The Christmas and New Year holidays were looming and I didn’t have a clue of what to do. It would have been prohibitively expensive to go home because I didn’t book a plane ticket early. Plus after spending some 27 Christmases in dear Nigeria, I figured I needed a change.
Ade, the other Nigerian on the program suggested that we get together and go on a road trip before Christmas, touring England, seeing some of the World Heritage sites and historical landmarks in England. Not exactly my idea of having fun (I always struggle to appreciate the “finer/cultural” things in life), but hey, I wanted a well rounded education.
The trip lasted two days and we had some fun. Ade had two of his friends over from the US and we discussed some pretty interesting things on the trip (don’t think they appreciated my ipod mania though). I didn’t get to drive (still find the English road conventions confusing, plus Ade wouldn't let me), but it was fun being the co-pilot and brushing up my map reading skills.
Where did we go, you might ask? First we headed south for the Stonehenge, and made it there right as the grounds were closing for the day. Took some dark distant pictures, definitely not postcard quality and then headed out to the ancient city of Bath where we spent the night. We had a Turkish dinner (a first for me), then hung out outside the buildings that contained the ancient Roman baths, saw some churches and an ancient cathedral.
We left Bath the next morning and headed north, or so we thought, After being on the road for two hours, my map reading skills were called into question, and we realized we had been heading south all the while, and had reached Exeter. We quickly assessed the financial viability of heading north and figured we could by slightly exceeding our budget.
We cheerfully turned around, covered the two hour distance back to Bath in some three hours and then proceeded north. We pretty much spent the day in the car and arrived at Yorke at 7 p.m. It was painfully cold, my first experience of freezing temperature, and a terrible one at that. We had a quick dinner and took the famous Ghost tour for four pounds, in my opinion, money well spent.
We woke up early the next day determined to catch up on the hours we had lost, had a traditional English breakfast, and took the tour of the famous Yorke cathedral. The wonders of modern architecture and engineering; the basement was very well preserved and I enjoyed it immensely. We then went to some ancient lighthouse facility and I spent the worst three pounds of my life, paying the said amount to go up to a moderate height and then look down! In my opinion, money not well spent.
We left Yorke for London at 12.30 and I looked forward to warmer weather. I was to be disappointed. Winter had officially kicked in, and five hours later when we arrived in London, I realized I would have to get used to very cold weather for a while.
I still had the Christmas and New Year holidays to get through, but as far as my cultural education was concerned, I figured I had done a good job for 2006. I got back home, reflected on the trip, typed up this blog and completely forgot to post it until now.
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