Sunday April 1, 2001-Nice weather, slightly cloudy Since we got in so late last night I slept very well, however I did not want to get up when the alarm went off at 10am. We reset the alarm for noon and went back to sleep. At noon, we got up and got dressed. We went out in front of the hotel to wait for mum & dad to pick us up. The four of us went out for Sunday lunch which is apparently a big thing in England since the pub we went to was really crowded. Luckily mum had made a reservation so we were seated right away. The deal is that you choose from a set menu what you want for the three courses (starter, main, & dessert). Wayne and I both had cream of onion soup (our throats were sore from all of the smoke in the two clubs yesterday and the soup helped a bit). We both had roast turkey for the main course and pie for dessert. We were stuffed at the end of it all. After we finished lunch, mum and dad dropped us back off at the hotel. Since we are checking out tomorrow we needed to re-pack everything and sort out what we were going to bring up to Blackpool with us. We didn't want to take our two huge suitcases with us since we were only going up there for two days. Mum & dad said we could leave our big cases at their house and we just took out 2 carry-ons with us. We took a two hour nap and then went to mum & dad's house to have a snack and visit with them for a bit. Then we came back to the hotel and relaxed. A nice, non-strenuous day today.

Monday April 2, 2001-cloudy in Coventry, pouring rain in Blackpool Woke up at 9:30 and dropped our luggage off at mum & dad's then headed up to Blackpool. Its only about another 1 1/2 hours drive north. Unfortunately when we go to Blackpool we found a virtual ghost town. We knew it was their off season but according to their website, the Pleasure Beach (theme park) was open from March 30th. It was wrong, the pleasure beach is open weekends starting March 30th (the website neglected to mention the "weekends" part) and will re-open fully after Easter. We were both very disappointed but have made the best of it. There are a lot of arcades and some shops that are open so we went into the arcades and played the many slot machines that they have. In England you can find at least one slot machine (they call them fruit machines) in nearly every pup no matter how small it is. The maximum you can win is only 15 pounds though. We won 4 pounds on three different machines and won a stuffed dragon from those machines with the little claw that you have to grab the toy with. I've never won anything from those kinds of machines before and we didn't put that much money into it either, only 2 pounds. Then we stopped at a restaurant and we both had bangers & mash for lunch. It was very good but way too much food. After eating we went back to the hotel to rest. The hotel we are staying at is almost empty. We were told there is one other couple staying here. It is your basic bed and breakfast. Nothing fancy, just a place to sleep, and shower. We had to buy shampoo because, unlike a hotel, its not provided for you. We went out to get some dinner around 8pm....big mistake. Pretty much everything here closes at 6pm. We did find a really nice Italian restaurant that was open until 11pm. The food was excellent, huge portions, and a very reasonable price considering they are about the only game in town after 6pm. After dinner, we came back to the hotel and got ready for bed. We are going to the Blackpool Zoo tomorrow. Their brochure says they are open, so keep your fingers crossed!!

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