The Dreaded Day Trip

Here in London we've gotten on a pretty regular schedule. Every Wednesday we have a day trip where we get on a coach early in the morning and do not return until late that evening. These trips are usually neat; we've gone places like Oxford, and Cambridge, and Brighton. All have been really cool, but they always take all day to travel and see these things.
So yesterday we knew we were going to Wales. Everyone was excited for this trip, it is it's own "country" after all. The excitement lingered until Dr. Jacoby (he pretty much is the boss, our dad, the head honcho, you get the idea...) told us we were leaving by 7 AM. So that is really early but whatever, we were still ready to go.
We get onto the Coach and the first downer of the day was finding that Brian our regular driver was on skii holiday in Austria. Well that news was terribly upsetting because Brian rocks the world and always seems to find ways to wedge our ginormous bus into tiny alley ways. So our initial distress passed until we discovered that our second favorite driver Roger was not there either! This news was just as upsetting; and we just couldn't get into the regular swing of things with the ronchy two old men that were our drivers for the day. In fact they were so mute that they didn't even tell us their names. So driver one and driver two is what I'll be referring to them as our story progresses.
We knew that Wales was a little over 3 hours away so we saddled up and basically the bus went straight to sleep. Our first stop of the day was the famous Tintern Abbey. Which actually was quite beautiful to see. Although at the end of the day it is still a ruin and hard to grasp the full picture of the Abbey. But we did get some sweet pictures on some pillars (actually they are quite ugly which is why I will not be posting them.... but it kept us entertained~) So after the Abbey we get back onto the bus to go to see a coal mine! Well, that sounds swell doesn't it, driving 4 hours to see a stupid mine. But we as student have no say in the matter so we just go along with this idea. Well driver one and driver two decide to take an alternate route, that halfway through we came to a 11 foot bridge when we were a 12 foot 5 inch bus! So they were ridiculously embarassed and in the end our 30 minute ride to the mine had taken another 2 hours.
We got to the mine and did the whole "tour" thing underground. Totally creepy by the way! Although lets be honest I could totally pull of the hard hat/ flashlight/ batterypack/ dirty look. So yeah, the mine was scary and took like 2 hours of waiting in line. By the time we were back on the bus we still had one more stop by our gracious Dr. J decides to go to a closer village and let us get out and grab some food then we'll head back home. -As a side note we usually pack lunches on these days, but when we ate breakfast at 6 AM we ate our lunches at like 11 and it was now like 6 so we were starved!- We get to this tiny crappy town and everyone is laughing at how pathetic it is, so they let us off to find food and literally there isn't even one grocery store in the square. So we found some digestives (kinda like biscuit cookies... sick name though huh!) and some diet coke and we got back on the bus for our 4 hour long journey home.
Yeah yesterday sucked, but I suppose you just gotta put it in perspective. I still got to come home to our flat in Notting Hill!

And now a musing about Roma:
Oh how I love Italia! Someday I will go back there (preferably after I have learned Italian... which I am going to do this summer) and be able to better observe the culture that exudes from Rome. The people are fantastically real and raw. They will bear their sould to you on the street for the cost of 5 Euro. And afterwards give you a kiss on the Spanish Steps (only happened once... his name was Dieg). Their life is so fresh and pleasant. The men live to eat, drink, and smoke. While the women apparently love to shop and stay more concealed in the homes. The businesses are run by all men as it appeared to us in our tiny hotel Palla Cavicchi! Where by the way we were the only women in the entire establishment!
Our hotel staff was more like our brothers/fathers for our trip. They would drive us to the train station (we had to take a short train into Rome everyday) and when we were ready to come home they would pick us up at the station. They gave us a card with the hotel numbers on it... and told us to call whenever we needed something. Well the first night we got lost of course and starting wandering around cause we couldn't find a phone. We walked into some random hotel and asked if they could call our hotel. The man did and they were laughing and speaking Italian... we picked up on the words American-Blonde-Brunette-Bella (beautiful!) So the bar tender Andre came to pick us up in his tiny little car. When we got back to the hotel they were all in the lobby waiting for us. They said we were so worried about you! -We had lots of kisses all weekend!
We saw the Coloseum which was by far my favorite thing that we did! We saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevy Fountain, the Vatican, the Pantheon, the Masoleum, and every Piazza inbetween! I can't even describe to you all the beauty and majesty and lives in this ancient city. Rome was even better than I had anticipated it being. I was almost afraid that it wouldn't live up to the incredible thing I had built up in my head.. but it was even better than that!
I won't continue to ramble on forever but I will end this musing now by saying that Rome was an incredible place that I could have stayed in forever. I long to return to my boyfriends at the Hotel Pala Cavicchi and spend more time in Roma before I have to return to the dreaded and dreary Provo! Yes, I am a changed woman! I have seen beauty that is as old as the beginning of civilizations, and they took my very breathe away! Rome brought out the true Bohemian that lies within my rough and tough exterior! I love you all and I hope you had a laugh at this musing.
-Ciao