Beautiful beautiful Isle of Wight!!

We had such an awesome weekend! The weather was phenomenal, and the scenery was fantastic. None of our pictures do it justice. We left bright and early Saturday morning (well, not bright, the sun wasn't up yet) and made our way by train to London to our pick up point for the coach to the Isle of Wight. We actually almost had interviews for a school there, but it turned out they didn't want us, it was for a highschool job. Once we were on the island though, we knew we couldn't live there. It's much too touristy.

The ferry ride was nice. It was freakin' cold (15 degrees), but the sun was shining. There were a million and one sailboats on the water, and the biggest container ship you have ever seen. The pic is the back end of the boat. Each little tiny square is a container like you would see on a train. Use your imagination!!

Once we arrived in Ryde (where we stopped for lunch) we basked in the sunshine. It was really warm - please ignore the mittens and winter coat - and we even found some palm trees. We're not missing that winter weather one bit!! We ate our lunch at a fish and chips place. The fish and chips are really good here. The cod is fresh, and the chips are thick and hot. We have learned two things about english fish and chips - number one, add lots of salt, and number two, chips should be eaten with mayonnaise. I never thought I would say either one of those things, but chips and mayonnaise are my new fav. I will put up a pic of the place we ate at. The picture really does say it all.

We saw some more of the landscape, went on a panoramic sightseeing tour of the island, and finally made it to our hotel. The hotel wasn't fantastic, but the view was amazing. I'm only putting up one pic, there are plenty more where that came from!! Our hotel was about 200 m from the beach, and these pics were taken at about 5pm. Oh, one other problem with a tourist town, nothing is open!! Most places were closed for the season, and the restaurants had very limited hours. We found one place and struck up a conversation about being Canadian, and how he'd like to visit some day. Nice people!!

Apparently I'm pushing my luck with the photos. I'll try again later.

One of the scariest parts of the weekend was the driving. Not that our driver was bad, in fact just the opposite - he was amazing!! The roads were so narrow, and the hills were so steep, I thought for sure that at some points we were going to go tumbling down the road and off the cliff and straight into the English channel!! At one point, we were driving on a back road because the main road had actually fallen into the channel, and the driver came on and said, "hold on folks, they like to call this zig-zag road" at which point we zigged one way, immediately followed by a 90 degree zag the opposite way, and nearly slammed head first into an oncoming car!! He also warned us that we should begin to pray that we do not come into contact with a city bus coming in the opposite direction, because there just isn't enough room on the road for two buses!! Luckily we didn't come into contact with one. There were some places on the road that seemed barely wide enough for two small cars, but our driver expertly navigated us through it.

Our final destination was the 'needles' which is a famous Isle of Wight landscape. It didn't seem to impressive, until we climbed 45 minutes to the top of the mountain and looked down. Quite a sight. And also quite a historical landmark. Most of the monument is protected, and there were signs everywhere explaining what was what and when stuff happened. I won't bore you with the details!! It was a long hike up, but it was worth it! The view made me feel like I was at the top of the world! And it was cool to look out and be able to see mainland England. It made me feel so small!!

All in all we had a fantastic weekend. It was nice to get away and relax a little bit. Now it's back to the grind and school work and stress. I think I would like to quit my day job and become a permanent tourist.