Bristol, Bath, Stonehenge, Wells...

I was able to get a tourist coach pass for a fairly reasonable price as each train ride was much too expensive for me to be able to afford several of them. I got a five day tourist pass for use within a month, so it worked out perfectly. On Friday, I headed out to Bristol and met up with my friends, Alex and Nichola, whom I met in Nepal and traveled with again in India a bit. It was great to see them and spend time with them.

That night we went out to a couple of great pubs and met up with some of Alex's relatives and friends.

The next day we headed out to Bath (a more touristy place and site of some Roman baths), but as we took our time looking at shops and strolling on the way back to the car, we stopped to watch a street performer. Of course, after Nichola refused his hand to help him, I couldn't refuse, so there I was out in the middle of a big audience being the assistant to some street performer. All in all, it was pretty fun as I got to throw some flaming sticks up to him as he was on a tall unicycle and I got to wear his silly hat and try not to get burned. It made for a fun afternoon. To the end the already great day, we headed to Stonehenge and marveled at its beauty and mystery as the sun was just casting its beautiful rays upon us.

The next day had in store a perfectly miserable weather day as we headed up to the Cheddar gorge, a beautiful site that reminded me of much of the scenery in New Zealand and the town reminded me of a ski resort villa. We also visited Wells, where an astounding cathedral is what makes this city famous and then headed to Glastonbury, the site of a huge music festival every June. By that time, the weather had really started to pick up, so we headed on home and had a fabulous, traditional English roast for our Sunday dinner cooked excellently by Alex. I'm still thinking of how great it was!

On Monday, Nichola did some shopping and checked out Bristol itself a bit and then the following day in a complete rainstorm, I headed on to Manchester.