Here is London, Part Twegen! (that's anglo saxon for two)

Day 3 started out lovely and sunny and bright. Which was welcoming since our jet lag had done us in the night before and we'd gotten about 3 hours sleep. Ugh! We had such high hopes for the weather as we had planned to take a 3 hour walking tour of Bath. During breakfast it began raining. HARD. It didn't let up the entire day. This, my friends, was the kind of weather that soaks your skin and dampens your poor, aching bones.

Somehow we still managed to have fun. Give me a day like that at home and I'm a pip ;). In England, I just took it in stride. Sort of. We powered through that walking tour and it was wonderful. Our guide was very knowledgeable and it always makes a place more enjoyable to me when I know little tidbits about it. I love knowing the history of a city. I was, however, mocked for loving Jane Austen. No one else in the group would admit to it (WHY?!) and then they all snickered when I raised my hand, and our guide said he preferred other authors. Morons ;).

I must add one funny item here. During our walking tour, we heard a kid talking on his cell phone and say "what up dog?" in his English accent. It was ridiculous. I think we all understand plainly how much I adore England, but this was absurd. That phrase does not translate.

Here we are looking at the Royal Crescent. And our guide's bald head.

This is nearing the end of our walking tour. Thank Heaven for knitting. This hat saved my life (as did my mittens. Thanks Bea!)

A little lesson on child rearing in Bath. This poor little bugger had to hoist his pant legs up in order to keep them from getting soaked! He looked so cold! I suppose it's better to be cold for a few minutes than for the rest of the day because of wet pants.

Here I am in front of the Abbey. I had to add this because I thought it showcased how cold and wet it was that day. So cold.

After our tour we were tired and hungry. And in pain. My back doesn't do so well standing still for long periods of time and there was a lot of standing still during the tour. We decided to go to a mediocre Thai restaurant (of course we didn't know it was going to be mediocre until we tasted our food) and warm our cockles for a bit. After some food and some pain meds (nothing hard core, you understand), we were ready to rock the Roman Baths!

These baths are unreal. They are a work in progress and seem to have changed quite a bit since I last saw them. Those Romans were a smart bunch. They discovered a hot spring and put it to use. Why in the world weren't the Britains doing it in the first place? They were an intelligent lot. Did they like being cold? Did they not want to take a lovely dip? Well anyway, ingenious construction with the drains, the hot baths, cool baths... I would have been a regular during Roman times. The employees of the baths would have known me by name.

Also, I tasted the "healing" waters this time (I was too chicken to do it before). Barf. It tasted like blood. It has a lot of iron in it so there you go. Also, it's hot. Hot blood. If you want some, just put a rusty nail in your tea kettle and you'll get the basic idea. Or cut your finger.

Here's Steve imitating the guy on the wall. I'm not sure who he is (the guy)

Here I am unintentionally imitating this lovely lady. My hat had the same texture as her wonky hair! Huh, fancy that.

This is me in heaven. Standing upon oldness listening to historical facts with Steve hanging about somewhere... What could be better? No really, what?

The big'n (the main bath). That little dot in the gray coat at the far end is Steve.

Steve's mad hot photography skillz again. Pretty cool reflection, huh?

After the baths we decided to do some shopping. Oh the shopping. We found so many wonderful shops! If I'd had another suitcase, I could have done some serious damage. As it stands, I think I restrained myself fairly well. In fact, there are several things I still think about that I didn't purchase. That's how you know you really need something. If you're thinking about it weeks after you get home.

One store I found particularly adorable. Notice that it is NOT called "Sally's Big 'N Tall". Oh the cleverness.

We had no idea where we wanted to eat dinner. We'd gotten several recommendations but had to do a good deal of walking to get to them. We sort of happened upon an Italian restaurant and bar called Real Italian and were about to walk past because it wasn't open. There was a couple standing at the door who said it opened at 6:00 (about 10 minutes) and that this was the opening night. Oooh! I love an opening night! We decided to wait and it ended up being a fab decision. The couple who we waited with were Wendy and Mike and they owned three shops just around the corner from the restaurant. They were hilarious and we had a great time getting to know them. Mike was a native "Bathonian" (Wendy called him her little Roman and made him show us his profile to prove that he had a "Roman" nose), and Wendy was originally from Australia. We also met another couple, Mike and Chelsea, who were very kind as well and were shocked to find out we were Mormons (always a topic of conversation when someone finds out we're from Utah). I think they expected us to have either horns or pioneer attire ;).

What a fab night. Really. I love meeting new people and getting a glimpse into the way others live. It makes me happy. Not in a weird, voyeuristic way. I'm just interested. I would recommend this restaurant highly. So, if you're planning a trip to Bath, head over to Real Italian!

Fran (restaurant owner), Wendy and Mike (the little Roman).

Steve and Heidi (the larger sized Scott and Dane).

Mike (of Wendy and Mike) had recently been to a clinic whose Dr.'s had names so ridiculous that he had to show us. You'll note his doctor was Dr. Pain. There is also a Dr. Wharton and a Dr. Grabham. What the heck?! What kind of clinic is this? I had to have a picture.

