When we arrived in Milton Keynes it was pitch black (and only 5:00pm!) so we didn't get to see much of the city, but we did get to go through about 20 roundabouts on the way to my Aunt Irene and Uncle Charles's place. The city, if you haven't heard already, is based on American town planning so has a lot of roundabouts, hardly any traffic lights, and the roads are build in a repetitive grid shape. Although this sounds boring, it was far from it. All the roads are lined with trees (and if it weren't winter I'm sure it would have been gorgeous!) and there are pedestrian and bike ways throughout the city so that you would never have to be on a main road if you didn't want to be.
Unfortunately we were only staying for the weekend, so we tried to make the most of it by doing a bit of road trip out to Oxford. On the way we stopped into the Xscape Centre that houses a massive indoor ski slope and wind tunnel for indoor sky diving. Very impressive for both Matt and I as we've never skied nor sky dived (although we didn't attempt either of them there and then, maybe on our next trip!).
After our eventful search for a car park in Oxford we wondered round the town and visited the Christ Church which was quite impressive, even in the dreary day. We walked down to the river and were lucky enough to see a bit of rowing race going on. The guys looked freezing gliding fast through the water.
We then decided to take in a bit of a late lunch in a wee cafe where I recognised our waitress. Although I just couldn't figure out how I knew her. Charles couldn't help himself, so asked her and it turned out, after lots of 'do you know such and such' and 'have you been to such and such' we figured out that we'd met at Oktoberfest in Munich. No wonder we didn't know straight away, we'd obviously had too many steins. Small world though, eh?
On our second day Irene and I sent the Matt and Charles to Bletchley Park - where they did a tour of the museum and grounds where the Enigma code was broken during the war - while we went shopping. And the shopping centre and Milton Keynes was very grand - again everything is in a grid shape but there are lots and lots and lots of shops. I would have been happy to spend the day there!
Unfortunately we were only staying for the weekend, so we tried to make the most of it by doing a bit of road trip out to Oxford. On the way we stopped into the Xscape Centre that houses a massive indoor ski slope and wind tunnel for indoor sky diving. Very impressive for both Matt and I as we've never skied nor sky dived (although we didn't attempt either of them there and then, maybe on our next trip!).
After our eventful search for a car park in Oxford we wondered round the town and visited the Christ Church which was quite impressive, even in the dreary day. We walked down to the river and were lucky enough to see a bit of rowing race going on. The guys looked freezing gliding fast through the water.
We then decided to take in a bit of a late lunch in a wee cafe where I recognised our waitress. Although I just couldn't figure out how I knew her. Charles couldn't help himself, so asked her and it turned out, after lots of 'do you know such and such' and 'have you been to such and such' we figured out that we'd met at Oktoberfest in Munich. No wonder we didn't know straight away, we'd obviously had too many steins. Small world though, eh?
On our second day Irene and I sent the Matt and Charles to Bletchley Park - where they did a tour of the museum and grounds where the Enigma code was broken during the war - while we went shopping. And the shopping centre and Milton Keynes was very grand - again everything is in a grid shape but there are lots and lots and lots of shops. I would have been happy to spend the day there!
In the afternoon we left Milton Keynes and took a drive to Newmarket to visit my Aunt Isabel and settle ourselves into her wee house, which we'll be house sitting while she's out in Australia.
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