trip) towards the airport. Because it took me about 2.5 hours to get from the airport to my hotel, I didn't want to chance it and miss my flight (even though it left at noon.) This time it took me just over an hour to travel, which put me at the airport around 9am for my 12:05 flight.

Of course my flight was delayed and left about 45 minute late. This made me miss my train ride back in to London and pushed my 10 hour commute (from Paris to Ilminster, England) to a 12 hour commute, as I had to wait for the next train.

It was a long day, but I'm glad I was able to go to Paris this weekend.

After the tour..blah, blah

After the tour, I walked from the Champs Elysees to the Eiffel Tower. I really didn't want to ride up the Eiffel Tower. ($12 to $19 us dollars) Besides, it's pretty but, not as impressive as the Twin towers in NYC, when they were there. Having been on top of the twin towers, I've seen a similar view.



Here's a picture of my hotel.



Not to far from where I was standing to watch the tour was this Ferris Wheel. It was pretty at night.

The city of Love - Really

I know Paris is called the "city of Love" but does that include a booth at McDonalds? Having paid for a "closet", I mean hotel room for $125 bucks a night, I now understand why there are so many people out in the open and not in their room. Heck it's almost too expensive to even get a booth at McDonalds. 6 euros for a Big Mac Meal - or about $9 US dollars.

Paying to Pee

Whomever came up with this "brilliant idea" either had more money than needed or a large bladder. I first saw these "pay to pee" toliets in Paris, just a the Tour de France ended. I needed to go to the bathroom, but not enough to pay for it. I also saw them in London train station.

The fee was small, 20 pence, or about 35 cents, but who wants to pay to pee. Where are my basic human rights, like the right to worship as I please or the right to bear arms that are protected by the U.S. Constitution, opps.. wrong country. I think I would have sailed the ocean blue too, if I was charged to pee.