summing up of the trip:

party: grandad didn't have a heart attack. it was all good fun. grandad (wally) saw his three sisters, whom he hadn't seen in 20 years. i met more of karl's extended family, most of whom are lovely. we danced the macarena. oooh! and i had several "stimulation mixes"--alco-pops that taste *exactly* like liquid pixie stix. remember those? flavored sugar in a tube? well, now they have alcoholic liquid flavored sugar in a bottle! yay! plus, it has caffeine! just what a girl needs when she's still up at 2am dancing after just flying in from the states that day.

driving around wales: turned into driving around the cotswolds (southish-west england, east of wales) because karl got his dad's cold. we saw the warwick castle (conveniently located in warwick, warwickshire). pretty neat castle, actually. warwick is home to many lovely and reasonably-priced b&bs. just so you know.

after leaving warwick, we drove south through the cotswolds to bath, taking the little roads. only got caught behind one tractor, and only smelled manure twice. so it was a lovely drive. that's basically it. it was lovely.

in bath, we couldn't find a b&b that had vacancies for less than 100 pounds, so we ended up at a pub (the forresters) in coombe down, south of bath. it was hideous. the room wasn't made up when we arrived. the carpet was grimy. the shower was filthy. there was a cigarette butt floating in the toilet. the soap in the bathroom was too dirty to touch. breakfast was do-it-yourself, but the kitchen light didn't work and there was only one fork in the entire place. we passed on breakfast. the pub didn't serve food at night, so we had to go across the road for fish and chips. after we left the pub behind, bath was wonderful. they have a digital audio tour of the ruins that is really good. took us 4 hours to walk through, but then again, we stopped and looked at *everything*. they've done a really nice job of setting up the bits of ruins, so you get an idea of how things were. lots of models, and digitally created videos showing how the baths would've looked 2000 years ago. it's really quite amazing. the baths were built on hot springs nearly 2000 years ago (sometime between AD 60-80), and they're still there, working properly, today. the roofs over the baths have caved in, of course, but the paving stones, and the walls (up to 5 ft), and the plumbing, is still there. the bottom of the great bath is lined with rectangular lead plates THAT ARE STILL WATERTIGHT. the romans built a system of channels from pool to pool and out to the river avon to channel the water from the spring to all the baths and take the excess out to the river. all that stuff STILL WORKS.

avebury: from bath to swindon, we drove through avebury, a tiny little town that would be just another adorable southern english town except that it has a prehistoric stone circle in it. through it. partly around it. anyway, there's stones. it's a big circle, like maybe 1/4 mile in diameter, with two smaller circles inside. some of the stones are missing. some have fallen. but lots are still there. they figure them to be over 6000 years old.

swindon: this time, we drove through swindon, and thus got to drive through the magic roundabout! love and kisses to this thoroughly ridiculous idea! mwa! in swindon, we ended up with a dozen people sleeping at ant and katie's. this was quite a feat, as ant and katie live in a house that is smaller than the apt that karl and i are about to move into (more on that later). it's a two-bedroom, but what they've got, really, is a smallish living room, a small dining room, a small kitchen, a smallish master bedroom, and teeny second bedroom (which they use as an office, but that has an extra bed in it), and a bathroom. actually, 1.5 bathrooms. it's very small. a dozen people are a tight fit. but what does it matter when you're watching kylie videos and drinking alco-pops, right? it was loads of fun, actually.

and that's all, folks. yesterday (tuesday), we flew back to philly.

and that's where we come to the apartment. we managed to get the keys from PIMAA with no trouble. but the apartment isn't done. hello? our lease started the 15th! today, if you haven't checked, is the 18th. it's been painted, but needs touch-ups where they've gotten red trim paint on the white walls. the floors have to be buffed and re-polyurethaned. the windows need cleaning/repairing/replacing. light fixtures have to be installed. the french doors out onto the balcony need *work* (as in, they don't currently close). doors have to be sanded. electrical outlets need to be installed. appliances need to be put in the kitchen. the door to the fire observation deck needs to be sanded and stained. radiator covers need to be made and installed. apparenltly, they're going to do the floors today or tomorrow, then we can at least sleep there while they finish the rest of it.

but really. did i need this?

tidbit for today. this morning, i saw a 50-something white woman *actually pulling off* a magenta velvet suit. well, i think she was pulling it off. i was on my bike and she was a bit of a blur.