travels in Europe

This is not complaining, just sharing our experience of planes, trains and automobiles....

Let's start with the bus trips. We got a great deal - only £7 for both of us to get from Glasgow to Manchester. For the most part, the trip was great. We rode through 'fair trade' towns (whole towns that certified as Fair Trade! It's not just for coffee and chocolate anymore), stopped at an amazing local, farm fresh food rest stop (take that Tim Hortons and Wendy's) and had front row seats....that made the encounter between one of the coach drivers and the pedestrian he almost ran over near a bus terminal that much more, well, intense. If it wasn't for the other very large coach driver who was sitting in the way, we thought the cursing, swearing, creative-body-language expressing driver was going to hop out and beat the equally raging almost squished pedestrian.

Up until that point, we thought this one was the nice driver...certainly less cranky than the larger driver when we got on the bus.

Bus trip #2...scenic tour through England. What kind of bus driver doesn't have a map? He had to ask the locals where the bus depot was in each town we entered between Bath and Oxford (not exactly the back of beyond). We saw the same Firestation at least 3 times in Swindon, and far more cows and farmyards outside of Oxford than we imagined there were in that part of the country.

We'll talk about the plane troubles and the other bus story later -there is a young girl waiting to use this computer now.

Ciao