I arrived in England at the end of August; three or four days after Lady Diana died. After I got out of Heathrow airport at night I rode just a few hundred meters from the terminal and found a ditch in a patch of scrubs to sleep in. It was my first time outside of the country since Mexico, and I was extremely excited to be in England. Before I went to sleep I bought some food at a gas station on the other side of the street and heard some kids who were getting gas talking; and they didn't sound like English accents to me. They seemed like the cockney that I heard when I saw old English movies in my English classes in college. It was very exciting because I could feel how I was in another country.

I got up at six the next morning and started to ride north to the center of London. It seemed like Heathrow was in the middle of the city because I was immediately in a neighborhood. It was strange to be riding on the left side of the road, but it was cool because the cars were giving me plenty of room. I rode a long way through residential areas until I got to the center of the city and bought something I needed for my bike. A little while after that I stumbled upon a pedestrian part of the city and walked my bike through until it ended. There I saw a guy dressed in some kind of traditional English suit that made me feel like I was going back in time. I rode a little bit more until I got to the river and crossed one of the central bridges, and then entered what was obviously the center of the city because the roads got much narrower and were going in every direction more than anything I have ever seen in the states.

English people are nice. I hope they are as nice in other parts of Europe.

I saw on TV how they are voting on letting the Scots have their own Parlaiment, called evolution or something. Whales is thinking about it also. It seems like there are many different political sects here; I think it is like that on the mainland also. Their debate platform is similar here, except the audience has more input and the debate seems more laid back, which is not what I expected of England. The English know what is going on concerning basic ideas about freedom; maybe I am impressed because I am so ethnocentric I expected the English to be less civilized than us.

London - I am delighted my clothes and I are clean and my sleeping bag is dry again. I road across the center for a little bit until I had to pee. I stopped at the side of the road and asked a guy standing there selling phone cards where I could go tinkle, but he didn't seem to understand me and seemed a little molested that I was trying to talk to him, so I just guessed that he was some sort of English in-bred retard and I asked someone else. After I went wee wee I continued north on the confusing narrow winding twisting roads, and got so lost that at one point I went in a circle and found myself at the same crowded roundabout that I was at a half hour beforehand. It took me all day to get across London, and by the time I was finally at the outskirts it was getting to be dusk. I didn't spend any time in London because I didn't feel like being in a city.

One of the first strange things I noticed about England was that just as soon as I thought I was out of the last reaches of the cities' suburbs, another little hamlet appeared. This happened for an hour or so until I realized that all of England was like this; almost like the country was one huge spread out city. I must have been peeing a lot that day because I remember stopping in a few road side stores, which were more like taverns where all the people drinking seemed to know each other. I had never seen anything like that in the States. The area to the north of the city was in a beautiful setting with green pastures and rolling hills. I rolled into the first actual town to the north of London at about dusk and found a pasture at the bottom of a hill that the road went up and went to sleep. I was listening to the radio and all of the news was about the Death of Lady Diana. It seemed from the radio that people were really sad; and I started to feel a little lonely . I think all of the sadness in the air was rubbing off on me.

The next day I rode into the center of the town and went into the central mall to buy a strap for my bag and something to eat. I went to a food court, and after I paid I grabbed a couple of tiny packets of ketchup. To my great surprise was alerted by the cashiers that I had to pay for it; it wasn't cheap either, about 50 cents. I guess the English don't like ketchup like us Americans.

The next few days I rode farther north and watched the land growing less and less populated and hillier. I slept in the ditches on the side of the road every night, noticing how many more thorns there are in Europe than America. I developed a habit of having dinner and reading and writing in the local pubs of the hamlets until about eleven.

All of the pubs I went to seemed very cozy, like I was in someone's house. None of the people ever tried to talk to me, and it seemed obvious that they all knew I was a stranger. One night I was in a road side pub in a town outside of Liverpool and some old regulars there took an interest in me and asked me what I was doing. One of them told me he had lived in Cypress for a few months about 20 years before hand, and asked me what I thought of England. I told him whatever was on my mind, and he asked me if I saw England as being a burnt-out has-been little country, and he continued to explain about how England used to own half the world, but now had nothing and was like a second world country. When I told them I was sleeping in the bushes they told the bar tender who turned out to be the owner of the bar, and she invited me to stay there. When they closed, she and her teenage son took me to the back of the building where their house was and gave me a room. I had breakfast with them in the morning, which was interesting because I was witnessing a regular English family morning. The father was there eating with us dressed up in his business suit, and the boy was getting ready for school or something. They didn't talk to me, but they let me eat as much cereal as I wanted.

The next day I rode into Liverpool, which is a pretty big city that descends for a while into the sea. Before I got there I had a meal at a bar and had a chat with the young Polish bartender. She asked me why I was traveling through England. She said she thought England was the most boring country in Europe and she was only there to make money. I rode down to the sea to see about boats to Ireland, but the season had just ended and the plane flight was a hundred and fifty bucks so I decided to hold off on Ireland for the moment.

I rode into the north from there and noticed that the land was getting more and more barren and hilly which made it interesting and beautiful. I stayed in a town called Carlisle in the bushes behind a field in the center near the pubs. The next day before I left I walked around the local castle, which was fascinating because I had never been in a castle before. It was surrounded by walls and had a dungeon. The next day I rode into the hillsides which was beyond the official border with Scotland. Then I rode south and saw Hadrian's wall, which was built by the Romans two thousand years ago to keep the Scots out of England. This wall was built very sturdily and went on for as far as I could see and is supposed to reach accross the whole island. I rode south through some beautiful hills and had dinner at a bed and breakfast in a woman's house. When I told her that I was sleeping in the bushes she started telling me that she felt bad about me sleeping outside, and offered to let me sleep in her garage for a cheaper price. About five minutes after I left the next morning she caught up with me in her car and gave me a flashlight that I left behind at her house.

9-10-97

My legs were beat at the end of yesterday and this morning. so I rode easily all day long, and in a different way using different muscles. I think I recovered my thighs because I didn't burn them up by going too fast even though I went 109 miles. 9 more than the most I have done so far in this trip. I took a lot of pictures today. I was fascinated by the stone shingled houses and huge, rolling green pastures, rock walls lining the roads, and the steepness of the roads. I had a dream last night but I can't remember it. The English here sort of have Scottish accents. I crossed the boarder yesterday and got a taste of Scotland with the devolution debate on TV and the radio. The accents and the way they all shake their heads at me instead of nod is the most peculiar thing about the Scots. A nice woman who owns a bed and breakfast let me sleep on a mattress in her garage, take a shower, and cleaned my cloths. I rode into a town and was kind of tired so I hung out in a library for a couple hours in the afternoon. Then I rode some more until I found a nice field to sleep.

9-12-97

All the coffees I had sunk in and I was up reading under my waterproof blanket until nine thirty. I got up at 8:00 which is late for me. I rode about 80 miles to Hull England and got here a half hour before boarding the ferry to Holland. It seems like none of the passengers here speak English. It will be interesting to be communicating with people who don't speak English. I am glad to be leaving such an expensive country and going to cheaper places. The food here is more expensive than in America.