Friday, November 16, 2007

Trains, Planes and Automobiles-in the UK for the Holiday

I had a horrible seat for my SEVEN + hour flight to London. Row 40 seat J. I would think I would know better with all the flying I have done this year. But No!

I managed to have a fairly pleasant guy from Denver sit next to me. Around 12:22 EST over St. John's, New Foundland, we hit horrible turbulence and I started doing that breathing thing that pregnant women do when they deliver. I held on tight to the arm rests and thought, all this energy is stupid but I could not stop. The plane dropped, I heard the engines cut back, cut in, the plane shook like a wet dog, then I heard a mother tell her child to get on the floor if it made her feel better. So that lasted chaos lasted for about 2 minutes. Okay maybe it was for one minute but we were barely two hours into the flight and we had the lilly pond to deal with for the rest of the flight.

I managed to sleep sporadically as the turbulence woke me every time but nothing as bad as the St. John's turbulence. The crew were pretty good about waking us every hour or so for food and drinks. I thought they said they would only wake us if they could not see that our "seat belt was securely fastened." Grrr.

When I arrived in London around 10 a.m., I had to manage to take the Tube and a train to Cambridge. I am visiting my best buddies, the Bemis's, and they had activities in the a.m. and to drive into London to pick me up would have been a whole day's affair. I am always up for an adventure so I had no worries about the trains. I did, however, worry about using the pay phone to call Cory as I did not know if I need coins. I decided not to get any pounds as I hope to be charging everything during my stay.

All in all, my adventures with the trains and phones worked out as I am not shy to ask anyone questions. Even after I had gone to the information desks with my questions, I would still ask another travel what to do, where to go, as I did not trust my listening skills. "Did he stay turn right?"

Cory picked me up after my 2 p.m. arrival in Cambridge in her riding kit. "Activities", right? I was okay with that of course. I sat in the front left passenger seat trying to dodge traffic. Jet lag had set in hours ago as I fell asleep for a bit on both train rides. I cannot wait to ride on the left side of the road to see how many people I take out if we happen to ride with any of Cory's club rides.