Monday 1 February 2010

Road trip (Part 1 of 2)…

If you do two day trips in the same weekend, does it count as two road trips or as a big unique road trip with a break? Then you’d ask, does it matter?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, JJ asked me if I fancy renting a car and going around England to visit a couple of places. He of course didn’t have to ask me twice and a cute silver Volkswagen Polo was ours to use.

We had the car for three days, from Friday noon to Monday and we wanted to take as much advantage of it as we could. So, on Friday evening, having a car, you can’t go clubbing with it and drive around central London easily, so we deciding instead to take some friends and go shopping in IKEA!!! It was really fun to spend money on things we didn’t really need. JJ said before going in, said that he’d like to buy some new plants and nothing else. He spent around £50 and the only thing he didn’t buy was plants.

Anyway, early Saturday morning we started our excursion to South West England to visit Stonehenge. We both hadn’t been there before and that destination was the main reason we got the car. I found it really interesting. It’s so old and mysterious. The only thing I didn’t like were the main roads being constructed so close to the site. They steal a little bit from the atmosphere. Needless to say, that I took a picture of me doing the Vulcan greeting. I was instructed to do so by some of my geeky friends. As you can see from the pictures, the weather was really good. It was a bit cold (freezing actually) but sunny! I was slightly worried about driving and having ice on the street, but everything was fine.


That's a picture from the car. The road is THAT close to the site

After Stonehenge, we drove to Salisbury for lunch at a local pub (that was the plan at least). It’s a small medieval town close by. There is a really nice huge Cathedral there (see pictures):


After wondering a bit around the centre, we went to a pub called ‘the Bishop Mills’. It didn’t look that extremely nice, but we were starving and didn’t know where else to go. I ordered a chicken club and JJ got ham and eggs. The guy behind the bar told me that it might take a while to be prepared, almost 30 minutes. I didn’t want to argue with him, since the pub was mostly empty and the things we ordered quite simple. So, we waited…

Something I considered buying from Salisbury for my kitchen

After 45 minutes the whole thing started getting to my nerves and I went back to the bartender to check on our order. The person in charge at that moment came and asked me: “Are you the guys with the sandwiches?”. I agreed and repeated our order. He then added: “We’re sorry but we don’t have the ingredients for your order!”. I was speechless… They had our table number and could have said that earlier, we ordered something that can be cooked in 10 minutes from ingredients bought for the super market next door and they waited for us to go and check on the order ourselves? That is really the most ridiculously bad service ever! The manager said he’s sorry and that they would refund us! I could see that he wasn’t very bothered anyway so I expressed my frustration politely but clearly and we left. JJ was waiting in our table, while I was by the kitchen arguing…

The good thing is that we laughed the whole thing out. It was the second time that something like that happens to us in a month. The first time, we were at a café place for fry-up and the waitress lost our order because we changed tables. We had informed them about the change but apparently something happened. Anyway, they people there were being very polite and apologizing, so no harm done. Accidents can happen. So, after ‘the Bishop Mills’ (Please if you are in Salisbury DO NOT go there) we ended up in Burger King to devour burgers. It wasn’t our first choice, but we liked it anyway…

Early in the evening, we left Salisbury to head back to London. We had a really nice time, chatted and laughed a lot during the journey. I was in charge of the navigation and the music and JJ was in charge of driving (I still can't easily drive on the left). I’m very sorry to say that I got us lost once by exiting on the wrong junction. I remembered the road number slightly wrong. In my defense, we weren’t lost, just slightly delayed. The music I picked though was good. We sang a lot… We must have looked like fools from the outside (but who cares?)

9 comments:

  1. How odd. Stonehenge is literally right off of a highway? I'd think someone would have declared the region some sort of protected historical area.

    It certainly sounds like a good time, though. :-)

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  2. oh wow. Sounds like a great excursion. Thanks for the pictures!! Many more road trips planned?

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  3. oooh i went to stonehenge two years ago. i loved it. but totally agree about it being so close to the road. also there were a ton of tourists when i went, which significantly decreased the overall feeling of mysticism.

    i spent the night in salisbury, seriously dodgy hotel.

    thanks for the trip down memory lane. (wish we had ikea!)

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  4. What a fun weekend! I'd love to spend a few months exploring England aimlessly.

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  5. what a historic dates of urs, Nik darling..

    Never been there before- perhaps one day, maybe for the Olympic...

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  6. Aaaw, I miss the UK so much at times.
    And hey! That wine cartoon is right up my alley.
    x
    ;)

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  7. @GJ That's what I thought as well... I'd expect the site to be further away from the road

    @wozzel For the time being we don't have something planned. I cannot see ourselves staying put for long though

    @Paige You're welcome... :-)

    @LarryOhio Come whenever you can... It's nice

    @Suf_n_Steve You should... It's very nice. I now know how to get you there...

    @Juz I knew you would...

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  8. Wow. I used to live in - well near - Salisbury and worked in a restaurant there hen I was a teenager. Had all kinds of fun there let me tell you ;-)

    Was an absolutely great place to grow up and really nice people. Even if they can't ,ale sandwiches!

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  9. @Mike No, I never said that Salisbury was bad. It was quite nice actually. I'm complaining about the 'Bishop Mills'. Don't tell me you were working there, were you?

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