1June2008: Day 8: Tonbridge Castle

Today we got up and went to Teri's church which is right down the street. There is a Church of England church right down the street as well which is called St. Michael's, but it has several services throughout the week as does the Cathedral in Rochester so since her church only has one service on Sunday we went there. At the Cathedral, there are evensong services after work at 5:30 during the week, which Chris definitely has to see. Chris was planning to go to the 8:00 am at St. Michael's, but he forgot to get up today. (Stupid)



We don't know if we are going to be permanent in this area and we are going house hunting with a service work lined up for me several days this week. We will likely be here at least two more weeks even so.



We went to Tonbridge castle today. It is smaller than the Rochester castle, but it has been repaired and is more touristy in its interior. Mannequins setup with chain mail and sitting on the toilet (seriously), stuff like that. The have several videos through out the tour and a recorded tour you rent for £6 each. It was very interesting and only took about an hour, which was perfect for a Sunday afternoon. They were having some sort of sword fighting activity in the courtyard and a jester juggling. Here are some pictures:





Here is some odd bit of trivia...we don't think the Brits use ice! We haven't found ice cube trays, nor is there ice at gas stations, even when we were at the Dickens festival yesterday, they didn't have cold drinks with ice, just bottles and cans in tubs with a big chunk of ice, if you were lucky. We don't understand it. Their soda machines at Costco didn't even have an ice dispenser. Chris went to the grocery store yesterday and couldn't find ice trays (actually the freezer doesn't have a place for trays anyway) But he did find plastic bags that are broken into compartments and you fill it with water at the top and the water flows down into little pockets. Then you tie it off at the top and throw it in the freezer. Chris is drinking a glass of juice with ice right now, the first ice he's had since we've been here. Anyway, it's strange. I had a friend at work from Yugoslavia who didn't put ice in his drinks ever and I always thought it was odd, but apparently, it is normal for over here.

Makenna was good all day even falling asleep during church after we soothed her by rubbing her head with a little piece of felt from a book she has. Teri said Jared did that at Church back home and it calms her, it put her right to sleep here. She was great at the castle and enjoyed yelling loudly in the one big chamber inside the castle and hearing herself echo.

It was really nice here again weatherwise. Two days in a row...we'll see how long it lasts.