Cadbury!

oh man, today was momentous! it was my first day trip and I went to Birmingham so we could tour the Cadbury factory. well worth it my friends!

ok, it took us 4 hours to get to the factory, but then, there was payoff...in the form of free chocolate!
it was a three bus ride, but I got to see english country side. and guess what?! it really is as picturesque as all the remantics and impressionists make it out to be. and you know what? there are sheep! everywhere. and it is totally green. the fields really are separated by a stand of trees, usually the very classic poplars.
we got to Birmingham and it is a little run down. must be an industrial town. we drove through a lot of it, and a major portion of the town is muslim. most of the shops were targeted to them. the fabric shops had saris in the windows, and the hairdressers were men or women only. a lot of the women on the street had their heads covered too. then we got to the bus station and had to find a bus or train station to the factory. which was a 45 ordeal. so by the time we got to Cadbury, it was 12:30 and we were starving. lucky for us the first thing they give us is a candy bar

first things first. the town the factory is in is Bournville. it was built by Cadbury, so Cadbury stuff is everywhere. the factory was well worth all the trouble getting there! it was the most interactive and varied tour I have ever been on. it is very kid friendly too. you start out walking through a rainforest to learn where cocoa comes from, then you get a video history of the cadbury family, then you go into one of those interactive video areas where the chairs move and lights go on and off and stuff along witht he video. there was an area where you got to play with chocolate - and eat it - and you got to see the packaging room. there were lots of interactive games where you stand in front of a wall looking at a screen and you move around and stuff happens. there was a ride through cocoa bean town. and in the end you get to make your own chocolate! basically you pick something like rice puffs or gummy bears and they pour chocolate on it. yeah! it was tasty.

then we went to their cafeteria for real food. I finally had british food! I got the steak and kidney pie...don't do it. ever! I for some reason thought the kidney would be kidney beans. yeah. not so. it was bits of steak and pieces of kidney!!!!!!! eek! and it smelled awful and was really bland. so not worth ever eating again.

on the plus side, I then went to the cadbury shot and bought up some candy!

today was also the day we have had the most problems with people understanding our accent. we just had bad vocabulary. my roomie asked a little boy if he had eaten a lot of candy today, and he stared at her scared. so his mum said "candy is chocolate dear" and then on the bus ride home a woman asked us where we are from. she thought we were Austrailian! she was like "your accent and the austrailian accent are so similar" it was crazy!

also, everything closes here! we left to get to the bus at 7:30am and nothing was open. we got back at 8:30 pm and nothing was open! when do these people shop? I would think that London, being the major metropolis it is should have all their stores open until about 10 pm. so weird!