I am back in Leicester now, using my computer again - wow it feels great to not have to type out a whole days worth of a blog entry on my phone!! Last night after my entry I continued to hang out in the TV lounge and we watched some really crap tv shows - Big Bang theory, futurerama, Shameless and Celebrity Juice (the last 2 are British). they literally got worse throughout the night. I wanted to rip my eyeballs out!! So then I decided I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to talk to the cute guy sitting behind me (dont know why I didn't work up the courage to do it 2 hours prior!!) so I invited him to sit next to me and he did, so we got chatting. He was in town because he was going to a convention about sustainable living at the NEC. I mentioned how I was going to the ICC (another convention center in Brum) to check out an art exhibit. He had locked his keys in his car earlier in the day, so I told him I would give him a ride to the NEC on my bike if he sat on the rack and balanced my bag on his head - and he believed me!! but our night was cut short due to the lounge closing at midnight, so we went to bed (separately =( ). In the morning, i went to the lounge to have breakfast. I saw yappy man (who still never introduced himself to me, but I think i heard him tell someone else in our room that his name was Mike) and we (well mostly him) got into a conversation about different accents. This eventually led him to telling me about the different slang terms that people around the UK use. for instance: people from Derby call each other duck and cock, instead of mate!! Jeez some Brits are strange. Okay that was a bit unfair, so Ill take it back. All Brits are strange. Then at breakfast who arrived but the cutie from last night so we started talking again, I finally found out his name is Ben, and we left at the same time to go to our building (separate to where the main lounge area is) to get our stuff and leave. I didnt wear any shoes because its only a short walk in between the buildings, but he thought that was weird, so he gave me a piggy back ride and i tried to insert the door code with my feet. that didnt work. One of the girls who worked at the backpackers (she is from Westminster, MA - who knew there was such a place!?) told me about this art exhibit that has rock n roll memorabilia so I decided to check it out before I left for my journey to Leicester. I got insanely lost trying to find the freaking place, and my GPS and the street janitor were no help either! Birmingham lives up to its rep as a terrible city to drive in!! so i finally got to the exhibit, it was cool, lots of david Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones pictures, and autographed Pink Floyd and the Who album covers, etc etc. But since I spent so long trying to find the place, and I got distracted by talking to Ben, that I didn't have enough time to see the castle art exhibit in the ICC =( oh well, will see next time! So I went back to the hostel, ate lunch then made my way outta there! got a bit turned around when trying to find the B4128, but got on track quickly. it started to rain at this point, but it wasnt very heavy and only lasted 10 min. so it wasnt bad at all. it was sunny pretty much the rest of the day, and I didnt have any wind. Michael met me half way, in Nuneaton, and he had wind blowing at him the whole time. oh well, sucks to be him! So we then headed for Leicester, I followed him the rest of the way so obviously I didn't get lost =) Its definitely beginning to get darker earlier and its feeling a lot colder in the early evenings. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my ride today. Whenever I ride in the countryside, I always have cyclists on the opp side of the road say hello to me as we cross paths, just like hikers do. I think that is so nice! And when I was leaving Stratford, there were about 8 people who clearly were practicing for some type of competitive biking cause they were all geared out in their sexy lyra and top notch bicycles, and one of the guys in the first row of bikers said to me as they were approaching, "hey, how are you doing!" well you cant really have a convo with someone as you are passing at 10 mph and like 20 ft away, but it was a real kind gesture anyway. People in cars cant do that! anyway enough of the philosophizing. when we got back to Leicester, we went straight to Halfords so I could drop off Lance to get his gears/chain fixed. Turns out he didnt need to stay to see the mechanic, the technician just reset my gears and now he is all spic and span again! So then we just went to Michael's dad's house and they went off to play darts and I stayed here to pack my stuff for my diving weekend in St. Abb's Head! I tell ya, as much fun as it was to be traveling around and meeting people of all sorts in the hostels, I did miss the warm bed, home cooked meals, and just the comfort of (not) my own home! As for my details of todays ride: 41.85 total miles (not including about 4 miles of getting to and back from the art exhibit, and all the getting lost around the city I did!) max speed: 26.5 mph, avg 9.9 mph. I left Brum at 12:45pm and Michael and I arrived at Halfords at 6:15 pm, and it was only about another mile to his house, so lets say we got there just before 6:30. I still dont know all the ins and outs of my bike computer, but its possible its telling me my total riding time for today was 4 hours, 11 min, which makes sense cause Mike and I chilled out by the train station in Nuneaton for like 40 min.
Well, even though its only 11 pm (my bed time just keeps getting earlier by the day!), I must be jetting off to bed, for I have a 7:55 am bus to catch to Leeds! toodles!!
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