House sitting, has so many advantages, and our recent stay in the lovely city of Oundle showcased them all perfectly. Of course, there is the advantage of costs savings since you are not paying for a hotel or Airbnb. This means that in many cases you may be able to spend extended periods of time in areas that you may not normally have been able to afford. But on top of this obvious advantages you also may find:
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- Finding new places: I can honestly say that we would have never found the lovely town of Oundle had it not
been for the invitation from Lance and Adrian (Ady) to come look after their home and pets while they visited family in Canada. Lance is a landscape designer, so you can imagine how amazing the gardens around the house were. Adrian is a retired flight attendant with lots of great stories about his travels. They have a dog named Georgie and a cat named Alfie who are both amazing and full of personality. - Living like a local: when you are in a hotel you don’t typically get to
enjoy things like grocery shopping (which is unique in every country). Oundle is a small town that sports 3 grocery stores, two butchers and a handful of pubs. By the time we left, George was on a first name basis with the butcher and while he was getting a hair cut the barber said, “so I understand you are house sitting for Lance and Ady”. Such is life in a very small town. - Meeting new friends: in Oundle, we were lucky enough to meet the gang, a
group of friends who pal around, share dinners, support each other in ride sharing and projects and just enjoy each other’s company in general. While we were no substitute for Lance and Ady, we certainly had fun hanging out with their friends.
- Finding new places: I can honestly say that we would have never found the lovely town of Oundle had it not
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One great thing about Oundle is the myriad of public walking trails. 
Many of these are created in cooperation with local farmers. This allows you to take long walks through fields and along the river. You can never tell if you will be in the 
middle of a heard of cows (or sheep) or walking down a country road.
One thing we both enjoyed during the walk was watching the progress of the river boats as they worked their way through the locks on the river. The process was interesting!
Four weeks flew by, Lance and Ady came back from Canada and were nice enough to invite us to spend an extra night visiting with them. We shared some nice meals and then it was time to say goodbye to Oundle and head off to Germany…
meet up with Hansen Alumni (or Fellows as they are called), and we have also been lucky enough to have been invited to several weddings. We recently attended one wedding in Israel 
On the morning of first day of the wedding we were invited to tour 
where Ramona’s grandmother lives. While waiting for the bride and groom we were treated to hand made doughnuts and cheese breads. We all crowded into a small country church, which was covered from floor to ceiling with amazing, hand painted bible scenes. When the couple and their chaperones arrived, we were all pleasantly surprised to see that they were dressed in traditional Romanian outfits. Ramona’s uncle, newly retired from his post as the villages’ priest, returned to the church to perform the engagement ceremony which was as filled with as much pageantry as most weddings.
With the engagement ceremony complete, everyone walked from the church through the village to Ramona’s grandmothers house for an amazing picnic lunch, full of hand-made food, home crafted brandies and liquor and a series of different meats grilled to perfection by Ramona’s dad, Vasile and his friends. We are told the party went on well into the night, we snuck off after several hours to greet the late travelers who had finally arrived at the hotel suite in Hunedoara.
second day of the wedding was full on formal. I think everyone enjoyed getting spiffed up in suits and lovely dresses. The bus picked us up around noon and took us to the family home (where we had dinner two nights before). All the guest filled the street and generally stopped all traffic on the road in front of the house. Then we experienced another of the unique Romanian wedding traditions. The groom’s party, along with his male chaperone and his “spokesman” proceeded down the street, stopped at the house and knocked at the front door. The door was answered by the “spokesman” for the bride’s home. There is an initial exchange facilitated by drinking some very strong homemade liquor and then the formal negotiation. We will try to paraphrase the negotiation but please know that it was all in Romanian, some license may have been taken:
The wedding itself took place in the Chapel of the Castle, despite the small size of the chapel, the ceremony was quite grand and included crowns for both the bride and groom. After the ceremony there were many photos on the grounds of the castle, and then onto the buses to head to the reception.
small dot of dry ice (the solid form of carbon dioxide) which made the champagne bubble and mist. This champagne was the first of many, many well thought out delights that added up to an amazing wedding reception. Other accents included a meal of five extremely robust courses, each was a treat all its’ own. In the hour or so break between each course there was traditional dancing, a photo booth, a clown and entertainment for the children, displays of sweets and nibbles and a full bar with a wide selection of mixed cocktails. After a cake cutting ceremony out in the
courtyard, at almost midnight, the guests were treated to a private fireworks. All in all an amazing two days of celebrating the matrimony of Ramona and Jason.
We would be remiss if we did not mention the gift bags that were given to each guest, one at arrival (full of all kinds of handy items and snacks) and one at the end of the event. Included in the bag that was handed out at the reception was a small bottle of brandy. It would be impossible for us to tell the story any better than the label on the bottle, so we have transcribed it below: