Day 2 of the trip was all about getting the rental car, getting to Bath and getting some sleep. Simple plan. Well, it turned out to be a little too exciting.
We got the car at Heathrow Avis. It was a cute little Peugeot 307. It actually was a lot like the Honda Civic hatchback that my mom had while I was first learning to drive, although this one had 4 doors and I was sitting up quite a bit higher than I remember sitting in the Honda.
I had been thinking about driving on the wrong side of the road a lot in the days leading up to the trip and on the plane. Every time I started to think about it I made myself visualize driving around, making turns and shifting. I thought I was pretty clever to use the fear induced thoughts as learning experiences. Anyway, when I got in the car it was just as hard as I imagined. I kept scraping the left hand curbing. I got onto the interstate (dual carriageway) without major incident. And getting on the highway meant less thinking. Quite necessary considering I had already been up 20 hours at this point.
It was raining. We were expecting rain and would get quite used to it on the trip. It was also quite windy, something that I was not expecting. Seattle is not windy at all and Illinois is quite windy at times. England was much more like Illinois in this one respect of its weather. England is hilly. Not flat like Illinois or mountainous like western Washington. I have been in some very nice hilly parts of Wisconsin which is probably the best US comparison I could make to the landscape. Everything was incredibly green and lush. Great Britain has had an unusually wet summer which I am sure made everything even more lush and green than usual.
On the motorway (3 lanes) Steve and I both noted that drivers in the UK are much better at driving in the slow lane and passing in the passing lane. In the US on a 2 lane road most people will drive in the right and pass on the left, but there are lots of slowpokes parked in the passing lane (especially in Seattle). When there are 3 or more lanes it is total anarchy, people camp in the right, middle and left lanes and people passing on all sides. In the UK the slowest traffic is in the left (slow) lane and people use the middle lane to pass. People only use the rightmost lane to pass people who are already passing. This system seemed to hold up a vast majority of the time throughout our trip. I would love to bring this behavior home to everyone in the states.
Navigating was harder than either Steve or I was counting on. We had a map plus written directions out of the airport, still it seemed we were always guessing what turn to make or seeing the next signpost at the last possible second. Probably par for the course of all the worlds airports.
It was about a 2.5 hour drive to Bath, I think, although I had to pay so much attention to driving and my internal clock was messed up so I was never really aware of the time. We got off the motorway and took a 2 lane highway to Bath. The roads were windy and narrow, much narrower than a US country highway. I really was not fancying the driving thing. We got sort of lost getting into Bath, but happened upon the town center after turning around a couple of times. We learned quick that navigating is hard outside of the airport as well. We parked and walked a couple of blocks to the town center where we went to the TI to pick up a better map and some brochures.
It was still raining so we ducked into a small shop for breakfast/lunch/dinner (my clock was really bad at this time). We shared a baked potato which the Brits refer to as jacket potatoes. This one was filled with curried chicken, but you could buy them filled with all sorts of interesting and tasty stuff. We went back to the car to head to our hotel.
This installment is already way too long. I’ll finish for today. Tomorrow the excitement, and pictures – I promise!
- Sarah
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