Bath-Salisbury-London

That's the best I could do Helen, hope it's good enough!

Carolyn here - Ari and I were without internet access yesterday due to no phone line port on this netbook - which was the only access we had available in the hotel room and we were not informed of the access in the lobby downstairs... Oh, and did I mention hotel? Not a misspelling - hotel. Not hostel.

Back to yesterday - where I will start from the top, and then write a whole other post about what we got up to today.

We woke up around 7 and packed up our stuff and headed to the train station. If I say nothing else for Bath, they do have good signage if you know where to look. Made it to the train station to see that the next train to London (Waterloo) by way of Salisbury was in in about an hour so we walked back into town a teensy bit to have food. We were hoping that the station would have lockers or luggage storage of some kind... they didn't. I better get buff (or learn a lesson) from lugging this luggage over hill and down dale!

Interesting thing to note about Bath here... EVERYTHING CLOSES EARLY. I mean... Boots (a chain of drugstore type businesses) was closed at 6 on a Wednesday!

In an interesting twist of fate... Everything opens late too. So, we stopped at an odd and kinda skeevy place that happened to be close to the station and I had two chocolate croissants and a bag of crisps, while Ari had a chicken curry pastry and a chocolate croissant... and then we packed up and walked back to the station.

Got on the train just fine - it was surprisingly empty. The countryside here is beyond gorgeous. Ari and I were trying to explain/describe the greens and have continuously failed to do so. I think it hast to be the angle of the sun that is making them different to us - she thinks it is being in England, and all we wanted to do was get out of the train for a second and breathe it all in. Luckily, soon after we got to Salisbury and got off the train. We bought our continuation tickets from a very nice older gentleman who enjoyed a good joke on the American girls - and found out that the nearest place to leave luggage was a pub about 3 minutes down the road. (I cannot express how glad we were to hear that.) Dropped our bags off and paid a surely exorbitant and completely necessary price to leave them until 11pm that day if we needed to :P.

Headed back to the train station to figure out how to get to/where to pay for the tickets to Stonehenge when I spotted the first 'Adult' store I'd seen in England - and really people, with my area of study, how could I resist?

Walked in... and walked right back out. It wasn't REALLY icky - but it wasn't someplace I wanted to linger either - it was also TINY. Large bathroom sized. Weiiiiiird.

Anywho, we skeedaddled out of there and headed to the train station (where the Stonehenge Bus Tour has a stop) and waited for the bus. It showed up, (and we were very VERY first on) and learned a whole bunch about the area and the history of the area before we even got to Stonehenge. The only problem with the tour was that the syncing of the voiceover and the actual travel of the bus was off, so we ended up looking back over our shoulders to figure out what the bus was talking about. Again with the greens, and blue greens... I just think this language doesn't have the words for the colors we are talking about here. Also - FIELDS of the same yellow flowers - Ari says it looks like mustard, whatever it is beautiful.

Passed by an ancient fort called Old Sarum on the way to Stonehenge - why I mention this will become apparent later - that one has the option of entering on the way back.

Got to Stonehenge...

Can I just say wow? And that - oddly enough - I expected them to be bigger? At least on the initial approach I was like "huh, I expected larger stones" but after actually walking as close to them as one is allowed - nope. They are HUGE. And thinking of the logistical issues that must have arisen from trying to get the damn things there (and IN PLACE. 1/3 of the stones is UNDERGROUND?!) it's just impressive.


Did Stonehenge for about an hour, looked at, walked around, marveled at the sheep that were grazing all of 15 ft from the walkway around the stones, listened to the extremely impressive audio tour, took pictures... and then headed back towards Salisbury. We were both pretty dang hungry at that point (around 1), so while I wanted to go to Old Sarum - Ari was pretty much like "Eh, you choose. If we do, no food for at least 40 minutes more."

Chose to go to Old Sarum at the VERY last moment - got off the buss and started walking towards the entrance to the fort when we got sidetracked by two ponies that were chillin in the field next to the path.
The white one was obviously a unicorn, and so we tried to pet it... which it was having none of. Thanks to my miraculous clicking skills (and Ari being the most obvious lure for a unicorn - being as she is a fairy) it DID come very close to the fence... but still no dice. Then the sugar came out (no, we are NOT above bribing a horse) and while the unicorn got closer - it still wouldn't get within reach (technically it was within reach but it was not interested in being touched, so we didn't.) and we moved up the path.