In my notes on my phone I have written for day 4, "Where to begin? This day was a bit of a disaster". Of course looking back (until tonight), I didn't think it was such a disaster but reading how things went down, I kind of agree with my original statement.

We drove to Blenheim first thing and took the tour which is wonderful, and informative and lovely. Blenheim is Winston Churchill's family home and has a good deal of information about his childhood including letters written by him and many photographs. Let it be said that I believe his parents were horrid, neglectful people. Okay, let's move on. We made the mistake of eating lunch in the cafeteria. Good heavens it was awful food. The woman serving us, bless her, looked like "Cookie" from Matilda and she kept piling soggy veg onto our plates. It smelled like a bog. The Coke was good.

Our biggest mistake of the entire trip was the decision we made next. The owners of Blenheim, in a sorry attempt to keep up with the astronomical cost of running such a place, have introduced "Blenheim, the Untold Story". It needed to remain untold. They have the upper floor set up in a nightmarish Disneylandesque animatronic disaster tour. You have to walk through what may have been one of the most frightening displays EVER, and learn about the history of Blenheim. It was horrible. There was no charm (like I believe they expected there to be) and I could not have cared less about the information because I was too scared of the animatronics and too dumfounded by how badly done the whole thing was. We lost an hour of daylight to this horror show and I was angry by the time we got to the car. Stupid Untold Story! I would NOT recommend this ;). In case you were wondering.

Here's Steve outside our B&B. It was so choice.

Steve in front of Blenheim.

Me. See that white door just next to my head? That's the entrance to the cafeteria, and our ill luck. We decided, over our bog veg, to go to "The Untold Story" after eating :(.

On we go. Enough moping, we ARE still in England, after all. Our next stop was a little town called Lacock. What a beauty! They've filmed parts of many of my favorite movies here; Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Harry Potter... It was amazing. Oldness. So old! It's the perfect place for a period film because honestly all you'd have to do to the town to make it believable is chuck some dirt on the ground. The rest is done. I'm so happy that buildings like this are still standing and that people live in them! How fun! We couldn't spend much time here (remember that nonexistent sun I told you about...) but I would love to go back. Talk about charm!

Entering Lacock. See, just remove the cars, chuck down some dirt, and I'm suddenly very oddly dressed in the 18th century!

And again...

Oldness behind us... Do not ask me what happened to my hair.

This little beauty is supposed to be in Sense and Sensibility. Since I no longer have a fully functioning brain, is it THE cottage? "A little cottage is always very snug".

And THIS?! What?! How amazingly old and beautiful is this? This is someone's house. I'm not sure what happened to this picture, it's all fuzzy wuzzy, but you get the idea.

The rest of the day I have no pictures for. It was basically a disaster. We decided to head to Oxford but the dang sun was already going down and by the time we got there, very little light was left. We parked and were about to walk around but found that we didn't have enough coins for the meter. Feeling defeated after suffering "The Untold Story", we cut our losses and didn't even bother asking a shop for change. We just got back in the car and headed for London.

On the road we saw signs that said "MAJOR DELAYS" due to road work. Perfect. We thought this was a grand time to go to Costco. Why, you ask? Because we love Costco and it's the perfect place to find gifts for people and is also fascinating to find what Costco carries in other cities (like Honolulu, Hawaii or Reading, England). Come to find out, there were major delays to Reading as well. We just didn't see the signs until it was too late!

Have you ever been in a situation wherein you need to tinkle so badly that you are in a panic because you have no way of going and you may, at any second, go in your pants? I thought so. This disaster drive to Costco ended up being one of those times for me. Steve had no compassion. He thought it would be a grand idea to pull over and have me go on the side of the road. I tried explaining to him that it's not that easy for girls and that likely a badger or a fox would bite me on the bum. Also, there was no real way of hiding me from the other 7.5 million cars on the road. After 2 hours (on a 2 mile stretch of road) I saw the blessed golden arches and prayed that this was not a McDonalds that made you have a key to use the toilet. It wasn't and I made it in the very nick of time. Really, we almost returned that car with wet seats. What a fiasco.

Our Costco trip ended up being a good one. I bought two coats, one to replace my ineffective coat I brought for the trip, and another just because I loved it. We bought lots of candy and Steve bought an Armani jacket (that's right, that is why you go to Costco in Reading).

We finally returned the car and proceeded to take the longest tube ride in history into London. Out we came onto Queensway (which I was under the impression was Bayswater and was therefore out of my wits for a great deal of time), which has turned into not such a nice street. I was so sad to see the state of it. But never mind, it's still London! We trudged to our hotel and found a drunk mother (child in the father's arms, along with a beer) puking her guts up on the floor, checked in and decided we liked our B&B in Bath quite a bit more ;).

We were starving and didn't think anything would be open at 11:00 p.m. (we later realized that there is a LOT open at 11:00 p.m.) so we headed to the old standby, McDonalds. The McFlurry machine was broken. Ah well, what can you do? The day was comical!

I really hope this post doesn't sound too pouty and sad. We were still having fun. It's just that some days don't go so well when you're traveling. We understood that and took it in stride. Mostly it's hilarious now! Bless England and all the bad days spent in it!

Peace out,

Heidi