So, having rationalized my recent silence, on with the post.<\/p>\n
Journal Entry \u2014 September 17th: Finally and at Last!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The rest of the trip into Aberystwyth was uneventful \u2014 made all my connections, all trains were on time (a miracle if ever there was one, according to my hosts), and the scenery was wonderful.\u00a0 I’m quite sure I was pegged as a non-European instantly, just from the features of my face, and I’m able to start to see some trends in the faces of the English and Welsh (can’t really describe it, just sorta’ can).<\/p>\n Was met at the station by Sweets, and never<\/em> have I seen a more wonderful sight!<\/p>\n Had a brisk walk from the train station back to the house, made to feel even longer due to the fact that I was towing a large suitcase \u2014 with an even larger box strapped to it \u2014 behind me.\u00a0 As prepared as I thought I was for cars to be traveling on the other side of the road, it still caught me off guard, and even now I still look the wrong way when crossing the street.<\/p>\n Made it back to the house, and let me just say that it is a universal thing for a house to look like a war zone when owned by two young men, specifically the two guys that Sweets rents a room from.\u00a0 I knew this style of “house decoration” from years and years of knowing GonzO, Phreeq, and their brood \u2014 a sort of post-modern junkyard.\u00a0 That’s perfectly fine.\u00a0 Dropped off the luggage, spent some time reuniting, and relaxed until everyone came home.<\/p>\n I met Bob, who had been staying at the house for a bit.\u00a0 Andrew, Phil & Meg came home one by one, we had a round of introductions, and then opened the box of fun that I brought with me.\u00a0 Had a good time watching everyone open their gifts and playing with them.\u00a0 We had dinner, and watched a little TV (that I was trying very hard not to fall asleep during \u2014 and failing miserably), then Sweets and I made our way to bed.<\/p>\n Journal Entry \u2014 September 18th: The Burgeoning Tourist<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Had a nice lie-in, then Sweets and I took off.\u00a0 After a pleasant walk into town \u2014 about 20 minutes to get pretty much anywhere by foot \u2014 we sat down to have some breakfast for lunch (a full English breakfast<\/strong><\/a> to be specific… two eggs, two sausages, bacon rasher, baked beans, mushrooms and toast \u2014 a meal to do a Southern boy proud).\u00a0 After breakfast we walked to the Aberystwyth Castle ruins and I went into full tourist mode, taking pictures and gawking at everything.<\/p>\n We moved on from the castle and walked along the seafront for a bit and stopped in some shops where I bought some real coffee from a surprisingly ‘coffee-snobbish’ shop, for later in the week.\u00a0 Instant coffee seems to be the standard ’round these parts as (ta-da! a stereotype comes true!) tea is the hot drink of choice.\u00a0 I also picked up a metric ass-ton of postcards to send back home.<\/p>\n Went to a little coffee shop, and I had my own little cafeti\u00e8re (aka French press) of coffee, and we relaxed for a bit, chatting.\u00a0 Had my first opportunity to spend my newly exchanged English money.\u00a0 The bills are easy enough to sort out, but the coins still give me fits, except for the pound.<\/p>\n Walked home an visited with everyone for a bit then hitched a ride with Phil & Meg to a nice Indian restaurant in town.\u00a0 Apparently “doggie bags” are not as universally common as I had previously assumed, as I got funny looks when I asked for a container to take my leftovers home \u2014 this was confirmed by Sweets, as she was a little surprised when she was here that we were pretty much asked at every restaurant if we wanted a box or container for our leftovers.<\/p>\n We had a nice walk home (lots of walking in this trip), and relaxed with a little TV before heading to bed.<\/p>\n Ok, double entry (heh heh) this time because I’ve been such a slacker. Have been distracted by a number of things.\u00a0 First and foremost, DmentD.com moved to a new server and needed a little ironing out before the full switch-over happened. Second, and I think more importantly, the addition of a proper GALLERY to my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,23,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","category-pictures","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmentd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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