Mrs Bridges’ Pantry

Getting near the end of stuff we did over Xmas I promise.. so Kim and my Mum and Kim’s Dad took a trip to Mrs Bridges’ Pantry which is a cute tearoom that’s run by an English lady and her American wife (career change?).

I found my future supplier of Marmite and Branston Pickle (albeit pretty expensive!).

There was meant to be a storm on the way but at first it was just a light dusting of snow.

Important to stock up on calories when it’s cold out.

Anyway the storm never came but we did get a little snow which my Mum and I were very excited about (Kim and her Dad less so!) and everywhere looked like a winter wonderland.

Old Sturbridge Village

Kim, her Dad and my Mum took a little trip to Sturbridge Village (Kim’s Mum had to work that day) which is this cool recreated colonial timesey type village where you can walk about the place and go into buildings and explore them.

Let me tell you, I am glad I did not live then, life seemed fairly rubbish and I’m pretty sure I would have spent all of it bitching.

They had a lot of preserved artefacts.

And you could walk through different classes of peoples’ homes. These people were obsessed with chairs, every room had a gazillion chairs in it, even lining the bedroom walls which the signs said was for storage but in reality it looked like a creepy theatre to watch women give birth which by all accounts they did pretty much continually until death. Heh… fun. I liked their quilts. I also liked this frozen pond which we had fun throwing rocks at to see how frozen it was (spoiler, I am not good at throwing).

They also had workshops in the village and you could watch people do pottery or cooking and they had a blacksmith all using old techniques from the time which was interesting. My father in law promised to handcraft me a tin watering can which I think he meant as a joke but I will be expecting delivery of in all sincerity.

On the drive home we went past a lot of people’s houses that had lights in but none so many as this guy’s house… there were more lights that I couldn’t even fit in the photo, a lot of cars stopped outside of it to go and see the lights up close. Apparently it’s for food bank collections but I didn’t see anywhere to put food so perhaps he just really likes pissing off his neighbours… who knows.

Mystic Aquarium & Village

A couple of days after Christmas we took a trip to Mystic, now you might know that Mystic is a historic seaport and featured in a movie called Mystic Pizza however we actually visited the aquarium there and the shops nearby at Old Mystic Village and completely bypassed the quaint seaport that Kim denied existed (abominable lies!).

That being said the aquarium was really good, they had beluga whales that were real show offs and kept interacting with the crowd.

All the animals looked well cared for and happy, the intelligent ones had toys to interact with and well kept enclosures.

Kim petted a ray that came right up to her and swam out of the water to get her attention… and then got told off haha. My mum spent about 15 minutes staring at and photographing the beautifully lit jellyfish.

And I got another squashed penny for my collection.

This chap was huge, I liked him. After that my good lady wife treated us to a nice lunch in Old Mystic Village, actually I think it’s spelled Olde Mystick Village but I can’t quite bring myself to use that name without cringing a little.

We browsed all the funny knick knack stores for tat. This store had Scandinavian goods in and Kimmy highlighted the under funding of USA public school’s geography classes by finding a sign that said “Danish” on it and asking if that’s where we were going on holiday in February… we are of course going to Amsterdam.

We also went into an Irish shop and found they sold Crunchie bars and Flakes so I am sorted for when I move. I was strong and resisted buying yet another Christmas tree ornament.

After that we went to Buckland Hills Mall on the way home and all bought jumpers… or sweaters as the natives like to call them, a jumper is a dress in America. There’s something unwholesome about the word sweater… sweat..uhgh! Also I spent about half an hour in the sales at Bath & Body Works, my most beloved American shop.

After that we zoomed back to Kim’s house then ditched my Mum and zoomed out again for a date at Olive Garden, romanticcccc, look at the meal I got, just look at it. It was meant to be a miniature trio of three meals for people like me who are being indecisive about Italian food but really it was just immensely huge (again, see my dinner for the next day). We had an extremely attentive server who replaced my ice tea the second I finished it a bit like a waiter-ninja, got cheese cake to go and paid with a gift card which in my books is a winning night.  What more could one want?

Boxing Day At Foxwoods Casino

Just look at it… so majestic.

