Let the touring begin...

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I'm on tour again
Off to England, Wales, Scotland
Only eight on tour.

I had an early start today since I wanted to make sure I made it to the meeting point this morning early and wasn't too sure what Monday morning rush hour would be like. So I popped outta bed at 5:45. Washed up. Went down to put my bag in the storage room. Went to the kitchen to make a couple of quick peanut butter sandwiches for snack. Back to the room to finish packing and then down to reception to check out. Reception was actually closed but the not so friendly security guard helped to check me out. No good morning or how are you doing but "Were you the one in the baggage room and kitchen?" What, he saw it was me, why ask me? To let me know he's "watching?" Then he sort of reprimanded me for bringing my linen down with me..."Next time just leave it upstairs." Hmm, guess he's not much of a people person. lol

Then by 6:15 I was off to the tube right on schedule. It's about a 6 minute walk to the tube. Not busy at all. I was getting a bit antsy because I had to wait about 10 minutes for the train to come. Tick tock! I had to transfer from Rotherhithe to Canada Water to Westminster and get off at Victoria. Phew! I did all that pretty smoothly. And the trains weren't too packed so it wasn't too awkward with my pack. I made it to the office for check in about 7AM. There were quite a few people outside the office and some waiting around for Busabout, some for the four day Cornwall Crusader Haggis Tour and my tour up to Edinburgh. I went inside to see if I had to check in but the lady in the office said that Haggis wasn't open yet and to wait outside. So I found myself a spot on the sidewalk to wait. It was funny that five different people asked me what tour I was on etc. to find out what was happening. Then one girl said to me it must be because it looks like I know all of the answers - looks can be deceiving. lol

Eventually our driver Fergie showed up around 7:20 and started to check us in. There were only eight of us on tour. Anja from Namibia, Dee from Melbourne, Daniel from Sydney, Scott from an area outside of Brisbane, Robert from NZ, Julia from Taiwan, Wai-ting from Taiwan and Shanty from Bristol (she met up with us at the end of the day.)

Traffic out of London wasn't too bad. We’re currently on the motorway and will be on the road for about an hour before our first stop. No time like the present to start snacking! 😊

It was a pretty easy morning on the road. It's just after 10AM and we're already on our second stop. The first pit stop was just to stretch our legs/go pee. Then we stopped at Sainsbury's grocery store to pick up food for lunch. The area we're in is supposedly notorious for crop circles but we haven't seen any yet. Our driver Fergie said he saw one last year.

We stopped off at Uffington to see the Uffington Whitehorse. Basically a horse on the side of a hill and chalk has been put where the "stylized" horse is etched into the hill. After heavy rains they have to re-chalk and the horse changes shape over time. lol The horse is 3000 years old. There's also the dragon slayer hill where the last dragons in England was slayed.

We're now driving to Avery to see not one but three giant stone circles. So big the town lives in one! We just stopped briefly in Ashbury where a lot of houses have thatched roofs and home owners used t keep their livestock/animals up there to keep them from predators like foxes and wolves. Some have some fancy decoration like a peacock or chickens or eagles on top!

I dozed off on our drive to Avery. I think because I'm still trying to recover from last weeks flu. I've been a bit tired. We got to Avery. We checked out some of the rocks laid out in three concentric circles. Saw a crop circle in the distance (£1 donation to walk through) and then I sat on the hill with Wai-teng and Julia and finished eating my lunch.

Fergie has some rules for the bus.
1) No eating oranges.
2) No smoking or farting. If you need a smoke break he will stop at the next convenient moment. If you need to fart he will pull an emergency stop and let you out to let one rip.
3) No snogging. "If I don't get any action you don't get any either."
4) No vegimite.
5) No drinking.
So I had to wait until we were off of the bus before indulging in my oranges!

It's only about a half hour to Bath. We just made one short stop to see the Cherhill White Horse. Now this one looked like a real horse. None of this stylized stuff from this morning. I must also mention that there are signs warning of race horses that may be crossing.

Yikes! Where'd the sun go? It's starting to sprinkle! So much for the heat wave - it's over. lol

We made it to Bath and the rains stopped. After checking into our hostel we all had the afternoon free to explore Bath. I ended up walking around with Anja. Not the most interesting person in the World but she ended up inviting me to visit with her in Namibia! I didn't want to fork over £9.50 to go into the Roman Baths so I tried taking a peek from the back as suggested by Fergie but couldn't see much. So the next best alternative was to check out some of the postcards. lol I will be coming back to Bath when I'm on my four day Cornwall Crusader tour in a couple of weeks so I will have a chance to check out the Roman Baths if I change my mind.

Then we walked around town a bit. There were lots of shops to check out. The river was nice and apparently the ships on shore were like boats you'd find in the Netherlands. There was this one really nice garden area but you had to pay to walk through it so we just admired it from above. They were having a lovely butterfly exhibit but looking from above (for free I might add) was probably better than going down below and looking at it up close. At least that is what I'm telling myself. haha

We sort of walked in circles and came by the church area a few times. The same "saw"/violin guy was playing in the courtyard by the church and Baths for a few hours solid! Was kind of funny watching how serious this guy was when performing, if you want to call it that? He was even selling his own CD that he had made up! I wonder how much change this guy makes everyday.

Eventually made it back to the hostel and decided to shower up before dinner. I guess Anja, being I'm guessing in her 50's and living in Namibia most of her life has not stayed in many hostels in her lifetime and kept asking me questions about hostels and their safety. It was funny at first but then it has become a bit irritating...

I chilled out in the room for a bit and finally updated my photo log from the last three plus weeks before heading downstairs to the bar where Dee, Daniel and Scott were already hanging out. So we just talked bollocks for ages and then realized it was 7:30! With it being so light out, we lost all track of time. Hmm, we'd better get our food orders in soon cuz the last order is 8PM! I guess the last six months, or even more for that matter I haven't been anywhere where the sun has set later than 6/6:30. So now that it is summer here in England I'm not used to the 9PM sunsets! It's fantastic having so much daylight especially the last two days in London where I've stayed out later than normal since I still felt safe being out at night and it not being dark.

It is currently about 10:15 and a little early to be going to bed so I'm writing my journal by the light coming through the window from the street. Doh! I should have taken my music outta my bag before climbing up onto the top bunk. Oh well. No music to listen to tonight. At least my journal is now up to date...I just have to actually type it all up in my blog from the last two weeks! Yikes! Don't think that'll happen soon since currently it is £3/hr for internet. That translates to about $7.50 CDN!

I forgot to mention an Italian media crew asked our table "Is it possible to get a glass of water in Bath?" Wonder if I'll make it onto Italian TV??

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