Check us out, you and I, together again on a Friday. Remember last week when I explained something something, bla yata bla bla, something something yata yata yata? This is the week after that, “surprise!” Welcome to @foodfightfriday, Round 62, the contender that spans three days—@puravidaville’s birthday.

Saturday.

Her birthday wasn’t until Sunday which meant her birthday started on Saturday morning and didn’t end until Monday night. This is the longest contender I’ve done you guys, that’s a lot coming from me, it has to be a record, yeah, @jlsplatts? @idig? There’s 90 pictures on this one, nine-zero, which is like barely less than 100—I must really like her.

As I was saying, her birthday, Pura loves to cook, as most of you are aware. Since we’ve been in the UK, we’ve made several new friends so she invited a few of them to our place where she could do what she enjoys most—prepare one of the best meals you’ve had in quite awhile.

We spent most of Saturday morning at several markets so she could gather all of her gluten free, sugar-free, plant base ingredients. I don’t remember where we ate now and I didn’t take any pictures so it obviously wasn’t noteworthy.

On our way back to the apartment, before Pura made the neighborhood noticeably aromatic, we found St Mary’s Church, Woolton, an active Roman Catholic Church in Liverpool, built in 1860. Check this place out—that’s the birthday girl on the cover, she’s in several of these pictures.
_{All photos - iphone 8+ (no filters)}

Wait’ll you see this spread she dished up. Our friends from Bradford made the one hour drive to celebrate her birthday with us and brought Dimitry with them, another really cool UK native we met for the first time, he’s from London.

Did I tell you about the passport? I don’t think I told you about that yet. See, Pura’s dad was British, he was born in England which means she’s half British and has a UK birthright. We learned that when we were in Central America. The birthright part, not the who’s British part. After gathering all of the required documentation, a few interviews, mail back and forth to the US a few times, and several appointments, her UK passport was mailed to our friends house who are joining us for her birthday. Check this out—my 10’s a dual citizen.

Sounds classified or special agent, doesn’t it? I guess I always assumed multiple passports only pertained to the elite or government officials or something—not true. If your parents were born in two different countries, you have the birthright to each country, go acquire them both now—right now! Then you’ll have refuge for escaping both countries as well, if need be. And then your spouse is granted legal residency based on your spouses citizenship which means you can travel and stay, without limitations, throughout the European Nation and the Commonwealth of Nations. I should probably show you some food a picture of some food now—this is that spread I was telling you about.

Saturday Night.

She did all of that from an Air B&B with minimal kitchen utensils—doesn’t phase the dual cit-Brit! I got a few slices of dairy free Oreo cookie cake, they’re huge, and two dairy free carrot cake slices. We sang happy birthday, she blew out candles, opened presents, good company, good times.

On The Menu.

Tacos like they’ve never heard of: Lentils. Quinoa. Hard and soft tacos with guacamole, pico de gallo, mango salsa, Mexican rice, corn succotash, vegetable chips, corn tortillas, and strawberry soda water.

Plan is a funny wOrd—like coincidence. I planned on surprising her with a train ride to Blackpool the following morning, her actual birthday. When she woke up, though, she had her own plan. She would write down four different ideas on four pieces of paper, fold them up individually and draw one at random, we would do whatever the paper said—“deal.” She picked the one that said Castle. Wales. Tomorrow (Monday).

I searched a few sites and found https://castlewales.com, it’s a good one that lists the more popular castles. I also found https://historic-uk.com, they have the following road map on their site guiding you to all of the surrounding castles—there’s hardly any.

We’re currently in Liverpool, England. One of the larger castles that’s not too difficult to get to is an hour and a half train ride away in the town of Conwy, in Wales, called Conwy Castle—a massive fortress constructed in the late 13th century for King Edward I. It’s known as “a perfect example of the ‘concentric castle’ design.”

Settled. We’ll wake up early (tomorrow), take a bus down to Lime Street train station in Liverpool and catch the next outbound to Conwy, a Welsh community in Wales, one of four countries in the United Kingdom. Wales occupies the south-western region of the UK.

Today, not today-today but last Sunday-today, her birthday-day, we’ll see what we see in Liverpool, have a falafel sandwich and sweet potato chips at Dale Street Kitchen on Dale Street (still not sure how they came up with their name 🤔), see what else we see in Liverpool, have a spot’0-tea at one of the bajillion Hookah lounges around here and whatever else she wants to do.

That last one is the Hookah Loung Pura found. See how the tables are cut out to share a Hookah and that fancy water feature in the background? We’ve been to a couple of these chest congestion causing, make you hack the next morning joints but Vooo, in Liverpool center, might be the nicest one yet.
_{(I hope she’s about over going to these places)}

Pura let me snap the following pictures of her with one of her other social media filter things on it. The following images of the birthday girl are best viewed while playing this track as loud as your volume will go.
_{The WHOLE track.}

”Preferably in a residential neighborhood.”

Birthday-day 3, Conwy, The Third And Final Day.

We got an early start and rode the 15 bus down to Lime Street Station to catch the next Conwy train out of Liverpool. We got two open-return tickets for the next departure and enjoyed the scenic railway along the Irish Sea from England to Wales.

“Welcome to the town of Conwy.” As we arrived by train, the castle was on our immediate right, between the tracks and the Irish Sea—oh fuuuuuuu... That thing’s frikkin huge. We walked toward it and, the closer we got, the bigger it got, before we entered the castle, we ducked off the road for lunch. I ordered the local fish and chips with mushy peas and @puravidaville had this shredded beat, quinoa burger thing with some type of chutney that was surprisingly delicious.

The next 14 pictures were all taken at the castle—from the basement levels where shackled prisoners were jailed and tortured to the top of the look outs where they defended their walls against threatening ships approaching from the Irish Sea. And we did it all in the rain, too, because what’s a castle in Wales without rain?

I didn’t know what to expect before we got there but I never imagined how enormous the thing was going to be. I’ll catch you up on The Smallest House in Great Britain afterward, another structure on the map. It’s only a couple thousand yards away from the castle, up an old raggedy staircase, walk along the town wall for a minute and down a few wooded trails.

That guy was about as tall as me, Pura was a little taller than the front door and she’s 5’4”. The house was built in 1600 and occupied until 1900 by a 6’3” fisherman named Robert Jones. The house still belongs to the Jones family, though declared uninhabitable, it’s a tourist attraction that opens at 10am, Monday - Friday. You can see the smallest house from the castle once you know what you’re looking for, that’s how close they are to each other.

It was a pretty long day, not near as long as this post or anything, but pretty long. With our umbrellas engaged in full defense mode, we made it back to the train station, caught the next outbound to Liverpool and then to the bus stand where we hopped on the 15 back to the Air B&B and called it wrap like I’m about to do with this contender.

Same place next week, deal? When you have a picture of #food, which is all you need at @foodfightfriday, that and an #fff tag, but your whole article is about traveling, tag #traveldigest, too. Get their curators’ attention by going to their Editors Choice Map and paste the coordinates of your travel post at the bottom of your article as explained right here. If your #adventure takes you to multiple countries, list each of their coordinates, that’s what I did, I’m sure they won’t mind. Have a great weekend, blockchain catalysts.

Tuesday • Wednesday