- Reflection #8: Supermarkets. This is one thing I loved about the UK: supermarkets are awesome in many aspects. The best thing is that they are open until late at night (some until 23:00 hs., 00:00 hs. or even more) and I don't think there was any stupid curfew for selling alcohol like we have in Argentina (it's at 21:00 hs. here). They have those self-service cashiers which made me look like a caveman the first couple of times until I found the way around them. Another good thing is that they offer a great variety of articles, ranging from food -obviously- to clothing, suitcases and even the basic medicines (how convenient is this!). The only downside is that despite the variety of food offered, it's really hard to find something healthy other than fruit.
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- 24/4: Bourton-on-the-Water:
This day my trip could have ended abruptly in an unwanted way.
But first things first. Bourton-on-the-Water is a beautiful small village in the Cotswolds. It's name is due to the Windrush river (a stream really) which goes by the middle of it. When I stayed there the town center was decorated with lots of small British flags to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday. I had chosen Bourton over other Cotswolds villages because it was one of two which had a bike rental and my idea was to spend the day cycling around the area.
Bourton-on-the-Water (and fire in the sky)
More from the Venice of the Cotswolds
At the rental shop they had three bikes which fitted me (I'm more on the tall side if you didn't notice yet). The first one had problems with the gears. The second one seemed alright, so I went out of the village, climbed quite a big hill and started rolling down a paved road which went down a steep slope.
At one point I had gained a very considerable speed so I decided to brake a bit. At that moment my rear wheel went completely blocked, it didn't roll an inch more, just scratched violently over the pavement. I still don't know how I managed to avoid falling and came out of that situation intact; it was all instinctive. I let go the pedals and went jumping on my feet like a kangaroo for several seconds and metres while trying to keep balance. Finally I was able to speed down the bike and stop. When I got down and took a look I noticed that one of the brakes had gotten completely loose and was blocking the wheel.
Imagine how mad I was at the owners for giving me a bike in such a state. I could easily have broken my skull and several bones and ended my trip right there, and I hadn't even seen Jeff Lynne yet. To make matters worse, I wasn't even wearing a helmet because my head is so big that they wouldn't have one my size (
... hey, brains occupy space!).
On my way back to the shop I tried to calm myself down and let my anger go so by the time I got there I was in civilized mode again, but I let them know about the situation. The owner of the shop was ashamed and apologized, and gave me the last bike, which also happened to have problems with the gears, so he was still more ashamed, apologized again and gave me a full refund.
By then I had lost one or two hours in this and now had no bike to cycle around the Cotswolds. It was a good thing that during Ireland I had taken antibiotics for my toe and now it was considerably recovered because now I had no choice other than to walk.
So I went walking through some paths in the countryside along which I came across a fair amount of tourists. First I went to the incredibly pictoresque village of Lower Slaughter, where I enjoyed an intense April shower. Then I walked up a hill to Upper Slaughter (where I saw the luxurious Manor house), still very pretty although not as much as her lower sister.
The mill at Lower Slaughter
A church in Upper SlaughterAfter that I decided to climb to the top of a high hill to get a good view and take some pictures. I went through several junctions and always chose the path that led higher. In doing so I got away from towns, tourists and people in general until I found myself in a solitary long path that went right by the ridge of the hill. The landscapes here were amazing. This was the British countryside experience I was looking for. I only regretted having to rely on my cell phone for photos and not having brought my camera, as a good zoom would have helped a lot.
Cotswolds landscapeAt a small forest in the countryside, listening to the crows' gloomy noises
More Cotswolds landscapes
Yellow flowers, blue clouds and a stone fenceI walked around that area finding no one for miles and hours... no one but two country girls riding horses. It appeared they hadn't seen a human being in ages because they seemed really amused at my presence there. During the evening we crossed paths a few times more despite having acres and tons of different roads just for ourselves. Long story short, I found myself tangled up in a weird situation when they tried to play some strange trick on me which came out really wrong for one of them: as she was riding by me her cell phone fell in the crop plantation where we were and she lost it. I ended up looking for the cell phone with them in the middle of the crops for a very long while. Then the reflective moment came: "
I'm about 10,000 kilometres away from home, in the middle of a very solitary place in the English countryside, almost by nighttime, helping two unknown English country girls find their cell phone among the crops ... I've been in strange situations but this one has to rank among the strangest".
