Saturday, July 21, 2007

Not sure how much news of Britain makes it back stateside, but it's been something of a disaster zone out here. After a wet, drenched summer well over six inches of rain flooded the west and southern parts of the country, flooding towns, streets, houses, covering bridges, closing roads. Sean and I are fine, although exhausted - we missed out on Stonehenge due to the weather, and the two and a half hour bus ride to Stratford turned into a nine hour nightmere that got us halfway. We spent the night in an evac/emergency ref shelter at the local hall in Cheltenham, arriving at three in the morning. Left there at 12, and managed to climb into Stratford around 1:15, walking the two miles to the hostel by 2. Another two miles back for lunch (delicious) and the new harry potter book (still reading), then two more miles back, Sean's sleeping and I'm delaying so I can sleep through the night.

It's been just crazy here. Spending the night in an evac shelter is one of the strangest experiences this trip, as was nine hours on a bus. (15 hours that day, covering roughly 50 miles...). We had to count little blessings - we got no sleep the night before due to a rather loud snorer in the room, so we were tired and groggy for the bus ride, and didn't really care to do much. We were IN the bus, not walking or driving ourselves. We had a great place to stay (out best hostel yet, at least until the mansion that we are in now); with some great people who was fun to get to know. The bus driver was incredibly nice, and, best of all, the infant in the back of the bus didn't cry once until one thirty in the morning, that that was just for two minutes. Despite several backtracks to various towns we ended up with a place to stay with warm drinks and lots of food; unlike thousands who were stranded on the major M4, M1 and M5 highways between London, Bristol and Birmingham. There is more that seems to be working out - this town is a great place to relax and recover from our trip.

I'm not sure just how I can say just how much water they have everywhere here. We saw cars driving with water up the the bumper, drove through intersections where asphalt wasn't visible. People have reported walking through water up to their waist, and one local town lost a bridge and had water up to five feet in some places. Just looking up in the sky and one or two medical helicopters are visible, and firetrucks and rescue boat sirens are constantly heard. The UK has never been hit with a flood this bad, and we were stuck traveling in it. Going to rest two nights here, then to ManU, then north to Scotland - trying to cut down on the travel time, both for our own sanity and the cost.

Try to look around for some pictures of the flooding... it's truly incredible how much water we're dealing with here.

1 comment:

Bea Gardella said...

Matthias:

I am so glad you're OK...What an adventure. Reading your entries has brought me lots of pleasure
and brings back a few memories of my own.

So glad you're having this experience...ENJOY......

Love and hugs

Gramby