Coventry at Last

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I finally made it to the actual city of Coventry! It was my first ride ever on a public transportation bus and I think I did okay, other than the fact that I was guessing at which stop to get off of. Luckily, a kind, older woman told the right one.

The ruins of St. Michael's Cathedral was my goal and they were worth the trip. After the destruction caused by German bombs in 1940, only the walls and a vew remnants of the stain glassed windows remain. It was a large building, considering it was built in the 14th century. The cathedral used the Gothic style and it was stunning.

St. Michael's Tower was rebuilt in the 1970's and it was terrifying. To get to the top, I had to climb 180 steps. That in itself is no problem, but when these steps are made of old stone, very steep, very small in the center, andin a tight and very narrow staircase, it was quite the task to climb them. Going down was the worst though. I don't know what I was thinking, what with my luck with stairs. But eventually I made it back down to the flat ground. The view was worth it, though. You could see all of Coventry stretching into the horizon and while most of the buildings seemed modern (relatively speaking), there was another cathedral nearby with a lovely spire.

The new St. Michael's Cathedral was nothing special in my mind. It was all unimpressive concrete walls, except for a section of wall made of glass with etchings of angels in it. The etchings were very...intersting. Cool, but not what I expected to see on a fancy church. There was also a garish statue of St. Michael and a chained up Devil. Personally, they looked like they came out of a cheap video game.

I ate at my first pub last night, even if it was only the student one on campus. We ordered at the bar and then took a marker to our table. It was full of people, but not overbearingly so. I got an order of grilled lamb steak with a tomato vinegrette and mashed potatos and it was absolutely delicious! That's one of my favorite things about England so far: they have all these different types of meat for much cheaper than in the States. We ordered Chinese for dinner last week and I was able to get a duck dinner for the same price as the chicken. It blew my mind. At dinner, I also got to try chips (aka fries) with malt vinegar, which aparently is a normal topping for chips here. It was good, but if I'm going to put vinegar on my chips it'll probably be better to use apple cider vinegar, which I love.

Speaking of chips, I had a lovely discussion with my flat mates about potato chips, known as crisps to the British. They have the most bizarre flavors here. Prawn, roast chicken, fire grilled steak, caramalized onion and vinegar are just a few examples. How anyone can eat them I have no idea. What's confusing is that the big brand here, Walker's, is the same company as Lay's. You would think that they would just use the same flavors they started out with in the US. As we were all complaining about how bad the crisps were, Thanakorn decided to make his own crisps. They were surprisingly good, even though the only flavoring he used was some salt.

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Photos

St. Michael's Cathedral
St. Michael's Cathedral

St. Michael's Tower
unused evil steps

Comments

[Karen]

Loving it!
Love reading your blog... Keep us up to date on everything you are seeing and doing...Wish we could be there with you! HAVE FUN !