Not Quite As Planned

 So our Rabbies tour guide, who was going to drive the coach and, ya know, guide us through our 5 day tour of Wales, got sick and was unable to do the tour. We found this out in an email at about 9 p.m. last night, so I can imagine Rabbies was scrabbling to find a replacement. Downside: staff shortages. Upside: they were able to source a coach driver from another company to pick us up in London as originally planned. Downside: he was only a driver and not a tour guide so our first day of the tour was canceled as he was only able to just take us to our accommodations we would have arrived at that evening after the original tour plans. Upside: Aberystwyth is a really nice coastal town in Wales and we had fun exploring when we got in around 5 p.m., ate some really delicious, fresh, fish and chips, and got to watch the sunset! Upside: tomorrow should go as planned with the rest of the tour and they kinda refunded some of our money for what we missed today.

We were wondering how many people were going to be on this tour. Was it just us? How many others were Americans? Would we be the youngest? Surprisingly, the group of about 13 people are mostly American. The most talkative award goes to the old Australian guy and his wife who's main job in life is to make sure he doesn't talk anyone to death and reel him in when he gets too into hearing his own voice and preach-y. LOL, Jeff bought a pair of earbuds for the couple in the seats in front of him because they were just DONE with the Australian guy. We are also not the youngest as we suspect the young man who is traveling alone might be a few years younger than us. There's also a young woman traveling with her sister. Fun story: we stopped for a potty break and she asked the driver to open the trunk so she could get something from her bags. Our coach bus is smaller than those large, Megabus sizes with the luggage loaded underneath from the side, but large enough, and the luggage is in the back. The trunk door needs to be opened by the driver and it opens out and up, but apparently closes when the driver needs to open the gas cap. And so the door closed on the girl while she was going through her backpack and, as she put it "I had to hop into the trunk or else the door would have hit me on my head and knocked me out!" I guess our driver, who is probably in his late 60s, didn't hear her knocking but luckily two of the ladies who stayed on the bus instead of going in for a potty break, heard her and let him know. She wasn't in there long, but still! She was good natured about it but it's a good thing she's not claustrophobic and didn't get hurt!

I'm loving Wales so far, its like being back in Scotland, and I'm excited to see what tomorrow holds!

How about you Jeff? It seems you've perked up now that we're in this lovely countryside!

Manchester and London have both seemed very The Big City to me, probably because they are, which definitely kept me a bit on edge the last few days. Every time we go to another An Big City, I get a bit flummoxed, because I can't easily orient myself. But usually after my second visit to (or fourth or so day navigating around) An Big City, I'm fine and dandy. 

Aberystwyth, by comparison, is a Reasonably Sized Place. About 15,000 people, give or take. That's how big a city should be. Any more, and I'll expect the excess to pack up and move down the road a few miles. One of the things NW Ohio seems to get correct. 

On top of all that, it was cold, windy, and generally also how the weather should be. It's no wonder I was more energetic this evening. It feels like home. The geography reminds me of SE Indiana, turned up to 11. 

Who knows how long this feeling will last, but I'm here for it. 

While up at the ruins of Aberystwyth Castle, I saw some standing stones and was wondering if the castle had been built around a neolithic structure or something. The truth is... less rad, but still cool. They were erected there as part of an Eisteddfod festival (sort of the Welsh version of Highland Games, but centered around poetry and music) in 1915. 

Also, since Angie forgot to mention it, as the bus was getting ready to leave from out lunch and rest stop, it failed to start. Sounded like a power issue, because it was trying to turn over but kept failing. The bus driver told us to hang tight, go back to the rest stop, and he'd track down a solution. We were fully expecting a couple of hours, but it turned out within 15 minutes he had it running again. I assume he found someone to give us a jump, but I was too busy not being in a hot bus while it was being fixed.