If Santa is reading, I want crystal stuff to play with every year. I got lots of really great gifts this year, Kimmy outdid herself and got both of us DNA tests from ancestry.com to find our racial history so we’ve sent that off and that should be fun. Also I have this thing where I feel a bit sorry for lobsters because they get boiled alive and scream and so I don’t ever want to eat them, and I feel sad to see them cooped up in those tanks so Kim adopted two lobsters for me because I’m a bit mad. I got a ton of other fun stuff too as you can see.

Americans don’t really have a Boxing Day like we do in England so everything is still open. We got bagels for breakfast at Rein’s Deli, it’s a Jewish business and let me tell you they had some really cool food there. I don’t know many Jewish people because in England only 0.5% of people are Jewish (apparently), but if this is how they eat then when I emigrate I’m going recruiting for a Jewish food buddy.

After that we drove to Foxwood’s Casino, in America they have Indian Reservations which is land that Native Americans own, they often pay less tax and the laws on gambling can differ, making them a great place to have a casino. The one we went to had a spa so Kim, and our mums went to that whilst her Dad did some light gambling on the slot machines where he won enough for our dinner!

So that was good.

And then it was time for bingo, American style where we won a big fat nothing… the curse prevails.

Bingo is a lot more complicated in the USA, the sheets are larger and you need to find different patterns on the sheets instead of lines such as a wild crazy pyramid… whatever that is! So no big wins but still a good day.

 

Christmas Day 2016

As you can see my dear Mother-in-law/Santa has been prepared for days. The night before the neighbours had come over for Chinese food and a mini party which was very fun but since we all drank no one got up that early.

We spent Christmas morning unwrapping gifts and eating.

I got this excellent toy to play with, I got other things but this occupied most of my day. A crystal Christmas tree! You add liquid to the bottom and then wait…

And then you go get washed and dressed and wait some more…

Then you annoy your wife who is making some bread to take to the afternoon party and still it grows… Eeee!!

Very exciting.

In other news, tell me how these poorly split “even” pieces that I laughed at my wife for for about a good ten minutes…

Turn into this deliciousness? Because I really do not know. The mysteries of Christmas, eh?

Exploring & Bright Nights

Every time I visit the states I magically wake up at 4am, like clockwork, the joy of it all. So after being up a good few hours we all decided to head down to an outlet shopping area and mull about a bit (except Kim’s Dad who escaped this torture). My Mum is a serious shopper and she means business, so after trailing around after her and Kim’s mum for a while Kim and I got a bit bored and started to browse for silly things, the winning item being a Scottish themed calendar featuring different men in kilts called “Kilty Pleasures”, you can buy a copy for yourself here should you so wish (tip – I would not go for the “used” copy despite it being cheaper).

That night we all went out to dinner at an Italian place that was nice, the meals in the states are so big that everyone takes home left overs meaning you get dinner and lunch for the next day, bonus!

After dinner it was off to Bright Nights, a sort of strange Christmas light safari drive in a park. Basically you rock up, pay, tune in your radio to a station they give you that plays non stop Christmas music then you drive through a ton (and I mean a ton) of Christmas light displays, all whilst comfy and warm in your car.

Kim said when she was younger she and her sister used to go in their pyjamas with a quilt and this is my goal for next time.

The electricity bill must be huge.

And I have yet to discover what Kwanzaa is exactly despite googling it. Does anyone know?

I enjoyed the dinosaur lights, I don’t know how they were related to Christmas but I liked them, it gave the light safari a Jurassic Park quality that I think is missing from every day life. Not pictured was a massive T Rex my phone continually blurred.

So that was all very enjoyable.

And hopefully we can go again next year if Kimberly and I are living in the same continent… On the same continent? Hmm.. both sound correct… we will be in the location but on the continent sounds right doesn’t it? Anyway I digress…

The next day we had a chill out and decorated our gingerbread houses and watched Fiddler On The Roof (as is tradition… TRADITIONNNNNN) with my Mum.

And Kimmy got to continue her tradition of shit gingerbread house decoration skills, she said this side of the house got broken into.