16 in UK

My sister and her family have been living on a military base near London, England, so several members of my family decided to meet up there. There were 16 of us once we all got together, a nice mixture of adults and kids. We went to Stonehenge to see some old rocks, still standing after all these years, and had a picnic in the grass outside the monument. Everyone fit into 3 cars as we then headed to our hotel in Swindon, England. I drove one of the cars, and became familiar with traffic on the left side of the road. And it was even more strange that the signal was on the right side of the steering wheel, such that up was a left turn and down was a right turn. It was a complicated puzzle to signal the correct direction and to avoid hitting the wipers instead.

I quickly found that getting anywhere with 16 people can be a challenge to decide where to go. Everyone had different ideas, and if we were going to eat together, then it would need to be a place large enough to fit all of us. It was recommended that we eat at an Italian restaurant called Davinci's. The restaurant was packed, and there would have been a long wait for several tables together, so we all walked to a different restaurant. This one was empty, yet they weren't willing to serve us, which may have been why they were empty. We settled on waiting for a few tables at Davinci's. It turned out to be amazing food. I tried some of everything that was ordered at my table, typical Campbell-style eating. The spaghetti Bolognese and pizza were especially tasty.

We visited Bath, which is a gorgeous English town with classic architecture. As we toured the city, we came across an old cathedral near a plaza, where a couple of guys were playing Hang drums (a rare instrument from Switzerland). It makes a strange and beautiful sound by tapping what looks like 2 woks fastened together like a UFO. I could see that they were making good money on donations and CD sales. We found some ice cream, and shared take-away indian food in a nearby courtyard until it started to rain. I found a fascinating modern art exhibit before we left town. My favorite piece was a collection of old keys hanging on strings from the ceiling.

We then saw a cathedral in Glaucester, England, where scenes from Harry Potter were filmed inside. It was an old eerie place with dark, empty hallways around a courtyard. Ornate stained glass colored the rooms before the sun started to set. Not a place that I would want to go to church, but it was ideal for taking pictures.

One car load of people needed to get back to work and school at the military base, but the rest of us spent another night in a hotel. The next day we visited the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, Windsor castle. It was the size of a village. As we headed back to my sister's house, we arrived at the entry gates of the military base about midnight. At that point the military guards found that the car I was driving had expired tags. It couldn't be driven back onto the base at that time, so we packed my sister's van even more full of stuff and people. A few of us walked behind the van as we entered the base, and eventually, everyone ended up where they wanted to be.