Wales

Holy cow this is a beautiful country!
We drove from the Snowdonia mountains in the NorthWest to South of the Black Mountains in the SouthEast. Sure, it rained most of the time, but even so, it was beautiful country.

Apparently the Queen, or someone in the royal party was staying close to one of the towns we stopped in - helicopters and fighter jets were looping around the area all day. One gentle man, who noticed me looking at them, said something about this happens when the Queen or Prince of Wales were nearby. I couldn't get what all he said, and was a little embarrassed to tell him I couldn't understand but every 3rd word.

Wow, what an accent when they speak English. I'm sure they think the same of me - when I went in to a store and talked to someone I couldn't even believe how much of a hick I sounded like - my Texas accent was so thick you needed boots.

We stayed in a little hotel in the center of one town - conveniently close to a beautiful church tower - that happened to ring very loudly every two minutes during the 7PM hour. Every 2 minutes. We asked why (and desperately hoped it wouldn't continue into the 8PM hour) and were told that the church choir was singing that night, and every time the choir sang the church bell rang throughout the performance. Why, I asked, was the choir that bad?