I'm back! (No shit, Diana.) My vacation was very cool--literally! It was much colder than I really expected it to be, and I did not pack enough long-sleeved stuff, and forgot a jacket, so I ended up buying a nice fleece jacket in Stratford-on-Avon.

Anyway, the tour was a lot of fun, though I definitely want to go back (non-tour) and spend more time in various places, especially London. The flight over was long, and mom and I had to literally sprint to make our connection in Newark, since our flight getting in to Newark was late, and the monorail was broken and we had to get to the international terminal which was an entirely different building... I do not have a high opinion of Newark. However, we did make it, just as they were boarding the last passengers, and for the next 6+ hours we were able to relax and watch various movies and tv or listen to music. The plane we were in had a really nifty entertainment system for each seat, so that you could pick and choose what you wanted to watch or listen to.

London was extremely interesting, though mom and I had a moment of strange double-take when we saw what we thought was a dog driving a car. Well, they drive on the wrong side of the road over there, so the steering wheel is on the other side, and this car was driving down the road with this lovely afghan hound sitting in the left front seat... and it really did look--to the american eye--that the dog was driving the car.

Guess you had to be there.

I managed to go running one morning while we were in London, which was a terrific way to see the area up close. We were in Kensington (very upscale) and I got advice from the concierge on safe places to run, so I felt fairly secure. I figure I ran a bit over four miles, however, my legs informed me later in the day that they were unused to running on hills, and I ended up rather sore. I also got a bit of a surprise when I stepped on the scale in the hotel room; it had two rows of numbers, neither of which corresponded to pounds. We finally determined that the top number was your weight in stones and the bottom number was your weight in kilos. Both numbers meant absolutely nothing to me, so I gave up on the scale. I also braved the London Underground with a couple of my tour-mates in an aborted attempt to go to Hard Rock cafe. Actually we did make it to Hard Rock, but the line was all the way down the block, so we found a little italian place to eat instead. But I was pleased to see how easy the underground is to navigate.

We saw Air Force One at an airfield near London, though we couldn't really figure out why it was there, since Bush was supposedly in Spain that day.

Anyway, we saw a bunch of cathedrals, museums, castles, abbeys, you name it... We saw Stonehenge and Bath and Bristol, and made it Wales and saw Cardiff and more castles. Then we went to Chester and saw more cathedrals. Saw lots of signs warning about foot and mouth disease and had to walk over disinfectant pads at Stonehenge. At York we saw yet another cathedral (by this time I think we were all getting sick of cathedrals) but in York I had the high point of my tour: My friend Kat, who moved over to England about four years ago, met me in York and we got to spend a nice evening together. Extremely cool!

After York we headed up to Edinburgh--where I was very glad that I'd purchased the jacket. It was cold! Edingburgh castle is very impressive, especially from the exterior. It's situated on top of this giant plug of volcanic rock--definitely looks the part of a forbidding keep.

We were also pretty fortunate in that everyone on the tour (approx 39 people) was nice and friendly. We didn't have any assholes or idiots, and everyone was nicely punctual.

But by the end of the ten days everyone was ready for it to end. I don't see how people can do these three or four week tours. I'd be dropping dead of exhaustion! So, we flew out of Glasgow on Wednesday, and the plane on the flight back did not have the nifty personal entertainment sytems, but they did show some decent movies on the main cabin screen. The monorail was working for the connection in Newark, which was good since we had to clear customs and go through all that crap before making the connecting flight. Upon our return to New Orleans I discovered that the battery in the car was dead--which I'd half-expected since I have a bad brake switch and brake lights will sometimes inexplicably come on by themselves for their own reasons. However the car-park people must be used to that sort of thing because they hauled out a battery charger thingy and got us going again. After that I got home and slept on and off for about a day and a half.

Re my training: I was not able to keep up with the workouts very well on the vacation. Only one hotel had a gym, and I was only able to go running twice. Also, I tried to stay on the diet, tried very hard, but every day I saw my abs disappearing a bit more. They cook everything over there in whole milk and cream and butter and god only knows what else. I finally threw in the towel on about day 6, deciding that too much money had been spent on this vacation for me to be miserable and stressed over workouts and food. So I enjoyed myself the rest of the vacation.

And yes, I decided to pass on doing the contest on June 23rd (yes, that would be today.) There were other reasons besides the fact that I wasn't able to stay on the diet or workout or practice my routine, but those factors were pretty big ones. I do still plan on doing the show on August 4th, so I'm not completely giving up. This weekend, however, I'm taking a total vacation from the diet and the exercise and everything. I will not go back to the gym until Monday, and this weekend I am eating anything I want. Yesterday I polished off a pint of Blue Bunny Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. Today I'm working on Dutch Chocolate. Tomorrow I may start in on the French Vanilla.