Internet at last

I have not been very good at posting. London was hectic and each day was jammed with lots of sightseeing and running around. We would collapse into bed and jump up in the morning to start again. Since leaving London, we have had no internet access. The local internet café, as it were, is attached and affiliated with the undertaker (you just can’t make this stuff up!)

For the friends and classmates of the kids, I will include a section titled “Where in the World are Ethan and Siena”. Can you figure where we are in this picture? The line in the background is highly significant. Once the world was proven round, how could a person describe where they were on the globe, or, what time it is relative to the rest of the world? Well, Greenwich, England was chosen as the beginning of time and place. The twenty four hours of the time zones start at GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time. As you travel east from there, time gets later, GMT +1, GMT +2, etc. Traveling west, the time gets earlier. Michigan is GMT –5, meaning it is 5 hours earlier in Michigan than in England. It is also zero degrees longitude. Travel east and you are in the Eastern Hemisphere, from 0 degrees to 180 degrees east. Travel west and you are in the Western Hemisphere, again going to 180 degrees. The imaginary line at 180 degrees (either way you travel) is the International Date line. So, as we stand on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England, we are standing at the beginning of time and space, with one foot each in the eastern and western hemispheres..

There were other things we discovered in London. I discovered that half a pint at lunch is lovely. A full pint makes me comatose. We used to have a saying in college, from evenings when we’d go to a happy hour, then return to our room before heading out: Friends don’t let friends stop drinking. Ethan and Siena, not having imbibed at lunch, had no such difficulties. We were able to drag ourselves out later to do a rapid exploration of the British Museum, including seeing the Rosetta Stone!

Saturday, we went to pick up our car. The gentleman helping us urged me to take a larger car as we would be smooshed (FYI: my computer did not like this word and suggested I use “smooched” instead. One must be very careful not to always listen to spell check…) into the one reserved for us, and he would be happy to upgrade us to the next model free, however it would be a stick shift. I declined; driving in a car on the wrong side of the road, going around traffic circles the opposite direction, arguing with my husband about where to go and shifting gears with the wrong hand would be just one thing too much. I also figured the only reason he was offering was because he didn’t have the car we had reserved. So, we gleefully piled our luggage into the available car—a Mercedes, and took off driving out of London.

I swerved to avoid the two double-decker buses converging on us, made a u-turn on a small lane after missing a turn, narrowly missed a man in a wheelchair with suicidal desires who darted out in front of me, braked to prevent hitting two women crossing the street whose peripheral vision was compromised by the chadors they were wearing, but failed to see the curb that moved into my lane, without signaling, I might add. And so, we got a flat tyre (British spelling, not wrong). By the time this occurred, we had traveled a full half a mile from the Hertz office. . But, this proved to be only a minor delay and we continued on our way to Oxford then on to the Cotswolds. By the time we arrived, we had pretty much mastered the round abouts and were able to drastically decrease our number of u-turns.


The day ended far better than it began. We checked in to a lovely bed and breakfast in an idyllic town in the Cotswolds, before heading up to Stratford for a brilliant performance of A Mid Summers Night’s Dream. The word of the day was “bucolic”—perfect for describing the drive in the Cotswolds.

Still no internet! Sorry about missing the meeting yesterday, Gary, Jim, Keith and Peter, but we were climbing up a mountain to see the ruins of Castle Dis Bran, outside the town of Llangollen. The wireless connection was rather weak. We are now in Wales, where a double “L” is pronounced like clearing your throat politely. I am sure you, the reader, can practice up on this. The countryside is very different from the part of England we have seen. It is wilder, more treed, more mountainous, and harder to pronounce. We passed a golf cwrs—who needs any pesky vowels???

Our hopes of climbing Mount Snowdon today are fading as it looks like rain. Of course, it has rained part of every day we have been here. There is no getting our clothing to dry for the humidity is so high, things hung out seem wetter in the morning than when originally hung. We haven’t let the rain stop our activities as Monday we tramped 12 miles from town to town in the Cotswolds, the last 5 of which were in pouring rain. The kids were troupers! When I apologized to Siena for the length of the trek—we had only intended on a 5 mile loop, she replied that it was okay, but, in the future, 8 miles should really be the maximum.

Now, we are spending our anniversary evening, sitting in a dive, blogging to you. Of course, we do each have a pint! Which reminds me, I am going to include a section entitled, "Kim and Wendy drink their way around the World." The beer/ale in England and Wales is wonderful. It is decidedly less bubbly than ours in the US, has a stronger taste and is less cold. We haven't had the same type twice, although I couldn't list them for you. Siena's section is entitled, "Sweet World" (my child with the major league sweet tooth). Her favorite dessert so far is a Welsh specialty, Caramel Ribbon. "It was a cookie on the bottom, covered with caramel and chocolate. I found that there are a lot of ice cream places in Great Britain, and the ice cream is very good here." Unfortunately, the "Blogger" site was down, so the post needed to wait another day to reach the internet.

We spent the intervening day climbing Snowden. It is the highest mountain in Wales or England and a tough walk. It took us 6 hours, up into major fog, rain and strong winds. A bit down from the top, though, the skies cleared and we had beautiful views. We are spending tonight in Chester.