Windsor, Stonehenge, Bath - Finally

>I'm walking down a street that looks like any other, when all of a sudden the opening drum beats of "Moby Dick" by Led Zeppelin are blaring out of some unseen speaker system. A little strange, but I quickly realize this is good walking music and I fall into a rhythm, only to have the song stop after about 30 seconds. Then after a couple moments, the song starts again. All of a sudden, I'm hit with the realization that this is not an awesome song blaring out of some unseen all-powerful stereo system, but it is in fact my ringtone, and I am, in fact, dreaming.

"Hello?"

"Tris, are you coming?"

"What time is it?"

"7:05"

"Crap, I'll be right down."

This is what Club Sandwich does to your Thursdays. Lord Sandwich takes all your plans for Thursday and utterly destroys them. It doesn't matter if your plans were ambitious, like a tour of three of England's popular tourist attractions, or something simple, like get to Goldsmith's Cafe by two. Sandwich crushes these plans. If you do happen to get done what you had planned, Sandwich still makes sure that you will feel at your absolute worst while accomplishing your plans. You will think you're going to pass out, or fall over; maybe you'll even think, in your melodramatic state, that you will die.

Despite all this, Sandwich is the place to be on Wednesday nights in New Cross. The Hob has 20% off drinks all night, yet no one really goes there. It's Sandwich, or you're staying in getting work done. Sandwich usually involved an hour or two of pregaming, then standing in line for a little until you're let in around midnight. Then you dance hard for three straight hours, with little to no water and lots of drink specials. Then things are blurry and then you wake up exhausted physically and mentally.

This is what I was dealing with at 7:05 in the morning on Thursday October 23rd. Usually, you get to sleep in on Thursdays. No classes, nothing to do except sleep off Sandwich. Getting less than four hours of sleep is not a good move.

It wasn't planned this way. I was going on the bus tour with Cait, Scarlett and Jen. We had gone to our theater class and then the show, like every Wednesday. There was a general consensus, at first, that we wouldn't go to Sandwich that night. We had to leave New Cross around 6:45 to get to pick up spot by 8, that's way to early. By the time we got off the train from London Bridge though, we all knew we were going to go. And this is why we were all running very late that morning.

I got ready and downstairs so quick that I forgot my ticket. We had a cab waiting for us, since there was no way we could take the bus. We were almost in the cab when I had to run back upstairs to get my ticket. We got to the hotel where the bus was supposed to pick us up at and we all just kind of sat or stood around with that post-Sandwich look on our faces. What didn't help is that it was a stereotypical English weather day. Overcast and rainy.

Eventually we get picked up, taken to another drop off point where we get on the bus that will take us on our tour.

First stop Windsor. The castle was nice, nothing especially outstanding, at least in my opinion. They turned the moat into a nice garden type area, which was nice to look at. The girls loved the guards, of course. I liked the church best, but we barely had time to see it, which is a problem on these tours. Since three locations had to be packed into a short window, not much time was allowed for at each site. For Windsor, I would've liked to walk around more and stay in the church. It also would've been nice to explore the town a little, instead of just the castle. As it was, we were getting close to the departure time, when we got caught by the changing of the guard and had to wait for about ten to fifteen minutes before they would let us pass.

Our next stop was Stonehenge. The site is extremely underwhelming. You can't get close to the stones, which in part I understand because they don't want people touching them or climbing on them, but they could let us get a bit closer. We were so far away it was hard to appreciate how massive the stones actually are. It's also right next to a highway. I went expecting ancient, mysterious, mystical Stonehenge to be this peaceful place, yet I couldn't get past the cars whizzing by. The tour could be improved by shortening the time at Stonehenge and extending time at either other site.

After that we went to Bath. The drive to Bath was a long one. In between trying to sleep, I was able to see bits and pieces of the Cotswolds. That is something I also would like to do, travel through there, it was very beautiful. Another problem with tours, is the tour guides. Does anyone really listen to every single word and fact they say? They go on and on and on. You can tell they don't like their jobs, they're just repeating everything like an encyclopedia. The humor they interject to make it seem like they're enjoying themselves comes off as condescending sometimes. It's OK to tell us when we're passing an interesting site or something like that, but stop with the rambling. This happened in Greece too. It was why I was reluctant to do a tour like this, but I also knew that I would never get anyone to go on day trips either. Do tourists like this? I hope I never do one again.

Bath was a really cool town. I would've like to spend a day or two there. The Roman Baths were really cool and I really liked the Abbey right outside also. I would've loved to explore the town more. We had about 45 minutes after we were done with the Baths, which is enough time to walk around a little, but not enough to really explore or browse the numerous shops. I could've used more time here than the tour could ever allow.

One more complaint about tours is the lunches. When we booked the tour, we were told that we could book with or without lunch, we did without lunch. We assumed we would eat in the town of Windsor or something on a free lunch hour or whatever. No, they took us to this roadside country pub. Nothing else around us. That's fine, the food was good, but why even make lunch an option if there's no where else to eat? It's a complete racket, tour groups and restaurants hooking up. That happened in Greece, we'd pass through these small little towns and you could see all the good local restaurants, and we'd wind up at some buffet. Yet another reason why being a tourist sucks, but being a traveler is awesome.

As always, pictures added on the right. Up next, Dublin...