From the Department of Not Getting The Concept, here's a really strange story out of the UK. Two thirty-somethings were midway through their stay at the Golden Beach hotel in Blackpool when the manager stormed into their room and demanded that they leave. Police were called and told to evict the couple, though everyone acknowledges that no crime was committed. Instead, the hotel manager was ballistic because he believed that the guests had left a negative TripAdvisor review of the hotel.
How could this story get any worse for the establishment? The guest was apparently a cancer patient getting out of the city for the first time since completing an 18-month course of chemotherapy. So perfect is this clusterfark that we're still not convinced that it isn't some kind of prank or social media publicity stunt. ]]>
Mere days ago our knowledge of aardvarks was limited to "they're the first entry in the encyclopaedia" and "they live in Africa." After coming across this photo collage of the Colchester Zoo's new baby aardvark, though, we've now added "wow that's an ugly animal" and "aww it's so pathetic and awkward and cute" to our catalog of highly precise scientific knowledge. Because that's really what we are. Scientists.
Born at the end of last month, the two-week old is still off display for his own safety. Soon he'll be let out to rejoin the rest of the aardvark herd, and until then visitors to the park can view him on CCTV. The rest of the zoo, located up in Essex, England, certainly offers more than enough sights and sounds to keep children and adults occupied. There are even plenty other baby things, including a baby white rhino, a baby pygmy hippo, a baby gelada, and so on. Details for planning a trip after the jump.]]>
Older travelers in England have been pleased to learn that from April 1, they'll be able to travel on local bus services for free. The free travel applies during off peak hours, all weekend and for two full weeks over Christmas, and a survey's already suggested bus use among pensioners will increase by at least a quarter as a result.
Hilary Bradt, the founder of Bradt Travel Guides, the publishers of books usually related to exotic destinations like Madagascar or Kyrgyzstan, is one of the Brits who's very pleased about the new scheme. To celebrate, she's planning an April trip from Land's End to Lowestoft--which means from England's most westerly point to the most easterly--using only the free bus services.
She thinks traveling across England for free like this will take about a week, covering about 370 miles. Sure, it's slow, but it's also free. And in Britain you can pay a lot of money for a slow, late transport service.
Related Stories:
· Pensioners Given Free Bus Travel [BBC]
· England Travel [Jaunted]
[Photo: lemoncat1]
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We all love a good round-the-world journey but you'll be surprised to hear about just who's been making a 17,000-mile, 15-year trek from China, soon to arrive on the south-west beaches of England.
The big travelers are a bunch of rubber ducks. They fell off the back of a boat (literally) in 1992 and an obsessive oceanographer named Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been tracking them ever since. A few landed on Alaskan shores and now a big team of them are expected to wash up near Cornwall over the summer. Keep an eye out because the manufacturers are offering a £50 reward if you find one; although rumour has it collectors will pay 10 times that amount on E-bay.
Related Stories:
· Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Land on British Shores [Daily Mail]
[Photo: The Mainzelmann]]]>
The song might go "London Bridge is falling down," but the bridge to be seen at in London is actually the Tower Bridge--built, in fact, because the London Bridge just couldn't handle enough traffic back in the 1890s. The Tower Bridge looks kinda like it's out of a a fairytale and it houses the Tower Bridge Exhibition inside.
For 6 pounds they let you get up high to their glass-covered walkways with pretty cool views over the Thames River and the rest of London, and you can also see the old steam engines that used to power the lifts that get you up there (they've gone for that modern alternative, electricity, now). What's more, there are even special rooms where you can get married if you're so inclined. We're not sure if they have an Elvis chapel, though.
[Photo: Ben Harris-Roxas]
Related Stories:
· Secret Birthday Party for Bridge [Jaunted]
· Bridge Over Troubled Water [Jaunted]
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When is a bath more than a bath? That's easy. When it's:
the best preserved Roman religious spa from the ancient world.
That's the marketing tag on the Roman Baths in the English town of Bath, and that really does make it sound enticing. Here you can wander through the Roman temple, Sacred Spring and Roman bath house areas and see exhibits of artifacts from the original days of the bath. What's even better is you can listen to an audioguide recorded by the great travel writer Bill Bryson, which surely takes a witty stance on all things naked and bath-related.
If you want a dip yourself, you'll have to go to the nearby Thermae Bath Spa, where the water isn't quite such a murky green color.
[Photo: scot2342]
Related Stories:
· English Soaked About Bath's Baths [Jaunted]
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One British rail company is interested to know how much you weigh. As a response to overcrowding on their commuter trains, the Southeastern train company have installed devices that weigh the train and calculate how many passengers are on it, so that they can decide if they need to add additional services. The critically overcrowded services (our tip: avoid these whenever possible) are the 6:32 a.m. Folkestone Central to Cannon Street in London and the 8:03 a.m. from Orpington to Charing Cross in London.
For Southeastern's purpose, one passenger weighs 161 pounds. So we reckon that if you weigh less than that, you should hit them up for a discounted ticket. But if you weigh more ... well, just try to look thin. And don't ride the 8:03 a.m. to Charing Cross.
[Photo: EVERYDAYLIFEMODERN]
Related Stories:
· Commuters To Get Rail Weigh Stations [Metro UK] ]]>