At last the younger girl (who was searching lazily from above her horse, as opposed to the older girl and me who were getting our feet dirty among the plants) found the goddam phone, so they said thank you, goodbye and went away. So did I. I found my way back to Bourton and when I arrived to my guest house it was dark. The walk around the Cotswolds had lasted for more than 6 hours, the longest of my trip.
- 25/4: Bourton-on-the-Water - London:
Pretty much like in Windermere, the owners of the house I was staying at at Bourton-on-the-Water were incredibly welcoming, kind and helpful and did everything they could to make my stay there better. It called my attention that as soon as you entered the house you could see a big picture of the queen. That day I woke up, had breakfast and said goodbye to them in very friendly terms.
Take the things you bought, clouds are gathering...
This sign cracked me up
I took the 801 bus to Moreton-in-Marsh. On the way I got a good glimpse of Stow-on-the-Wold, another of the beautiful Cotswolds villages.
Stow-on-the-WoldAt Moreton I took a train to London (no, not the last one... it was in the morning), arriving at Paddington. From there, tube to the Royal National Hotel, where I had booked by recommendation of
queenofthehours . This is an insanely huge hotel, absolutely ridiculous. It has a corridor along which you can barely see the end, maybe it's 150 meters long or so.
I had lunch, took a nap and then prepared myself for another great program in the late evening: the Tottenham Hotspur vs. West Bromwich Albion game, which had big implications for the Premier League championship race.
I took two tube lines but then had to connect a train to White Hart Lane station which was suspended till further notice, so I had to take a bus instead, which was a hard task due to the amount of people in the same situation as me. It was chaos, but I managed to make it to the stadium, pick up my ticket at the Stub-Hub cabin and get inside just in time for the game.
Tottenham Hotspur vs. West Bromwich Albion at White Hart LaneWhat can I say about my experience at White Hart Lane? It was fantastic, I loved every bit of it. I've been watching the English Premier League since I was a kid and suddenly being at one of it's most iconic venues seemed surreal. The stadium is a theater. People were very chatty and really interested when I told them I was coming from Argentina (Pocchettino, Tottenham's coach who is loved by the fans, is Argentine, as well as Lamela, one of the starters that day). They remembered Ardiles and Villa. The chants were a bit too simple and not as elaborated as the ones sung in my country, but the support was loud and I was impressed by the big contingent of West Brom fans at the stadium on a Monday night. The pitch was in perfect condition and the level of play was very high.
During the gameTottenham started dominating completely and it seemed the game would be a thrashing. They went to halftime up 1-0 and it could have been more, but in the second half they went totally lethargic. West Brom reacted and got the equalizer off a corner, and from then on it was all desperation for the Spurs, who couldn't even create one more single chance to score so the game ended 1-1.
With the final whistle fans were very frustrated. The last chance of fighting for the championship was gone. I was OK though because I wanted Leicester to be champion, but of course I wouldn't tell them. Despite the frustration, everything was very civilized -even though several guys were drunk- and on my way back to central London people were chatty and kind again. I had to queue for about 5 blocks and finally got in the train, then tube, had dinner and went to bed.
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- Reflection 9: Addresses and finding places. In my experience, locating a certain place like a house, building or shop by it's address -this is by street name and number- in the UK (particularly in London) can be an incredibly frustrating and difficult task. Everything is illogical and counterintuitive. Most corners don't have the name of the streets, let alone the height, so for a start you never know what street you are in. The numbers of the heights are not evens left, odds right and in crescendo like logic dictates; they seem to have been assigned to houses by raffle, following no particular order, and in most of the houses and shops they aren't showing. To make matters worse, people don't know the names of the streets and they guide themselves by references (the statue, the roundabout, the fire station...), so if you only have the address they might be unable to help you. And to add to the chaos, sometimes streets change names after just a few blocks. This whole messy thing called my attention about a country as tidy and well organized as England.