Adventures in Watford, England

  Watford, England, United Kingdom
Thursday, August 7, 2008

Hey, Wrong Side Of The Road

      Luckily Protocol was only two blocks from the train station as by this point we were getting sick and tired of lugging so much baggage around. This was also our first walk outside of train stations and airports and wow were we confused. Driving on the left is hard enough to deal with but seeing all the drivers on the wrong side of the car was also very weird. On top of it there intersections aren't just 4 way intersections there a confusing mess of roads all colliding in one spot and about 7 street lights at each intersection. Just enough so that you never know where the cars are going to come from. We were terrified to cross the street because cars were coming from every direction and the wrong way. The drivers here are also worse than Alberta, and that's saying something. In the first 10 minutes we saw two suicide pass's and lots of brakes being slammed to the floor and horns going off. So we played good boys and waited for the pedestrian crossings because we don't trust the drivers here at all. We got down to protocol and left our bags and packed up enough stuff to last us 4 days and headed out.
 

Our B&B For The Night

      With the help of Protocol we got a bed and breakfast for cheap called 'The Phoenix Lodge' for 60 pounds but needed to head downtown first to buy an adapter for our power plugs. Something that would have been much easier to buy in Canada but we all totally forgot that they don't have normal plugs here. After wondering down to a giant street mall that was just mind boggling big and wondering threw a few attempted shops we were pointed to one around the corner. When we entered this store we were so confused and later learned it's basically a catalogue store where you pick what you want and order it and they call numbers as they pick orders and then you go pay. It was really weird but they had a 4 inch thick catalogues to shop from with probably everything you could imagine in it. We couldn't find anything in the catalogue as we never really knew what section to look in anyway so just went to customer service and asked them. Once again our Canadian showed threw and she not only found us one but let us try plugging into it to make sure it works first. She was very helpful and we got our adapter.

Double Decker Bus

     We were then on our way to the B&B when we noticed something strange. There were pigeons everywhere and they did NOT move to get out of your way. They would just walk around on the sidewalks and sometimes make an effort to move but usually just stood there and you had to step over them. We are pretty sure were going to punt one before we leave just because they get so close. Aimee also has the hate on for them as a couple swooped within inches of her head and instantly made enemies with her. It was a fair walk to the B&B and were told to take the bus but decided walking would be more entertaining as we would get to see some of the town. After being baffled by countless little things that are different we saw a double decker buss coming. So Aimee grabbed her camera to snap a picture. The bus driver saw us standing there camera ready and actually opened his window and gave a smile and wave for the camera. Not that we were obviously tourists or anything standing there pointing a camera at a bus.
 
      We eventually made it to our B&B and it's not the greatest but for cheap you don't expect much. It's 3 beds crammed into a small room with public showers and bathroom. But it was cheap, close, a flat bed and shower which is all we cared about as we were running the 24 hour mark with no sleep. So we settled in and got cleaned up then headed out for some supper.

Phoenix Lodge Interior

     We are slowly realizing all the little things that are different: different ac plugs, cctv cameras EVERYWHERE, the coke bottles are different size and shape, the roads are just a mess in my opinion, instead of saying "watch your step" it's always "mind your step" so they basically use mind instead of watch in any reference, we learned that the "Jacket" section of the menu stands for a baked potato with different toppings (coleslaw and tuna were the ones that stood out to us in an odd way), The light switches are all on the wrong side of the doors and flip down to turn on, the list goes on and on. Everything is different here but we are finding it very amusing learning it all and having a blast while we wonder around like idiots being amazed by the new coke bottle designs. We are all exhausted after having some supper at a local pub and chatting it up with the bartender for a bit we headed back to our room to probably just going to sleep the rest of the night away. Tomorrow were heading into Oxford to start our search for residents, get the cell phone working, and try to nail down the major things we got to do. So it will be a nice and early rise tomorrow and we will carry on our adventure. We are almost at the 30 hour mark for going without sleep so we are almost dead. Losing 7 hours in time change is not a lot of fun accompanied with a terrible 9 hour plane ride you planned to sleep on but couldn't. So we hit the beds around 9pm because we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.