The Slapin-Solomon Duo

Neighborhood 8: Chester-le-Street

We hopped on a bus south towards Chester-le-Street (bus 21), straight down Durham Road. It was about a 25 minute bus ride from our current home, so, yes, it's a bit far from the center of Newcastle.

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Saltwell Towers

We thought we'd post about the large park in our town: Saltwell Park. It's about a 30-minute walk from our house. A beautiful park…..with a cafe in the ‘towers’ and an excellent coffee shop on the other…

Neighborhood 7: The coastal towns near the North Sea

We hopped on a bus and metro out to North Shields first. (We finally got our POP cards that cap our daily use on the metro to £5 each, so that…

Neighborhood 5: Wallsend

This one gets a 'no'. We had read online that it was ‘up and coming’. It may be, but it still has a ways to go. They do have a big Aldis, and the Latin in the…

We passed the ‘Angel of the North’ as we walked towards Birtley.

Neighborhood 3: Birtley

Birtley is just south of where we are currently living, about 2.5 miles. We decided we'd walk there. There are quite a few…

Neighborhood 2 - Newcastle Center

After disembarking the Queen Mary 2, we took a shuttle to London and had a bit of a wait at Kings Cross train station. We found a corner at one of the station pubs…

We moved to Low Fell, England! We are renting this beautiful home in a VERY hilly neighborhood. 

It's a 3 bedroom, 2 ½ bath house with a modern kitchen (which includes a dishwasher, oven, fridge, washer, and dryer!) and a…

And now we go backwards…..we'll tell you a little bit about our trip from Vermont to New York:

Since we sold our car, we had to rent a car to get down to New Jersey. I swear that I chose…

(Lulu, the Leaf)

Carvana made selling our Nissan Leaf sound so easy, but when the time came to do it they were no longer offering to pick it up, and their nearest place to drive it to was well over…

(I wrote half this blog post and then it disappeared, so this is ‘take 2’.)

We made it to Newcastle upon Tyne!! This will be our last blog post about the Queen Mary 2 so here are photos from our…

Sunset from our balcony

Welcome back! So we are currently on our final full day at sea. We arrive in Southampton, England tomorrow morning, early. We may not be able to post another blog post until after we arrive…perhaps in…

(we made it past the Titanic site….we are north of the Azores and south of Greenland, 
more than halfway there)

Wow, I can't believe this crossing is almost over. Only one more full day after today! 

Scott still isn't feeling…

We're over halfway there!! Only a few more days left on this ship. Unfortunately Scott has gotten sick with some sort of cold (NOT Covid…we tested). That's what happens when you're on a ship with a few thousand people. 

Today…

(my blogging corner in the King's Court Buffet)

Yesterday was the first day I really felt swaying and heard creaking of the ship. Makes it harder to walk the deck and climb stairs. I only started feeling it while we…

(Sunset from our balcony)

Good morning! I am writing this as I have a mid-morning coffee in a nice quiet corner of the buffet. We've got pictures and videos from yesterday, including our first afternoon tea (they will be more…