Monday, November 19, 2012

The Saga Continues..... Special UK Edition

After spending the past 11 months outside of the EarthRoamer, we had it shipped from the United States to England, Southampton to be exact.I have to admit that I had mixed feelings, leaving the comfort of home and my life but oh well. It has been harder for me to get in the groove this time. Plus I am super stressed at the whole concept of driving on the left side of the road. I keep physically recoiling every time a car or truck gets close to us. I wish that we could all globally decide which side of the road to drive on and what type of electrical plus we are going to use. After visiting Stonehenge - impressive to see but lacking, at least for me, in any type of esoteric pull - we headed to Bath. We were pleasantly surprised to find a really cute, quaint RV park which had its own pub! It had a real "Cheers" atmosphere, very friendly people. So when we set out the next day to buy a converter plug for the electrical connection at the "caravan", not RV as we Americans say, supply store, we were feeling positive towards all things English. Just as we we entered the traffic circle a short way down the road from the RV park, I felt a light impact at the back of the RV. I told Joe I thought someone had bumped into us and that we should pull over. Bad idea. The traffic circle was directly in front of the Globe Pub and what developed was a scene right out of the East Enders - the only characters missing from the accident scene were Grant & Peg. The woman jumped screaming & shouting out of the car yelling that she had a child in the car,her sister had potential whiplash as she'd recently been in another accident blah, blah, blah. As there had only been a soft bump and the only damage was on their rear US driver's side door, I said the police would need to be called. She didn't want police as they were in a hurry but I said sorry I wasn't buying the whiplash nonsense - as my mother would say, I wasn't born yesterday, didn't just fall off the turnip truck. I had images of the 1-800 personal injury advertisements. In the end 30 minutes and 4 policeman later, we were able to drive off - after agreeing to pay for the damage but being held harmless for the damage. At the RV supply, we found what we were looking for and went to the cashier to check out. It was here that I was confronted by a super scary UK fashion trend. There is a whole extreme black eyeliner, false eyelash craze here. Americans also have their odd habits (shopping in PJs) Swiss (complete body tattoos & piercings) but unless you're Adele or a Kardashian, it's probably a "no go" for everyday. It is strangely disconcerting to have the cashier in a caravan supply store (sorry, Rv, for my American readers) have enough make-up and false lashes on that she could give Lisa Minelli a run for her money. I kept having the feeling she was going to dash off to Vegas the minute she finished checking us out. Ladies if you really have to follow this trend, invest some serious money in the lashes. Most women here have clumps of lashes bearing a strange resemblance to a chunk of tar stuck to their eyelid which make it almost impossible for them to open their eyes. Less is really more. It also seems the "no truth in advertising" virus has also affected the RV lodging guides here, just like the US. The first place in Bath was fabulous, actually had a pub on the premises - double thumbs up. The place in Liverpool however was a dump - no water hook-up, no bathroom facilities & a power cord sticking out of the side of a barn for power (We were told not to use too much! Really?!, considering it was the same price as the nice place in Bath) . It was basically a parking place on a farm. Lastly, whoever said, "clothes make the man" has certainly been shopping in Bath. We were strolling through the town after taking a short bus tour and we came across a Russell & Bromley shoe store - one of my absolute favorite shoe stores on earth. We went in and I was looking around. Well, due to the fact that I was dressed in my nice RV traveling gear, not a single soul approached us. I had to practically tackle a young woman to get her to bring me two pairs of boots to try on. She did her best to humour me, I guess feeling secure in her opinion that I wouldn't be buying anything. Well I did buy a pair and she was more than incredulous when I took out my American Express. A more appropriate slogan might be "don't judge a book by it's cover".