The Pagan Gods Must Hate Me

When I visited Ben back in April, he took me to Stonehenge. For some reason still unknown to us, the whole monument was closed, even the parking lot. We parked on the side of the road, with several other tourists, and took the best pictures we could through the fence. Obviously, I only got to see the monument from one side. Enough to be impressed by the size of the stones and awed by their placement; but still disappointed I didn't get the full Stonehenge experience.

Last week, Ben and I bought a car. We figured our first trip should be back to Stonehenge. (Pam and Joe got Ben and I a year-long English Heritage membership for Christmas - which means we get free entry to any English Heritage listed monument, castle, ruin, abbey, etc. in all of England). Because it had snowed the previous week, Ben and I threw all our winter clothes into our new spacious back seat, and headed north/west. While there was absolutely no snow when we left home, there was still a good 6-8" on the ground in Amesbury.

We got there around 10, the parking lot was open (improvement from our last outing) but there were already 3 tour buses in the parking lot. When we saw a 4th one turning in, we hurriedly bundled up and made a dash for the entrance. While Ben and I were excited about the monument and surrounding areas covered in snow, it presented a bit of a safety hazard and we were told only "part" of the site was accessible.

Since only part of the walkway was open (usually you can circle around the stones- albeit with a wide berth), I still haven't seen Stonehenge from all sides. We stayed for a while, listened to the hand-held audio guide you get, but soon the cold (and the 7 tour buses full of, um, tourists) got to us, so we decided we'd just come back another time...perhaps we'll call first to make sure it is actually open. ;)

Our New (to us) Car

I know I'm severely behind in my postings, but I just couldn't wait to break this exciting news! We bought a car! After months of talking (and arguing) about it, we finally got our immobile butts in gear and spent all last weekend test driving every mid-sized, 5-door hatchback currently being sold in the UK. We went to 10 different dealerships (Renault, Honda, Volvo, Seat, Audi, Peugeot, BMW, Mini, Toyota, Volkswagen), and even went to some 2 and 3 times. As a side note here, I gotta say, I am rather disappointed in this country's capitalistic nature- some dealerships were closed on Sundays, some dealerships simply didn't have any cars to test drive, and at some of the dealerships we visited no one even acknowledged us- even after 15 minutes on the lot!

After taking our long list of possibilities, we narrowed it to a short-list of only 2 cars: a Honda Civic and a Seat Leon. The Civic put up a good fight, but in the end, we are now (or will be in another day) proud owners of a Seat Leon (which I've been told repeatedly is just a VW Golf in Spanish badging).



It's a 2006, 2.0 T FSI Sport 5-Door Hatchback in Black Magic Metallic. For me, it has heated front seats, bluetooth capability, stereo controls on the steering wheel, dual climate control, and back-up sensors. For Ben, it has a manual transmission and a turbo.

Couple more comments on the UK car buying experience:
- We didn't drive off the lot with our car! So, we went in, said that's the car for us, did some negotiating...talked finance, got everything sorted and then were told when we could come get the car. What? Honestly, the sales guy at Toyota told us that it took them 10 days from signing paperwork until car delivery (Seat is doing it in 2 days), so we were prepared, but still, what is it that takes them so long? I just don't get it. Ben drove by the dealer today, the car is still parked out front- same as it was yesterday (and it's still listed on the dealer's website).

- Dealerships are only open until 5 or 6 pm; some not opened on Sundays. When do (employed) people find time to buy cars??

- This is just a UK thing, but since we don't have SSNs here, their credit check was... sketchy? We told them our names and where we lived. From that alone they gave us a financing option. How does that work!?! We could only finance the car in one name (since we're not married), so we opted for Ben (good thing, cause apparently one can't get financing without at least a learner's driving licence (spelled British-ly). The sales guy wasn't sure if we could register the car in both our names (again, since we're not married), but he'd try.

Doesn't matter! At noon tomorrow, we'll have a previously-used, new-to-us Leon. We've already decided where we're going this weekend. ;)

But I'm NOT a morning person!

For the second day in a row, Ben and I woke up before dawn. Since I'm not a morning person, I'm chalking this trend up to our internal clocks still being a bit off. But since we woke up at 4:30 am, we decided to walk down to the breakwater (Nobbys Head) to watch the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean (which is new for me, I mean the Pacific is usually west, the sun SETS over the Pacific, not rises!). It was a nice brisk walk, and we were certainly not alone - bikers, joggers, people out waking their dogs. It was a beautiful morning to be out walking along the coast line of Newcastle.

After checking out of our hotel, we got back in the car and drove north some more. Decided to make a stop off in the Port Stephens area, in the town of Nelson Bay. Somehow we managed to NOT take any pictures; there wasn't much there to see anyway - well, other than a gorgeous beach with crystal clear blue water - but those seem to be everywhere around here! ;) We were hoping to get some lunch, but it was only 11:00 - and they didn't start lunch until noon (See, this is why I don't get up early, you have to wait SO long for lunch!!).

Back in the car, we continued our journey north to Port Macquarie. I smile each and every time I see the word Macquarie on an Australian map. A few months ago when Ben off-handedly suggested Australia (who knew?), he recommended I read Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country (published as Down Under in the UK). Since I've enjoyed some of his other books, I took to this one instantly, plus it was nice to have something to read on my bus commutes into Seattle. Anyway, Bryson comedically analyses the over-use of "Macquarie" in Australian geography. Evidently Lachlan Macquire was the governor of New South Wales in the early 1800s (and popularized the use of the name "Australia"- at the time, the entire country was collectively being referred to as Botany Bay - imagine, the whole continent being called "Botany Bay") If you have a moment, seriously, check out the list of things named after this guy!

We didn't see much of Port Macquarie, but we liked our hotel - outdoor hammocks on the 6th floor and a heated pool and spa on floor 1, all of which we visited ;) If that wasn't nice enough, there was a pretty decent mexican restaurant next door ;) The place had ceramic place-mats with common Spanish words and their translations - for example, por favor= please. Nothing unusual or unknown to us, but the "Hola" translation was G'Day Mate. It made us both laugh a little bit ;)