Three Rembrandts in a Dressing Room?!

Jeff goes on holiday to the U.K.

MONDAY, JULY 24

Another travel day, as we drive from Ballater to Aberdeen to fly to London's Heathrow airport and take an express coach to London's Gatwick airport to catch the shuttle to the Holiday Inn. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Well, it wasn't so bad.

	The Hilton kinda looks like it was the setting for The Haunting, doesn't it?

What was bad was being awakened before 9 a.m. to the wailing of a fire alarm. It went off a few minutes before my alarm clock was to go off, so my first instinct was to turn off the offending beast, thinking it must just have a weird buzz. Seconds later I fully awoke and became rather annoyed by the constant howling in the hallway.

Checking outside the sliding glass doors in my room I could see people walking down the steps out of their rooms, but I chose not to, being used to false alarms in college and other hotels during travel.

A few minutes after the alarm was turned off I received a call from the reception asking why I'm still in my room. Didn't I hear the fire alarm? Yeah, so? I just woke up and my hair is disheveled, I'm peeling and burned, in my undies and stayed up most of the night itching. The last thing I care about is Nigel overcooking his eggs.

Grrr, I have to put on clothes and stumble to the car park with everyone else for 10 minutes, finding Dad and Danielle standing at the stop of the steps, the latter still in her pajama bottoms. They're not happy, either.

The drive to Aberdeen was cloudy, drizzling and chilly, as I hoped the entire weekend would be. I'll miss seeing the little villages along the River Dee, like Kincardine O'Neil, the oldest village on the Royal Deeside, and which also has - in my opinion- the penultimate name for the area.

It was a decent flight to Heathrow aboard British Airways, even if I did have to board from the back of the plane again like The Help. It wasn't too bad, we just had to pick up everyone's tray when they were finished and wash the itty-bitty forks with a spit shine, then hang the laundry in the cockpit.

Once at the Holiday Inn it was time to settle in, since this was the last place we'd stay on our tour of the U.K. The rooms were great for one person, maybe a bit crowded for two. The bathroom was decent size, and I never had problems with any shower's water pressure in the U.K, usually one of my biggest pet peeves while traveling.

Dad's thoughts: Highlights - sharing this wonderful vacation with Danielle and Jeff; Scottish highlands; the British Open at St. Andrews; the view from our room in Scotland (and our pet rabbit); Tower of London; Warwick Castle; walking around Bath; improvement in the quality of the food; the unbelievably great weather we had for 2 weeks. Lowlights - Jeff's allergic reaction to his medicine; too damn many tourists; 3 hour traffic jam on M-3 while driving to Stonehenge; 1 hour traffic jam on M-4 driving back to London; size of our room in London (think broom closet); getting sunburned in Scotland; missing Paris due to my procrastination (I owe Danielle big time for this one!!!)

In my continuing effort to resort to toilet humor, the ones in the U.K. are powerful, none of the low-flo crap (pun not intended) we deal with in the States. The Holiday Inn's Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator would suck your butt cheeks off if you flushed while sitting.

I have to give Sky Sports network credit because they had me thoroughly interested in the 2000 Stan James World Matchplay dart tournament. Yeah, I said it, DARTS. The production value was very good (hip music, slow motion, close ups on faces to see emotion), and the intensity of the crowd is phenomenal considering they're watching people toss pointy things at a circle.

I also had a chance to watch the German version of "Survivor," which was fun despite the fact that I didn't understand a word they said. The U.S. music is better as is the production value, but the castaways seemed interesting. From what I could gather from their building of a raft from tree trunks and some sort of canisters, I just assumed that they were planning an invasion of France. The French, in turn, would let the Germans take over and adapt to their rule, a sort of "Vichy Survivor", where enemies are voted out of the country rather than in battle.

Not being one to frown on reality-based TV shows, while in the U.K. I was able to watch a few episodes of their "Big Brother." The show is not quite as dull as ours is in the States, just more risqu�. For instance, the producers actually showed the people in the shower using the overhead camera. There's no nudity, but it's something we haven't seen in the States. Would you want to see George in the buff? Jordan the stripper, maybe, but she's been tossed out already.

The men were more fun, mostly under 30 and very playful, spending a lot of time playing soccer in the backyard when they weren't conducting panty raids and making a clay penis to put in front of the women's bedroom. The women and men rarely interacted, thus becoming two tribes in a sense. The men worked together and all nominated the same two women, which I wouldn't have minded because they were both worth getting rid of (and have been in the weeks following).

I hate it when certain people only talk about how they're going to be voted out (Karen has done this a lot in the U.S. version) and whine and whine and whine about how they don't feel connected to the others. Hey, get out of the bedroom with your one and only friend and start talking to the others! No wonder they nominated you, they never see you, and when they do all you do is talk about how you're a goner!

Even though I felt fine, I still had trouble getting to sleep, off and on all night where you wake up briefly and wonder if you actually ever fell asleep. Considering the rant I just laid out I must have been ticked off about the chick on "Big Brother". Who knew I was so passionate about idiots on TV? Yeah, yeah, lower your hands, apparently you know me better than I do.

TUESDAY, JULY 25

	Danielle and I enjoyed "storming the castle." [click on photo for larger version]

The last two days of touring are a mad dash (okay, more like a happy jog) to historical sites so far unseen.

First up is Windsor Castle, the weekend home of Queen Elizabeth II, located just outside of London. The Castle is an imposing structure looming over a tightly wrapped little town that thrives on tourists. There are dozens of shops and pubs surrounding the Castle, bustling with activity from tourists.

Since it's still a residence (it's the largest inhabited castle in the world), Windsor isn't as much fun as the one we visited the previous week, Warwick. But Windsor has a different feel, more stately and regal. The current royals'' predecessors' liked the place so much, they took it as their own family moniker. Thus, they are known as the House of Windsor.

"Windsor Castle is the most impressive and longest serving of all England's royal palaces. It's the only royal residence to have been in continuous royal use since the days of William the Conqueror, who chose this site to build a timber stockade soon after his conquest of Britain in 1066. It was Edward III in the 1300s who really founded the castle, building the Norman gateway, the great round tower, and new state apartments, then subsequent monarchs added new buildings or improved existing ones according to their tastes and their finances." Fodor's.