Carshows, Ziplocks and White Cocks

It's a quarter to 6 pm here. We've made it through our first day and we hit everything we wanted to and are just pretty exhausted. The economy must be kind of shitty because there were a lot of open seats on our flight but the bonus was that there was no person in our three seat section. Well, it was a bonus for Jess because of course, it makes sense that the smaller of the two of us take up more room.


The takeoff was actually a little rough - we were bumping around quite a bit but we eventually evened out and there were no problems. Once we were able to access the tv and movies I knew there was little chance that I was going to be able to sleep. How can I not watch The Godfather Part II for the 300th time? I eventually fell asleep at some point but not for that long because I woke up well before the end. I would imagine that I fell back asleep for a little bit but id I said I slept more than three hours total I'd be a liar. Jess claims that she didn't sleep but we know how that goes. She started to get motion sickness during the last hour or so of the flight.


We arrived and got off the plane relatively easily and then headed to get our luggage. We were an hour late because we were delayed. We got our luggage and then headed to get our rental car. I know everyone really wants to hear me getting pissed off but honestly things went relatively smoothly...


until we got to the rental car place. Now, getting the car was easy enough - we have a VW Golf, one of Jess' favortite cars. So we've got the car and are ready to go and Jess realizes that she left the binder with all the information for the trip in the van that picked us up. So, 20 minutes later, the van comes back with our binder and we're good to go. Now, the car place said that the GPS system didn't work but while we waited for the Garmin to warm up and get some satellites, the navigation system popped on and we're now under the assumption that we have free navigation. We headed on our way to Leeds Castle - which surprisingly, is not in Leeds.


I happy to say that we're getting a genuine British experience (feel the sarcasm). It's frigid' cold and rainy. If it was one or the other, it wouldn't be bad, but it's February in southern England and it's both of them so it sucks. When Jess and I first met, she told me how amazing she was at understanding people's accents. She told me she was awesome at a lot of things, however, she swore she was great with accents. So she tried to flash her brilliance with the occasional Spanish accent we would encounter. On our first trip to Scotland, we stopped in the boonies to get directions and the older gentleman came to the road in his ovveralls with no shirt one. He starts giving the directions and she has absolutely no fucking idea what he's saying. None at all. I translate and we find ourselves back on course. So we pull in to Leeds today and the gentleman says something quickly to her and she hears, "Are you here for the carshow or grape ape?" Jess stares incredulously, mouth agape and says, "Um, uh..." Looks confusedlt at me and then says, "The caslte?" He responds with lovely or some other British shit phrase and directs us to his man who will show us where to park. What the man really said was, :Are you here for the castle or Go Ape?" Go Ape is the zipline adventure either near or on the premises. I want to know why I wasn't told that we could have ziplined? Who knows, maybe she though we could ziplock there and I'm guessing that didn't sound like too much fun.


The grounds at Leeds Castle are beautiful and must be amazing when it's actually nice outside and shit has blossomed. I think I can let the pictures do the talking and know that I could have taken some amazing shots there in the Spring or Summer. If you notice a spot or a hair in the pictures keep it to yourself. I kept trying to clean the lenses and the insides and no matter what I did, I couldn't get it out. It's been driving me fucking crazy. There are a lot of birds on the grounds and we even saw this large white cock:

We roamed around the grounds and I ran to the other side to get some pictures, which I did from one of the greens of the golf course which luckily was not in use because of the weather.

After Leeds we headed to Canterbury so that we could see the West Tower - 

the only one still standing from the 7 (I think) original ones that were part of the walled city. The tower was used as a prison and the police headquarters for the city. We were able to go up to the top, and look out on the cathedral. 

We also saw one of the cells and how almost how dark it would have been with only the arrow slits for light. We headed back down and took a look at the murder holes for the keep (where they would pour the oil and other shit on top of you if you breached the moat) and tried on a few helmets. 

The man working there explained how helmet got it's connotation, Jess loves stories about random shit. However, Jess was most excited about the fact that entrance to the West Gate was one pound 30 each. She told the guy it was the best pound and a half she's ever spent. I told her she was a cheap fuck. We walked around Canterbury for a little bit and the rain and cold was starting to get to me a 'lil but unlike my wife, I didn't need to buy a pair of pajama type pants to wear under the pants I was wearing. We stopped at starbucks to warm up and relax for a few and saw no less than three guys wearing women's scarves. One guy thought he was really fashionable and frilly his girl should have told him he was only douchey. We finished up and went and found a geocache (that might have been before starbucks, not sure).

When we were done we headed over to this cemetery we ran in to and took some shots - it was pretty cool, not too creepy not too boring. When we were done we went on over to our hostel, Kipps and threw on the tv to catch the ManUre v Crawley Town FA Cup game (it's a big deal since Crawley isn't even a league team and that other team thinks it's the best ever in England. We will probably walk back in to town in a bit to get some dinner and chill out - just need to stay up for a little longer and then crash. I'm soooooooo looking forward to sleep. I'm sure Jess is too - she may already be there.