Day 13 Downe

Day 13

Oct 27/09

Today was another slow day. We visited Downe, a small town outside of London. Here, Charles Darwin and his family lived for 40 years. Because we started our day so early, we were too early to visit Charles Darwin's house so we sat on a bench and read and watch TV until 11a. The tour of Darwin's house and garden was really neat. It was an audio tour again and described how he used his children to help him with experiments and pretty much his whole house was a huge experiment. It talked about his wife (and how they were first cousins). It was really neat (not the first cousin thing). Apparently Darwin studied plants a lot and in the green house he had venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants. I thought it was an extremely interesting thing to take a look at Darwin lived and how he came to the conclusion that evolution existed. Once we finished with the tour we decided to drive to Gatwick to check in to our hotel and do a last minute clean up of our van. We wanted to make sure we were ready for our flight the next day. We did some internet stuff and went for supper and watched some TV (like British Who wants to be a Millionaire) in the lounge. It was a very nice and relaxing day until I had to call my Polish family. This was essentially the first contact that I would have with my family. I was to make a phone call to them letting them know that everything was going according to schedule and we would be there the next day. Man I was so nervous it was ridiculous. Thankfully the conversation was very quick and painless. Now for the meeting…