Day 2- October 15th

Wake up call was 5:30am but had woken up at 5am anyway. I felt like a little kid at Christmas I was so excited! It was so great to have my suitcase and all of my stuff. I got ready, put my bag outside the room, and settled my bill with the front desk since I had made that phone call to my sister. Then I went down to the basement restaurant for breakfast. What a mess! Seven tours were leaving the hotel that morning and it was PACKED. In line in front of me was an older, retired couple named Sandy and Henry. Turns out they were on my tour. They invited me to sit with them at breakfast. Henry is 80 and Sandy is 65. Henry told me that he lived in Utah right before WWII at a training camp called Camp Kearns. Well there is no longer a training camp for the army there, but I was well aware of where Kearns was, it’s such a small world. After breakfast I waited in the lobby for the tour to be announced to leave. Just before 8am, my tour number was called out and I proceeded to the bus. The Tour Director greeted us as we got onto the bus, handing us an information sheet on our way in. It had his cell phone number on it in case we got lost in a city, it explained seat rotation, and it had some other useful information such as tipping on it. I kept waiting for more people to get on the bus, but it was just a small handful of us- sixteen in all. Our bus seats about 50 so we have a ton of room! The tour director is Doug, driver is Andy. Doug told us not to worry about seat rotation since there are so few of us, just asking that we be fair about giving other people a chance to sit in the front seats. Doug then discussed the optionals. I was a bit disappointed that some of the ones I wanted to do aren’t be offered because we have so few people or because of the time of year. For example, I wanted to do the Guinness tour and supper, but it wasn’t offered. I signed up for all the ones that were offered: Welsh Evening, Irish Evening, Jaunting Carts in Killarney, Scottish Evening, and Afternoon tea in the Cotswolds. I learned that everyone except Sandy, Henry, and I are Australian. About half the group is around my age, the other half were in their 50’s-80’s. I quickly learned the names of the two girls sitting in front of me- Jane and Audrey, and another couple- Terry and Marcia. The four of them met on the tour they did of Europe just before this one. During the day I also learned the name of the two other solo female travelers- Kellie and Jeanette, as well as the one single male traveler- Eddy. Kellie, Jeanette, and I all signed up for room share (the single supplement was fairly costly). Since there are 3 of us, Doug rotated who would get the single room in each hotel. It worked out well because there would be 3 times where we would be staying at a hotel for 2 nights, we each got one of those to ourselves. My single 2 night stay will be in Cardiff. I was happy about that since that would also be on my birthday. I didn’t learn the names of anyone else today. We started the day at Hampton Court. It was closed at the early hour, so we walked around the building and the gardens. Hampton Court was built in 1514 by Cardinal Woolsey who later gave it to Henry VIII. It was the first brick building built in England since the Roman occupation. I can only imagine how lovely the rose gardens will look like in the spring time. We were back on the coach and heading to Salisbury. Along the way we stopped at Stonehenge!! The area is fenced off and then the stones are also roped off some distance away. You can’t get very close to them. Doug told us that he wasn’t supposed to suggest it, but that rather than pay to get in and still not get close to the stones, we can cross the street and look at it through the fence. I think everyone except for Eddy did this. It was sort of surreal to know I was standing so close to something built thousands of years ago. I went back across the street and got some views of the burial mounds nearby. You can walk over to them and climb them if you want to, however we didn’t have time for this. Back on the coach! We are on our way to the town of Salisbury, home of the famous cathedral. We arrived shortly before noon, as the church bells later chimed and reminded me of the time. We had to be back on the coach at 1:40pm. I walked to the cathedral which is one of many places you can enter provided to give a “voluntary donation.” There’s nothing voluntary about it. If you don’t volunteer to pay, you don’t get in! I paid anyway as who knows if I will be here again. I walked around the cathedral admiring the beautiful stained glass and statues. There are a lot of ornate tombs inside as well. Attached the cathedral is a chapter house which houses the Magna Carta! Photography was not allowed inside the chapter house, however. I was pretty hungry now, so I wandered the town and passed by a pharmacy type place, kind of like a Walgreens. They had a refrigerated section where you could get sandwich or salad, snack, and a beverage for £2.99. I got a chicken and bacon sandwich, a fruit pack with apple slices and grapes, and a bottle of water. It was a pretty good deal. I walked back to the cathedral and sat on a bench and ate my lunch. It was nice and peaceful. I walked back to the pickup point for the coach and sat and talked with Kelie. I learned that she had gone to Africa just before this trip. Back on the coach! We are driving through the Dartmoor area. It was a fairly long stretch and most people seemed to be snoozing along the way. We came to an abrupt stop which woke me up- there was a pony in the road. I was feeling a bit carsick today. I think it was because I was sitting on the left side of the bus, right next to the roadside, and the motion of all the trees passing by quickly probably did it to me. As we approached our next stop, Doug pointed out the rock formations protruding from the ground. These are called tors. Our next stop was a little town called Widecomb-on-the-Moor. It was lovely. Kellie and I walked over to the parish church. It had an interesting cemetery. We looked around inside. Then I headed across the street to a little restaurant. I needed to use the toilet! Jane, Terry, and Marcia were inside having tea and scones. They invited me to sit with them. I also purchased some scones, but got a diet coke instead of tea since I’m not fond of tea. It was my first experience with scones and they were delicious! I found out that Terry actually has the same birthday as me, except he is one year older. At 5pm we were back on the coach heading to our final stop of the day- Plymouth. I’m sharing a room with Jeanette tonight. Our hotel is the Novotel and looks very much like an American hotel. Dinner was at 7pm. To start they had a salad bar, except over there a salad bar is nothing like what I call a salad bar. It had all these weird dishes, a plate of cold cuts and cheese, but very little salad. I had some cold cuts. I wasn’t too keen on the dinner choices (it was a buffet) and just picked at it. Choices were fish, veggie lasagna, or lamb. Later, I got over my objection to eating fish. I would have starved if I hadn’t! I had sat with Audrey and Jane at dinner. I learned that Audrey is a pastry chef. She wanted to try all the desserts. There was a chocolate mousse with a dark chocolate ganache (I had this and it was wonderful!), a lemon pie, apple pie, and some sort of cake with berries on it. After dinner Jane, Audrey, and I walked over to a nearby supermarket for supplies for the next day. I got a bottle of water. Here I found out that Jane had a huge addiction to malteasers, which are like Whoppers here in America. I got back to my room and get things ready for the next day.

Hotel: Plymouth Novotel. Room had 2 double beds and nice sized bathroom. Food was ok, but had far better food other places on the trip.

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