Last night I thought I had licked the jet lag phenomena but sometime during the night the ‘jet lag vampires’ came and sucked all my blood. I was so tired all day today it was a miracle I was able to squeeze in a session… yahoo!

To keep you up to date on British potatoes… at lunch today they had these itty-bitty potatoes; like mini-potatoes. They were about the size of a purple grape but tasty as could be.

It didn’t taste like a grape at all but rather a real ‘tater tot’. They were boiled and lightly salted with the skins still on. I had never seen a potato like that before.

There was also some amazing dish made with sweet potatoes and salmon at lunch but I passed on that one.

So breakfast was early today then off to boil in the tub with all the jets going full blast! I have to get a bathtub like this. WOW

All during the day people from around the world were arriving. It is so special to see our group congregating and everyone with a big smile at the prospects of seeing old friends and sharing the amazing up-coming events.

Late in the day I took a walk down to the village. The streets in this part are more like freeways; sort of like US 19 before they blocked off all the intersections. Here the cars are racing by (and of course driving on the wrong side of the street!) and they have a round-about to let the traffic flow in different directions. The big round-about in front of the hotel is huge. It is like the hub of a wheel with different streets all meeting at the round-about with cars turning and flying around the round about like it was an amusement park.

The reason I am giving you so much reality on this is that my map showed the path going right into the round about.

So being a good little trail blazer I crossed the street running to get through the flying cars and onto the round about.

Several cars honked. I think they guessed I was from Florida! Anyway, once I was on the round about I realized the error of my journey. Now I was trapped in the center of the hub with cars flying all around. It was commuter traffic which made it even more a challenge.

All I can say is that I’m glad I am not PTS or I would not be here writing this! I finally saw a millisecond break in the flow and I ran for dear life across the road to get to the village side of the highway. Great. But then it started to sprinkle with rain. And it was approaching dusk. Now I had visions of trying to cross this again to get back to the hotel only this time it would be raining and in the dark! Gads. Is this some kind of survival test??

There was a young man approaching me on the village sidewalk. He was coming from the way I wanted to go so I figured there must be a way to cross these streets without risking my life. I stopped and asked him. He half smiled at me and uttered in some heavy accent that he did not speak English! At that point I wished that I didn’t either. At least I could plead some kind of “no hablo Englis” if I got killed on the return trip to the hotel.

But, fate was on my side and I ran into another pedestrian who told me there was a path that led back to the hotel whereby I could by-pass the round about and just race across 4 lanes of flying cars.

I found the path and the traffic gods were watching over me. No cars coming or going for that millisecond it took me to race across the street to the safety of my hotel.

So much for the traditional British walk in the woods!

After that I called our friend, Leann Smith, and took a taxi to her home. She prepared a super Indian dish of chicken curry and other things that I can’t spell but it tasted wonderful!  Lucas is growing up and going to school now. What a handsome youngster he is too! She is on the metering course and still has the desire to become our permanent child auditor in East Grinstead. She is on e-m drill 22 and is wondering when she will ever finish it! I told her to date it.

(joke)

During the day, as I met new and old friends, several people remembered me from tours from years ago; one lady from Detroit, another from Austin and another from LA. They mentioned how much they like receiving our Tech Tips… thanks to David for making this such a well received dissemination line!

Tonight I’m off to bed with garlic hanging around the windows and doors so the jet-lag vampires don’t find me!

And by the way, why is it called “Jet Lag”?? It has nothing to do with jets or lag. It has to do with those blood sucking vampires that live in every one of those places where we land after a long airplane ride! So bring lots of garlic when you travel!

More travel tips to come!