Trip to Deal!

My trip to deal started out cloudy and early. We got to the bus station around 8:30am, paid for our bus ticket on the bus and left Canterbury by 9:00am. The bus went through a lot of the back roads past houses and fields where the little ba ba bas (sheep) were grazing. Everything was green and a little muddy. I took a little nap and then woke up when we were in Deal. The bus ride was about an hour and a half. By car it only takes 20 minutes. We piled off the bus and made our way to the sea side! Carol has never seen an ocean before and she liked the view very much.
We all went down the reddish rocks to the English Channel. I was the only one who wanted to actually touch the water so then my pants got a tad wet hehe :D The water was cold but didn’t smell like salt water. It was kind of murky, brown water but it was still fun to see. Now I’ve touched the English Channel, although trying to swim it may be impossible for me lol :D
We ventured on down the seaside, saw some boats, fisherman and little shops and homes. One of the boats was called Ronnie Boy! Hey dad, you never told me you had a boat down here lol! To get the picture of the fisherman, I had the girls stand next to the place where they were getting the fish off their nets. Then I took a picture of the “girls” next to the sail boats. The fishermen started laughing at me. Hehe!
Then we came across Deal Castle. It was kind of small and round castle. For some reason I thought that it would be taller. There was a moat, but it was mostly empty and free of crocodiles. We couldn’t go in it, but there was a sign that said gift shop inside. I used the big door knocker on the door, and then realized there was a door bell hehe! Rang that, and a woman came out. We asked if the castle was open for touring, but it doesn’t open until Easter. So I couldn’t even see the gift shop either. Boo! The Deal castle, along with 2 other castles, was used by King Henry VIII to defend England against France & Spain.
We were very hungry by that time and decided to go into their High Street and find some food. A lot of stores were not open still, the time being about 11:00 am!! This is what drives me crazy about England! Everyone opens their stores rather late in the morning and very early in the evening! I don’t understand it! I’ll find out why though!
We ended up heading back away from High Street towards the sea road again. We were told there was a good fish and chips shop. Found out it was being remodeled and ate at a little diner instead. I had my first real bite of fish and chips. I originally had ordered an egg with sausage and chips. But Carol didn’t really like her fish for some weird reason and I ended up splitting her food with Megan. So I put lemon juice, salt, & vinegar on the fish and it tasted very good! I may even like it now :D I also convinced that Megan and Erin should try the vinegar on their chips and they liked it too. Way to go Aunt Meg, for having me try the vinegar chips in Cali. Lol.
Deal seemed to be a smaller version of Canterbury. A lot of shopping stores on High Street and then little shops and food diners around that as well. We tried to something else to do like their Astor Theatre, but it wasn’t playing any shows during the day. So no luck there.
We headed over to the Pier and walked along it to the end where there was a restaurant. We should have gone there to eat instead, but oh well. The sun decided to peek out from the clouds and I got a nice shot of the sun over by the cliffs. There were some men fishing along the pier as well. The pier was not as windy as I thought it would be. Chicago is 5 times more windy than it was in Deal that day!
We were heading back towards High Street to find a store to buy some postcards or souvenirs. Erin bought a couple of post cards but I had already bought Canterbury postcards instead.
It seemed that we were getting pretty tired and were annoyed that we couldn’t do anything really touristy. We got back on the bus, it took us through Dover and we got to spy the Dover Castle. Our school group is going to come back and go visit the Castle and the underground tunnels so maybe I’ll get a souvenir then.
We were completely wiped out and I took a little nap on the bus. We decided that when we go somewhere else, that we could probably schedule getting to another city around noon because then there will be places to eat. I also want to research Whitstable before we go there, just so we know what we can and can’t do and won’t be disappointed.
When we got home, we decided that we wanted some ice cream and each got a cone and then headed to our houses. It was a fun day all in all and it was nice to get out of Canterbury as well.
My legs are quite sore though, from walking on the shore and my feet hurt because the boots gave me blisters! Ouch! But I ended up watching The Italian Job with Katerina last night and made some pasta for dinner. She let me have some of her Greek Salad and it was good. There were no lettuce leaves of any kind, just cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese, green peppers, onions and extra virgin olive oil.
We had some chocolates while watching the movie and then watched one episode of Frasier too hehe. Loaded some of my pictures on my computer and went to bed.
Slept in and woke up to sore legs. Cleaned my room and put more pictures on my computer. Met Erin at an internet Café and went to Tesco’s to buy ingredients for chili. Hopefully I have all the right stuff, a lot of it took a long time to find since I didn’t really know which type of cans to use. We’ll see tomorrow. I’m eating a partridge with pears, artichokes and bacon! Never had it before and it tasted a lot like cooked turkey on a stick, from Disneyworld. Michael is cooking it tonight and now I can say that I actually ate a partridge (maybe) in a pear tree :) Katerina is having me write down all the dinners we eat so I can come back home and make it there! Haha we’ll see about that one. Some of them are not too hard to make though, so I could probably make those things.
Love to all and more later!