The Village of Ilminster

It's been raining all day. Matter of fact, I don't think a day has gone by without rain here. 7 day forecast shows more rain. However, the rain stopped just long enough for me to grab my camera and head into town. I moved hotels after getting back from Paris. I'm now in the Village of Ilminster, Somerset, England.

A few pictures of my outing today.

Looking out the window of my hotel room.



Some of the older houses here have a thatched roof. Thatching is the craft of covering a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge, rushes and heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. After a while (with all this rain) moss grows on top of the roof.



Here's what it looks like up close. This looks like a newer roof compare to what I've seen around.



The old church in town.




We don't make churches like we used to. Last week I walked into this church. The stained glass was amazing.




Another hillside view. It's so beautiful and green here. I'm afraid to go back and see my dead yellow lawn.

One way street - right?

Wrong! And to top it off I have to drive on the wrong side of the road. As I come to intersections I find myself verbally saying: " Left, Left, Left" so I don't forget which side of the road to be on.


On a positive note, driving 40mph on the wrong side of the road with roads this narrow are an adrenaline rush. Feels like you're going 90mph.

New words

It's fun to hear new words or words used that I hadn't heard.

Here are a few I've heard so far.

billet - ticket (train ticket) - "Billets. please"
boot -trunk of car
rubbish - garbage and/or slang for "crap"
quid - Slang for A pound sterling (£)

Long Travels

I left Paris this morning around 7:30am. Jumped the subway ($12.00 one way trip) towards the airport. Because it took me about 2.5 hours to get from the airport to my hotel, I didn't want to chance it and miss my flight (even though it left at noon.) This time it took me just over an hour to travel, which put me at the airport around 9am for my 12:05 flight.

Of course my flight was delayed and left about 45 minute late. This made me miss my train ride back in to London and pushed my 10 hour commute (from Paris to Ilminster, England) to a 12 hour commute, as I had to wait for the next train.

It was a long day, but I'm glad I was able to go to Paris this weekend.

After the tour..blah, blah

After the tour, I walked from the Champs Elysees to the Eiffel Tower. I really didn't want to ride up the Eiffel Tower. ($12 to $19 us dollars) Besides, it's pretty but, not as impressive as the Twin towers in NYC, when they were there. Having been on top of the twin towers, I've seen a similar view.



Here's a picture of my hotel.



Not to far from where I was standing to watch the tour was this Ferris Wheel. It was pretty at night.

The city of Love - Really

I know Paris is called the "city of Love" but does that include a booth at McDonalds? Having paid for a "closet", I mean hotel room for $125 bucks a night, I now understand why there are so many people out in the open and not in their room. Heck it's almost too expensive to even get a booth at McDonalds. 6 euros for a Big Mac Meal - or about $9 US dollars.

Paying to Pee

Whomever came up with this "brilliant idea" either had more money than needed or a large bladder. I first saw these "pay to pee" toliets in Paris, just a the Tour de France ended. I needed to go to the bathroom, but not enough to pay for it. I also saw them in London train station.

The fee was small, 20 pence, or about 35 cents, but who wants to pay to pee. Where are my basic human rights, like the right to worship as I please or the right to bear arms that are protected by the U.S. Constitution, opps.. wrong country. I think I would have sailed the ocean blue too, if I was charged to pee.

Tour de France 2009

Team Astana lead the Peloton into Paris. I only had about a 15 second notice that the racers were coming by the first time. The race is lead by a red car that holds the race official. It came zooming by and seconds later, Team Astana came flying by, shortly followed by another 130 racers. It was an amazing feeling to see them come by so fast. This picture is all I caught the first time, due to their speed. Lance Armstrong is last full bike on the right. You can tell his bike is slightly different than his team. Luckily the racers came by multiple times otherwise, my whole view of the tour would have lasted only about 20 seconds.



Number 22 - Lance Armstrong



Team Columbia Highroad came to the front to lead Mark Cavendish to the stage win.



David Millar - Team Garmin Slipstream






After the race, each of the teams ride up the Champs de Elysees for all the fans to see. Here is Lance Armstrong after the race.


Another picture of Lance



Podium Finish for Lance. He came in 3rd.


The Podium (Contador, Sleck and Armstrong) This was as close as I could get to the Podium. If you look closely (to the right) you can see the Arc de Triomphe behind them on the video screen, as well as in the background.

Morning de Tour

After spending abut $30.00 for breakfast, I headed to find my spot on the Tour's route. I found a place but decided to switch to the other side of the road so I could better photos. I'm sure glad I did as I had alot more shade than the ones across from me as we stood for hours waiting. I got to my spot about about 11am, the tour was due in Paris just after 4pm. There was speaker right behind me broadcasting a radio commentary about the Tour. A small section of it was in English (about 10 minutes) then the rest of the 3+ hours was in French. So there I stood listening to french gibberish. I might as well had some 2 year old babbling.. Matter of fact, that might have been better.

About 1.5 hours before the racers come into Paris a large concessional of Sponsers and Team support vechiles come through the route. At this point, I had been standing on the side of the road for about 3.5 hours.

It was a fun break to see the cars and floats come by and got the crowd ready for the racers to come by. I found a guy with a similar camera that I felt safe enough to have him take a picture of me with my camera. Behind me, you cans see the statue of Joan of Arc.


Team Astana's bus

I'm not sure what the lion has to do with the Tour, but they stage winners, usually get a stuffed lion.


Interesting Sponsor - not sure what this is product actually is.


Of course the, the tour wouldn't be complete without the Massive Maillot jaune on top of this VM bug.

Travel to Paris

A co-worker drove me to the train station this morning. I left at 11am from Crewkerne Train station headed for London. The train ride in was beautiful. I'm amazed at the small villages followed by miles and miles of green pasture. Southwest England is beautiful. My connection went through the London Waterloo station, then on to St Pancres International and on to Luton Airport. Then on a flight from London (Luton) to Paris.

I landed in Paris about 10pm, waited in line to show my passport and finally on to the train into Paris by 11pm. 8.50 euros one way into Paris, my first of many pricey things in Paris. I got into Paris and off the Subway around 12:15am. I was amazed how many people were outside at this time of night/morning. A few wrong turns too many and I finally arrived tired and ready for bed around 1am.

I checked into my hotel and went to my room and was shocked at the size of the room. It was tiny. I've seen closets larger than this room, however it was just a place to sleep, which I did as soon as I could.