England Trip - Part 1

Alright! I am back from England and finally ready to do The Post.

We took off from DFW to Gatwick at about 7:00pm on Friday. Our flight was not crowded at all. This totally rocked because it meant that we all got our own row to stretch out in and sleep for the flight over. A combo of industrial strength earplugs, an iPod and a muscle relaxer provided me with a pretty sound sleep meaning we were not completely exhausted when we got there.

The flight was good for the most part. We had the obligatory screaming child. I should have known she was trouble when I noticed her jumping up and down in the seat as we were loading the plane. I should have slipped her a Benadryll laced gummy bear right then. She proceeded to throw quite an impressive, loud, LONG, scream-filled tantrum for about 45 minutes followed by a 30 minute sobbing wind down. Everyone was pretty much like GIVE HER WHATEVER SHE WANTS. After my offers of Junior Vicodin were turned down, I shoved my ear buds in as far as they would go and turned up my Relaxing Music For The Plane Mix and tuned her out.

Finally she did calm down and sleepy time arrived for all the passengers. It was nice. Well, as nice as sleep on a plane can be. In fact, one minute, it seemed like we were over the middle of the Atlantic, the next I was being prodded awake for breakfast.

Then, we finally got off the plane, claimed our luggage and attempted to call YayCoffee. The pay phones were not very cooperative as you could not just enter a calling card number, you had to insert the actual card. And of course, we did not have one on our persons. And, of course, every place in the airport seemed to be sold out. Finally we managed to call her after much gnashing of teeth. We got on an incredibly crowded tube filled with young rugby hooligans. Well, maybe not exactly hooligans. But they were young and going to a rugby match. There was a possibly insane lady on the train briefly, but I am pretty sure she comes standard on every train and bus around the world.


Sandy on the train to Bath

We met up with YayCoffee in London and proceeded on to Bath (or Baaaaaaaaath, as the Brits say and mock you for pronouncing otherwise). We checked into the hotel and dropped our bags of at the largest hotel rooms in England. Seriously? The one that Taryn and Dinah were in was large by AMERICAN standards. If ever you are in Baaaaaaath, I highly recommend the Parade Park Inn, Room 30.



The Parade Park Inn


View from room


Garden across from hotel<

We headed over to a pub called Sam Weller's and had some pints. By the way, that would be the first drink I'd had in about six weeks. So yeah, I got TRASHED. I did have 5 pints that night over a 7 hour period. But seriously, I was feeling it after one and half.


Dinah at Sam Weller's


Warning label


Bath Abbey at night

On Sunday morning, I awoke with a touch of a hangover. After a little purging and a LOT of Advil, we headed down for our first of MANY English Breakfast. Don't know what an English Breakfast is? Well, it is fried egg, bacon (of more of a Canadian style), bland sausage, mushrooms, half a tomato, and BEANS. Yes. And they will totally put the beans on your plate to taint the other foods unless order to hold off on the beanage.


Full English Breakfast

Seriously, I feel a little nauseated just looking at it. Anyway, after breaking our fasts, we headed to the Roman Baths and the Museum of Costumes. The Baths were really amazing and made me wish I could afford to do the actual Bath spa vacation thing. The water was a little greener than I would choose for my own bath, but those Romans are crazy cats.

The Museum of Costume was really neat. I got to try on "real" corsets. I felt I could have gone tighter, but there was no bedpost to grab on to. But the dresses were really fascinating. Learning about the history of the different dress styles and the reasons behind them was really interesting. But I am a nerd like that. By the way, there was a pimp suit in the fashions of the seventies. HOT!


Roman Baths


Bath Abbey


Bath

After lunch, we headed to Stonehenge which I was SUPER excited about since I didn't think we were going to be able to fit in. I guess my friends could not resist my sad, puppy dog eyes. I wouldn't say that it felt mystical or magical, but it was kind of humbling to be looking at something so old and mysterious. The sheer size of the stones was absolutley amazing. It was as tall as I expected, but it always seemed wider in pictures. But still it was awesome. If you look through the images in chronological order on my Flickr, you will notice a great variance in the sky between the photographs. You would think it was over many, many hours. Nope, one single hour. It was a bone-chilling cold with winds whipping across the fields. It started off a little drizzly and overcast. A third of the way around, the skys began to clear almost completely. By the time we were finished there were the briefest of snow flurries, followed by a short shower, then a HUGE rainbow. Crazy.


Stonehenge


Stonehenge


Stonehenge


Stonehenge Rainbow

The following day, we headed to Norwich to check out YayCoffee's stomping ground. Norwich was not quite the small fishing villiage filled with cottages that I was anticipating. Really people, learn the difference between a small CITY and a small TOWN. Pineland? Small TOWN. It has under a thousand people. It has one school, one grocery store and two restuarants, one of which is a Dairy Queen. Norwich? Small CITY. It has MALLS. Plural. It has a freaking castle. And an airport if I am not mistaken. CITY. Anyway, it was pretty neat. Dinah and Taryn stayed at this B&B across from an uber-creepy burnt out church and abandoned hospital.


Creepy Abandoned Hospital


Creepy Burnt-Out Church that would NOT appear any brighter in pics. I think the Winchesters need to investigate this obviously haunted church.

We visited the Norwich Castle which I felt could be a little more informative about its origins. Or maybe I should have read the plaques better. Whatevs.


Norwich Castle


Norwich City Centre

Alright, so that covers Saturday through Monday. I will cover the rest of the trip in part 2.

If you would like to see all the photos check out my Flickr