Suddenly, another pony appeared! And it was a voracious kinda thing - leaning on barbed wire to get to the grass on our side of the fence - so Ari tried to give this one some sugar - which it gladly took from her. Moved on up the path to where it split, one way through a nicely marked gate towards Old Sarum, and one way up and around the area of the fort - unmarked but it looked like fun.

So, with some cajoling (and to be honest, sheer bullheadedness on my part) we took the unknown path around, and saw some BEAUTIFUL landscape - climbed up and down a steep hill, continued on the path thanks to the perfect timing of a pair of joggers, and eventually found a way up to the fort that bypassed the nice easy hill up to the entrance and instead went the long loooooong way around... Thanks for coming with Ari :D.



Climbed another tree or two (what can I say? I did do an entire quarter on the study of treehouses :P) and then tromped our way across the field to the way down... ish. Happened that the way down crossed right by the real entrance to the fort... so we went in (I am my fathers daughter sometimes - not good at passing up the free stuff :P) and looked around. It was quite honestly stunning - not a huge deal to most of my tech-y generation I wouldn't think, but to history and mythology buffs like Ari and I it was beautiful. Feeling the weight of the ages - thousands of years of human history... phwoar.


Eventually headed back down to the bus stop... where we waited for 40 or so minutes for the returning tour bus before accidentally getting on the wrong bus (dude. All the buses being red AND double deckered? Makes it somewhat easy to mess up!) and heading into town. Found out that the bus did not in fact go to the train station... so we hoofed it. Stopped back at the bar to pick up our bags and then headed to the station - and caught our train to London easily.

Enjoyed the countryside (and the inside of our respective eyelids) on the way in... and this is where the fun starts.

We were a weeeee bit late for our hostel check in time at that point (and yes, it was really all my fault - but I'm okay with it. Old Sarum and tromping was worth it.) so we headed the correct direction on the tube and when we got off it in what we thought was the right area (according to the map we had studied) we tried to call them.

And tried to call them.

And tried to call them.

Repeat ad nauseum.

By this point we had walked the street they were supposed to be located on twice with no sign of even the correct house number (one side of the street went to 34A, and the other side of the roundabout picked up at 48, we were looking for 40) and after asking plenty of passerby and shopkeepers if they had any idea where we were going, we decided to sit down and review the information we had at hand. We'd been looking for the hostel at the wrong address, couldn't find the hostel, they weren't answering their phone, we were exhausted and sore (and hungry, and needed a bathroom) and we didn't have a map with enough detail in the area.

We stopped at the Tesco in the area (essentially a mini grocery store) and asked if they had the number for a cab company to take us to the hostel (or any idea where we were going) and they said no, and no, and thanks for your business but bye bye now.

Thank the gods for one of the cashiers - he got out his internet enabled phone (ours was in the process of dying and internet is rather a large battery drain) and found a cab company with headquarters near us for us to call. We then tried to call the company... to no avail. Eventually he gave us his phone too - and we managed to get ahold of them. They said they'd be by in about 30-45 minutes, and we said thanks and hung up.

So we sat on the ledge outside... and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

(Seeing a pattern here?)

After about an hour (their longest estimate plus 15 minutes) we tried to call them again, and after figuring out the numerical selections needed to get a call through we got a hold of them.

To be told that they had never received a booking from us - and who had we talked to and they never took a job without getting a cell number and on and on... Until a sudden silence on the other end of the line and some hushed talking and "Your name is Ariel?" and then apologize and a promise to be at our location in the next 20 minutes.

30 minutes pass, and still no one. We've been scouting cabs that drove through the traffic circle for awhile, but none have come close enough for us to flag and we had thought ours was on the way. The nice cashier from earlier (whose name I sadly cannot remember) comes out for a smoke break and is astonished to see us still sitting there. He calls the company and complains at the same time Ari (who is now standing at the traffic circle) receives a call from them saying that they thought we had said "grove" instead of "road" and were trying to blame it on us. They will be there in 10-15 minutes.


10 minutes in to THAT wait time, FINALLY, an empty cab drives by and I flag it down - and as one of the passerby had mentioned a Holiday Inn being nearby (and we were now 5 hours late for our hostel checkin,) - we went to the Holiday Inn Express instead of the hostel.

Sweet sweet pizza, and a bathroom, and SHOWERS... And a private room all our own.

We ate, and passed out.

And now dear people...

Today.