Today we went - very briefly - through Wales! It was cool. We stopped in at a little tourist stop and bought some stickers - my first ones here! We had lunch at this placed called the National Diving Center which is an old quarry where they do ziplining, diving training and some swimming. I would have done all of the above but they were closed. I had an interesting conversation with a British man named Graham whose wife has MS about the differences between the US healthcare system - having watched my brother go through it - and the British one, and especially how it relates to having chronic illnesses. It's always interesting to get a new perspective and although it didn't change much about my opinions - I still think the British system is superior - it did fill in more of the details about how it works in practice. For example I asked how the quality of care for MS is and he said it varies widely based on your postcode (like our zipcodes). Which I would expect to be true in a capitalist system but less so here, but it's still true. So I asked him if people move to get better quality of care and he gave me a funny look and said Britons are too attached to family and place to do that. Just interesting to get that perspective. I have to imagine if I was sick with a chronic illness I would at least consider moving to get better treatment but perhaps that is a uniquely American attitude. Everyone continue to be very awesome. I alllllmost got hit by a car today - not my fault! Driver just wasn't paying attention. Some of the roads are incredibly terrifying - bumpy downhills through these narrow "death chutes" with hedges on either side. And so narrow! We had a few minor mishaps such as chains falling off but everyone is doing great. This ride is somewhat more relentless than the US rides - we don't have short days - but I'm absolutely enjoying it. And I'm finally used to riding on the left side of the road! More later.
