note to self: make sure the items you return are cleaned before you try and return them!

i havent written since i returned to leicester from my diving trip in st abbs - so this will be a recap of everything ive done for the past week. so upon my return, michael and i did some halloween costume (mine was storm from the xmen animated series and his was wolverine from the new movies) and christmas shopping for 3 days. on thurs (oct 27) we went out for a nice meal at an italian restaurant in oadby. the waiter was real nice but when he served us our food on a platter with a lid, he dropped the lid in michaels lap and got sauce on his shirt. but he was a good sport about it, and the food was real yummy! we went to alton towers on friday (oct 28) but got there at 4 pm due to traffic. it was open till 9 for the halloween season, but the lines were still horrendous so we didnt get to go on many rides unfortunately. then on saturday i went to london to meet up with Zach. sat night we went to see shrek the musical which was awesome and then ate out at an italian restaurant. on sunday we went to the london eye, the sealife aquarium, and then later on in early evening we went to the london dungeon and straight from there we went on a ghost tour which was real cool. after that we went for dinner at bella italia (yes, more italian food!). on monday (Halloween!) i went to the US embassy to reclaim my old passport that was mailed to there, so i go to the counter and the guy tells me they have to cancel it because it was recorded as lost or stolen. I was very annoyed, what kind of crap rules are those!! GRRRR! so i will still have to do my passport renewal on the temporary one i got. so i left and then caught the bus to leicester after wandering around london city parks for a bit. they really have some nice memorials! so that night we went on a ghost tour (again, i know) and then went looking for some halloween fun. well we never found it but did bump into a massive crowd of students doing a halloween pub crawl around the city centre. i tell ya, the costumes these brits think up are so unimaginative! we saw about 2423525 zombies out of that group. although we did see a guy dressed as edward scissorhands and he did that VERY well! so we were in chilli white for a bit, and once my ears drums were ready to explode, we went home. so yesterday, the first of Nov, we went to bradgate park, did a total of 21.25 miles round trip. it was a very warm day and not windy, so perfect for a bike ride and stroll around the countryside. they have a deer park there so we saw fallow and red deer. we then hiked up the hill to the old john's windmill and the WW1 memorial. it was a very pleasant day out =) then at night we watched 127 hours. the scene at the end where he cuts his arm off really grossed me out and i dont really know why because i am so used to all that blood and gore from my obsession with friday the 13th and nightmare on elm st, etc etc, but this really got to me and i ended up fainting and blacked out. so i have no recollection of this but apparently i was unresponsive for a little while and my body tensed up and when michael tried to wake me i was making all these groaning sounds and was flailing my arms and i spit on him. then i finally woke up, but fainted again a minute later. then when i woke up from that i started puking up last nights chilli on the bed. then i had diarrhea. then i had awful lower abdominal cramps and my legs were shaking uncontrollably. it all went away in due time and i fell asleep eventually. but wow, nothing like that has ever happened to me. if that is any indication as to what its like to be shit faced drunk then count me out!! and that brings me to today - we went to the center to return the items we bought for halloween. i couldnt return my sneakers because they had scuff marks on them.  then we went to the matinee of one flew over the cuckoos nest at the curve theatre which was very cool. then we went to dinner at pezzo (i am officially sick of italian restaurants now) and were the only ones in the restaurant for almost the whole time we were there!! and now here i am writing this. tomorrow starts round 2 of my UK biking tour: i am heading for manchester and in the meantime will be riding around the east midlands with my first destination being derby, the place ive heard so many wonderful things about. cant wait to see what magical mysteries await me!