A busy weekend

Last weekend was a long weekend here - Monday was bank holiday. We had initially decided to drive down somewhere and stay for the weekend. We decided against it and made plans to go to places nearby all the days.

Saturday: I lived in US for 11 years, but still follow cricket online. One main attraction for us in UK is the chance to watch cricket at a stadium. Pakistan is touring England and there was a test match (5 day) going on at Lord's cricket ground, the home of cricket. A friend and I got tickets for the third day through the website Seatwave. It is a fan to fan exchange, so the tickets were a little cheaper - we paid close to £50 per ticket, while Lord's website was selling similar tickets for £80.
It turned out to be a great experience. The ground was full and we had a great view from our seats. It was an interesting day of cricket with Pakistan losing 15 wickets within the day. We experienced English weather in full glory that day. It was nice and sunny in the morning and got a little too warm. Then it got cloudy and little chilly in the afternoon. In the evening there were few showers. After reaching home, I read the story about match fixing.

Wife took the boy and went to a maize maze nearby, along with some colleagues. The maze was a little small - completed in one hour - but she had a good time there.

Sunday: We went to Windsor castle, an official residence of the queen. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation.
The town of Windsor is nice little town and there were some great views from the castle. We saw a doll house and some art collection in the castle. It was an hour drive from our place and we spent close to couple of hours there.

Monday: We went to Cotswolds and then Oxford. Cotswolds area is west of London and has a lot of small villages that still resemble they way they were 500 years ago. We went to Burford, a small town near Oxford, walked around and took pictures. Then we spent some time in Oxford. We visited Christ Church College, one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in England. We visited its Great Hall (where the Hogwarts dining scenes in Harry Potter movies were shot), a quadrangle and an old cathedral inside the college.

As we do daytime trips, I realize how expensive it is to eat out. On Monday, we got two burgers and onion rings from Burger King and paid £8.50 for that. This was not in an airport or a mall, just a normal place somewhere near a town centre. I think we would have spent less than $8.50 in US for such a meal. We have made it a point to pack some lunch during our day trips. It costs much less and is so much faster. On the contrary, we have noticed that there are more veggie options in the restaurants here than in the US.