The Americans Are Coming!

Over the last three days we have had Darkanine and Kader stay at ours as part of their honeymoon trip. We met them at Rainfurrest in 2012 and they said they wanted to visit the UK and Ireland on a ten day trip. They flew to Leeds from Dublin early on Sunday - we agreed to pick them up not releasing the hour change that morning - and headed to London on Wednesday.

We covered an awful lot in three days, visiting York, Liverpool and some Yorkshire countryside as well as showing them around Leeds with Enteirah and Taneli. Leeds isng really a tourist city but they expressed a desire to see less touristy and more traditional places, plus they have a strong love for beer so we could show them the strong brewing scene we have here. They got to try BrewDog, and I also took them to the York Brewery where we embarked on a small brewery tour conducted by a very charismatic young chap before retiring to the bar for some tasters.

The weather on Monday and particularly Tuesday was most excellent and it was a pleasure to be out and about. I showed them all the sights of York, including the Minster, Clifford's Tower and the NRM, before we retired to Betty's for a traditional Yorkshire cream tea. We also met up with Oracle for a while who told the visitors about the large range of history on show in York. They particularly enjoyed the (puppy) fudge available in one of the shops in the heart of the city.

Discovering we were reasonably close to Liverpool, they decided they wanted to see the Beatles Museum so we made the pilgrimage on Tuesday, which was a beautiful spring day. Liverpool is quite a distance from here and a little tricky for a day trip so we had to get up early. Still, we pulled into the city by noon and I showed them around Albert Dock, bought them a Mr Whippy and headed to the Museum, which was only spoilt by the large school parties who beers either disinterested or disruptive - two teenagers were having a pillow fight in the middle of the exhibit. The audio tour was recommended and it gave the museum a lot of context, particularly as it was narrated by those near to the band. The charting of the Beatles' history in detail, including recreations of the Kasbah and Cavern Club, made the exhibit a mustn't miss.

Afterwards, feeling hungry and craving burgers, we opted to go to an independent burger restaurant called Nolita Cantina on Broad Street. This was an exceptional choice with massive burgers that impressed the Americans, who said that not even they had access to such delectable food. We tried a lot of different British foods including scotch eggs, pork pies and Marmite - the first two went down well. The latter less so. On Monday evening we also headed into Bradford for a curry at the Kashmir and this was perhaps one of the more popular meals of the trip.

Sadly Wolfie could not get time off work so it was largely me showing them around, although Mr Wuffle did meet up with us on the evening. Unfortunately on Tuesday evening a girl pranged his car so our trip to the countryside was delayed. We still saw some scenery though before taking them to see the Halifax gibbet, Britain's answer to the guillotine. We then went home to meet Taneli and introduced them to Father Ted and Red Dwarf.

All in all, they really enjoyed their stay and it was great seeing them. They seem to really like Britain, despite the amount of dog and horse shit that's everywhere, and it was great hosting them for a few days. They're talking about coming back, hopefully that'll be really soon.