Once in her life my sister had a job that came with much international travel. One trip in particular, as you may have guessed, was to England. This was during a time when our parents lived in Naples, Florida. E and I thought it would be a kick to go to the UK, just the girls. So we gave our mom the information, she would meet us at the Minneapolis airport and we'd head for Europe. While we waited for her, a gate agent came on the speaker and announced that there were six first class seats open at $500 bucks a piece. Wow, that would be great, I thought. A twelve hour flight squeezed between a couple of other people did not sound appealing. I wasn't sure how I would handle it. Nobody was biting on the $500 a piece so they dropped it to $300! Even though our mom had not yet arrived in Minneapolis, I couldn't pass up the first class seats. I bought them for us. And boy am I glad I did. You see, our mom's flight was late getting in from Miami and since we were first class seat holders, they held the plane until she got to the gate. Of course when she got there I told her she owed me $300 bucks, but it was worth it. She was pretty happy to find she was flying to England in first class. I think it was my favorite part of the trip. Mostly because I had such bad jet lag, it was difficult for me to function in a foreign country, but also because it rains in England. A lot. It's also windy.
The above photo was of my mom and I in the Cotswolds. I did, absolutely love the Cotswolds and would go back in a heart beat. Notice the umbrella my mom is holding and the pink jacket I'm wearing. These things come in to play in a moment.
My sister worked most of the days we were in England but on this particular day all three of us played tourist. We took a bus tour to the Cotswolds, Bath and Stonehenge. I was happy to take a bus tour where someone told us when and where to get on and off. I had grown weary of navigating the winding streets and metro stations. Mind the gap. It was also driving me nuts that every time I'd ask someone for directions they would end their statement with a question like "isn't it" or "don't you".
Can you tell me which direction to walk to find the closest metro station? It's that way, isn't it? I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. Right, yes. You walk down that street, don't you? Again, I'm not sure, can you please tell me? Right, yes.
If I could write in an English accent I would.
A stop or two in the Cotswolds came first. The air was heavy and cool but the mist lent itself perfectly to the location. It was at the same time romantic and eerie. It could have been the weather but the streets were empty. It felt like a sweet little ghost town.
The next stop was Bath. It was a resort town during Roman times and is now just considered the country. We were fairly soggy by this point in the day. There was much to see, eat and shop for in Bath. It rained the whole time. Remember the umbrella from the photo? The only thing keeping us out of the rain? It was left in the restroom by one who shall remain nameless, but she was holding it in the photo. So the little pink wool jacket I was wearing was WET by the time we went back to the bus. It started to smell like a dead goat. So much so that I was forced to sit alone in a row toward the back of the bus by my mom and sister. It was OK though because the Australian girls in the very back row were pretty entertaining. They actually chose to sit back there and they didn't stink. They did seem to have a bit of a drinking problem however, or at least one of them did. Before we left Bath they had gotten two big hot chocolates and one of them spilled hers all over the front of her butter yellow sweatshirt. The other one laughed the entire way to Stonehenge. It was contagious.
By the time we got to Stonehenge the wind had picked up exponentially and the temperature had dropped. But you can't go all the way to England then drive three hours out to the middle of no where and not get out of the bus to see an ancient druid calender, can you? No, you can't. Thankfully, the bus driver had an umbrella collection from other forgetful tourists. Before we left the bus I dawned my dead goat and headed for the door. As he handed me my umbrella, the bus driver gave me a funny wish-I-had-a-clothes-pin-for-my-nose kind of a look. We must have seemed like a bus full of homeless people. We were wet, windblown, smelly and one of us had been covered in thick brown hot chocolate. He warned us as a group of the wind, but in his English way. It's a bit breezy, isn't it?
Remember in the movie Forrest Gump when he was humping through the swamp in Vietnam describing the rain? I think about that scene when I think about Stonehenge. It was the sideways little bitty stinGinG rain.
The photo to the right is of my mom and sister. Mom is on the right, notice how the borrowed umbrella is molded to her body? Yeah, it was that windy... wasn't it? This photo was taken seconds before both umbrellas were blown inside out. The lovely multi-colored umbrella my sister is holding was found in Ireland a week later. I was still kind of giddy from the girls laughing behind me on the bus, so this was really hilarious to me. That and I have never been so tired for so long in my life, you know how you get... slap happy.We made a beeline for the gift shop to warm up, which is where everyone else was too. There were dozens of people in this tiny little shop. It was, thankfully, hot in there. The heat made my jacket smell even worse however. I felt bad for the people with noses, but what was I supposed to do? They didn't sell sweatshirts like they do in every shop on American soil and it was really cold outside. I had to keep wearing it.
I don't even remember viewing Stonehenge while we were there. But I do remember thinking it was smaller then I thought it would be. But that's how I felt about Mount Rushmore. I bought a book in the gift shop about Stonehenge and read it on the way back to London. Three hours of riding in a bus full of wet folks with me now in the back of the bus completely alone.
I think that night I actually slept, after I threw my jacket away.
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