I say Part One, because there are bound to be more posts with this title.

So, we didn't wind up going to the southwest coast after all. When we checked back in to our little Bath B&B, the owner gave us some good ideas of day trips we could take while still stationed in Bath. As it sounded much simpler than finding a place to stay in a part of the country that is usually shut down for winter, we stayed in Bath. Our first day trip was to Wells and Glastonbury.

Wells has a very impressive cathedral, with the world's second oldest working clock (oldest with its original parts). There is also a Bishop's Palace with some ruins and a moat. There are mute swans in the moat that ring a bell to get fed.

Glastonbury is the fabled home of Avalon. Glastonbury Abbey is a ruin dating back to AD63, when Joseph of Arimethea supposedly brought Christianity to England for the first time. King Arthur's "tomb" is also located here. The town of Glastonbury is Hippie Central. There are lots of crystal shops and a hair salon that doesn't use chemicals (what's the point?). If Portland, Oregon had a Celtic Quarter, it would be Glastonbury. We did stumble upon a great little cheese shop, though.

Because we purchased The Real Ale Pub Guide while in London, we knew exactly which pubs to visit in each little town.

Our second day trip took us to a quaint little village called Castle Combe. We also visited Avebury, which is like Stonehenge, but on a larger scale, with a village built into it. Next came Lacock, which has appeared in movies such as Harry Potters 1 & 2. They wouldn't allow the film crews back for any additional filming, however, as it was very disruptive to the townsfolk. We ate an absolutely delicious lunch there at The George Inn, which has been a licensed establishment all the way back to 1361. We had deep-fried brie wedges (tastes oddly like marshmallows), duck sausage and stuffing pie, and goose breast with cranberry sauce. Yummy. Stonehenge was next. If you've ever been to Stonehenge, then you probably understand when I say that it's just not that big a deal. It's exactly like it is everywhere else you've seen it. If it's just around freezing and very windy, it's that much more unpleasant. As usual, I was unable to stay awake while riding on the bus.

In other news, gay marriage starts this week in various parts of the UK. As long as I don't have to see Rosie O'Donnell over here, then I'm all for it. Could you imagine being a guest at Elton John's wedding? That would be worth dressing up as a waiter and sneaking in. Also, Simon Cowell is much nicer in the UK. (Congrats to Shayne for winning The X Factor!)

Finally, I have so much time to post today, because we have spent the past 5 hours (plus a couple yesterday) trying to post pictures to the gallery. It's working, it's just really slow and laborious. You'll find them all under The United Kingdom. Picture uploading is a giant, slow-twisting-knife kind of pain. So you people had better be looking at them. Seriously, we can see how many times each picture has been viewed. Those counts had better reflect your interest, because our normally harmonious marriage can't take arguing over picture uploading methodology for no good reason.

Tomorrow, back to London. Be sure to leave a comment wishing us a Happy Anniversary.

This is our second attempt at our first international journal update. The first attempt resulted in bytes flying all over the pub and two irritated bloggers who had scratched out an update in Grafiti on our Palm, only to see it vanish in a whiff of wifi whumbuggery. Nothing like hanging out in England to make one start thinking in alliterative nincompoopery.

Anyhow, we've lucked out because we found a pub with a very good semi-free wireless internet connection. I say semi-free because they insist that in exchange for the use of their airwaves, you look at a dirty picture every 10 minutes. As they are so fond of saying over here, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Come to think of it, I've not actually heard anybody say any such thing, but it sounds very English, doesn't it?

We arrived here at a really horrendous hour friday morning, and tried our damndest to stay awake. We wandered around The Museum a bit, but were losing strength quickly and pretty soon all the 400,000 year old axeheads started to look the same. Which, now that we've been back to the museum in the following days, should have been serious cause for alarm as we discovered that there weren't any axeheads in the first place.

We've been a bit worse for wear since then as well. This is by far the most traumatic jet lag we've ever been subject to. The really tricky bit, is that I'm awake when Heather is asleep, and vice-versa. We might be okay today though, time will tell.

Well, get on with it Matt, surely you haven't JUST been to The Museum? No, we also walked down to St. Pauls and stopped on the way for lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which is about one of my favorite meals in the whole world. Lunch, in this context, is strictly defined as Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding and pints of Sam Smith's Old Brewery bitter served from Oak Casks.

Last night we also subjected ourselves to Leicester square and Piccadilly Circus. Those have now been ticked off our to do list. There were lots of giant crowds and shiny lights, which are qualities endearing in Las Vegas, but totally irritating with an english accent. Furthermore I was horribly upset by the fact that my beloved pound pizzas had gone up in price to a pound fifty pizzas, and I didn't think this was possible, but the pizza is significantly worse.

Today we'll be finishing at The Museum and then heading to the train station to figure out where to head next. We'll be back in London on the twentieth or so, so if you have any "Can't Miss" recommendations for us, file them now. Thank you.

Ok, the photo gallery is back on line I think. If you have any problems with it please let me know. I added an empty album for our next stop, the UK, so keep an eye out for new pictures to show up there. Also, to make the first page of the gallery load a bit faster, I moved all of our pictures from the US leg of our trip to a new a new Subcategory. I highly recommend everybody check out the rather bizarre beauty of Antelope Canyon