WWII Week: United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was a bit of a tricky one for me. Ok, first of all, the United Kingdom is how the four constituent countries of Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England are grouped by the United Nations, and that's the criteria for this project. Great Britain, as I understand it is a term for the landmass which doesn't include Northern Ireland. 

So, there's that. But, I decided to do the United Kingdom over a few days, but with just one meal. Asa planned the dinner all by himself. He wanted to have at least one dish from each country on the plate, so I let him have at that one. 

But, since he was in the office and we were talking WWII, there was plenty of time to stall a bit and take the UK apart to look at each 'country' separately. Plus, in all of my books, they each had the normal spread, so it would have been hard to do it all in one day. 

First we talked Winston Churchill. Apparently he was captured and held prisoner in South Africa during the second Boer War.  

We went on to discuss some battles of WWII for the next two days while Asa was in the office. 

We also covered the US entering the war. But, again, the boys had heard this one plenty between FDR's birthday, and Harry Truman's birthday. 

By the end of our United Kingdom days, our WWII map was pretty well filled out. 

Since we didn't have any food the first day, I picked up some cookie from the Publix on Collier's British section (they have the best International section of any Publix I've been to), so the boys could snack on those as they worked on their postcards. They were a hit too, the boys ate them in one sitting. 

First up we did Northern Ireland, not to be confused with Ireland. Obviously it's just the top half of the island that is home to both nations. But, between 1968 and 1998, the island of Ireland was divided between the Unionists and the Republicans. Or, those who thought Northern Ireland should be part of the United Kingdom and those who disagreed. The civil war of sort was called 'The Troubles', and it ended in 1998 when the two sides signed the Good Friday Agreement, agreeing to work together to find a peaceful solution.

True story: through sheer coincidence we were reading about this ON Good Friday. 

Which was also coincidentally the day the Titanic hit the iceberg, and the RMS (it has those initials because it carried mail, apparently) Titanic was designed by a northern Irishman, and built at Belfast's shipping port in Northern Ireland. 

Northern Ireland contributes a haunted castle and avenue of dark hedges, along with the craziest rope bridge to get out to an island you've ever seen to the United Kingdom. (It once was just two ropes- one for your  feet one for you to grab onto.)

The most visited natural landmark though, is the Giant's Causeway, complete with 38,000 hexagon columns of rocks There's some legend about  a giant, Finn McCool, building a path for himself, but really they are a result of a super volcanic eruption over 60 million years ago. 

After Northern Ireland, we hopped over to Wales. 

Wales is the western side of Great Britain, along the Irish sea. 

It is the land of weird words containing double 'L's, Welsh rarebit (essentially their grilled cheese with beer and mustard), and rugby. 

There's also plenty of castles and legends, including Mabinogion- a collection of Welsh tales from giants to dragons to enchanted trees to brave men, that have been told for over 1,000 years. 

Also, apparently Mount Everest (which we already covered during Nepal day), is named for a Welsch mountain surveyor. But, this guy's name was actually pronounced Eve-rest, not Everest. Also, worth noting- he never so much as saw a picture of his mountain namesake. 

I'm running low on postcards (I need to order some more), so I decided the boys should just use one card for all four nations. We drew a line down the middle so they could do two on one side, two on the other. 

So with that, we had our first United Kingdom side complete. 

Calib noted the hexagon rocks for Northern Ireland and rugby for Wales. 

Peyton put the Titanic is in Northern Ireland postcard, and noted the fairy tales from Wales. 

Hayden's Wales card featured the town in Europe with the longest name on his Wales side, and the hexagon giant on his Northern Ireland side. 

The next day we were headed north to the top part of Great Britain and on to Scotland, the home of kilts, bagpipes, and whiskey. 

Apparently Scotland is also the origin of the Loch Ness monster. There's even a local super fan who spends upwards of 60 hours a week looking for Nessie (still no luck there, but he's apparently found a ton of golf balls). 

Scotland also holds the Highland games, a celebration of Celtic culture that began in the 11th century. The boys were all 'Oh oh! That's where they see how far they can throw those huge logs!' But they also have the stone put, Scottish hammer through, and a haggis hurling event. 

Yes. Haggis. The most disgusting food I've ever heard of. I get it's the National Dish, but even if I was in Scotland I don't think I could stomach a sheep's stomach, let alone the heart, lungs and liver that they put inside of it. Gross. 

I can get behind their national animal though: it's a Unicorn! 

Finally we were on to England, the birthplace of my grandpa Ainsworth (my grandpa on my mom's side)! 

Our landmark for all of the United Kingdom was pretty easy, as we went with Big Ben. Apparently though that's just the name of the bell inside, and not the tower. That was renamed after Queen Elizabeth. (In China Big Ben is known as 'Da ben zhong' which is basically 'big stupid clock', but it isn't even officially the clock, so take that, China!). 

We also talked the Beatles, in which I've totally failed as a parent because the boys knew nothing about them. (I'm only telling you this because I'm an honest girl, but they thought the Beatles were American. Opps.) 

We also got to talk King Henry the VIII. They knew more about him than the Beatles, so there's that. 

We also talked Shakespeare. Nobody still has any interest in delving in any deeper to Shakespeare work (do you hear me breathing a sigh of relief? I can teach a lot of things, but Shakespeare is not one of them.) 

And of course we brushed on Stonehenge (which we covered during the Fenderson's) 

When we finally got around to United Kingdom dinner we had a blackberry juice we picked up at that same Publix international section, along with Welsh Lentil and Carrot salad with Goat Cheese and Mint, English Corn Pudding, Baked Scotch Eggs, English Baked Potatoes, and Lavender Chicken.  

For desert we had Irish Lemon Pudding with homemade whipped cream on top. 

Dinner earned five spoons up. 

First of all, huge props to Asa who made this while he was working. I helped here and there if he had a call, but this sure was something. It was so much food, I don't think the boys even had snacks that night. 

The only thing hit or miss was the welsch lentil and carrot salad. Goat cheese items usually don't go over that well (but we keep trying!) Asa also whipped up some mustard sauce for the scotch egg, and it was good- but not as good as the one we had at the Rose and Crown at the United Kingdom pavilion at Epcot. 

The favorite for sure was the corn pudding, I think everyone had seconds on that. 

Also fun note on the chicken, obviously it required lavender, which is awfully expensive jarred. But, Sprouts has bulk spices by the ounce, and we only spent 25 cents on what we needed for dinner. 

That's it for the United Kingdom! 

Peyton colored the United Kingdom in after we had dinner on the second night. 

61 Down, 132 to go! 

Next Up: Romania