England and Scotland -- July 6

July 6
10:30 PM GMT

Watching the Grand Prix today would have been fun except for the weather, which was cold, blustery, and pouring rain.
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Yesterday had been fairly mild – partly sunny and in the low 70s. I knew it was going to rain today, but had no idea it would also be so cold and windy. Or maybe it just feels colder when you’re soaking wet.

We didn’t want to spend the extra money for grandstand seats, so we were with the rest of the unwashed masses in the general admission or lawn area (which I thought was expensive enough at almost £100 for two tickets) with no shelter except for our umbrella and a blanket. So watching the race was pretty miserable, at least until the sun broke out just toward the end and started drying us out a little. Lewis Hamilton won for England, which was pretty thrilling for most of the crowd (although there were people from many countries there, judging by the flags and banners we saw).



Gary ate a hamburger while we were there, but I wasn’t tempted by anything I saw (or smelled). Most of the food for sale there consisted of sandwiches or pasties (pies) with some kind of meat filling, but they all smelled . . . different, to put it nicely. Gary said the meat tasted funny, too. I wondered if it’s the way they cook or season it that makes it different, or if it’s how they feed the animal it comes from. Or maybe it just looked and smelled so bad because it was “fast food,” which is never very good anyway.

After we fought the post-race traffic and finally got back to Rugby, we did a little on-foot sight-seeing and found out Rugby is the birthplace of the sport (although the sport was actually named after the town school, since the school was here first). It was supposedly “invented” by a student at Rugby School named William Webb Ellis, who one day just picked up the ball in his arms during a football (soccer) game -- which was supposedly against the rules then -- and started running with it.

Like most legends, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether it’s actually true or not. But it makes for a good story. So in honor of William Webb Ellis, we had dinner and beer at a pub named after him. The roast beef there was very good, by the way, so now I know the bad food at the race was probably just due to the venue.

I also know now what “Yorkshire pudding” is. Americans always think of a creamy dessert made from milk when we talk about pudding. Apparently, the word “pudding” here is a generic term used for any kind of dessert, but a “Yorkshire pudding” is similar to a popover. It’s made out of baked bread batter covered in gravy. I’ve also figured out that a “jacket” is the British term for a baked potato, although they use different toppings here like baked beans, tuna and coleslaw.

We also watched the Wimbledon Men’s Finals while we were at the William Webb Ellis, and listened in on a game of Trivia, although they call it Quiz Night here. They asked us if we wanted to join in, but we opted out because we didn’t think we would be familiar enough with the questions. We were right – they asked stuff like “Which color line on the London Underground goes to Kings Cross?” (It’s the Blue Line, by the way.) They did ask some questions we could answer, though, such as “What color is the last stripe on the American flag?” (If you don’t know it’s red, then you can’t call yourself a real American.)


On the way back to the B&B, we stopped off a pub called The Prince of Wales. We wanted to try it because it’s right across the alley from us. We can see it every time we look out of our window. It’s pretty tiny – too small for the real Prince of Wales to ever visit, I guess (although it did have fancy red velvet stools). It’s the kind of place the locals go to. The bartender there was very nice and helped us figure out which coins were which. We’re still learning to identify the different types of British coins. She also asked us if we were Australian. I guess she knew we had some kind of accent but wasn’t sure which. Also, we were wearing our British Car Club shirts because we’d been to the race, so maybe she thought we had to belong to one of the Commonwealth countries.

When we got back to the hotel, we found out there was no hot water due to a plumbing problem that wouldn’t be fixed until the next day. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks to staying in a “quaint” hotel. Luckily, there was an electric kettle in our room so we could heat up enough water to wash and shave in (after we fiddled around with the plugs and switches to figure out how they worked).

Tomorrow we go to the Shuttleworth Museum, then on to Scotland . . .