Rudders at Home

It was only a matter of time, but it’s finally happened to me. The train I was on had to be evacuated because of a bag with no owner. Nightmare journey yesterday, starting with all the trains being delayed because of a fatality.

Travel in London is always fun. Well, interesting may be a better word. Leaving home at quarter to nine and arriving in Crawley at 12:30, is not good timing. I should have arrived at 10:30-11. Got into Victoria easily enough, but found once I got there that all the trains going to the southwest were delayed, because of a fatality at Clapham Junction.

Finally, I get on a train, and it pulls out of the station and then stops. We are literally not even five minutes down the road, and Victoria station is still in sight. I’ve also noticed that there is suddenly a flush of people walking past me and the words “bag,” “left,” and even worse, the dreaded word “bomb,” are being mentioned. Soon after this, the train begins to move and the driver announces that we will be evacuating the train at Clapham, would we please remain calm. The first two carriages get the luxury of stepping out onto the platform, while the rest of us lucky folks get to jump out the back end and traipse across the tracks. Images of school bus fire drills ARE appropriate here. 

Yes, my dear readers, yours truly had the pleasure of being “evacuated” with a million other folks, all of them grumbling about how late they were going to be (Myself included! How dare this person screw up our day!), wandering down to the platform and then, once all cleared, fighting our way back onto the train we’ve just vacated, praying that we can get a seat. False alarm. Whew. What a day.

However, while not wanting to experience this again, I must say that the situation was handled pretty well. The train employees were well re-hearsed and ready. There wasn’t any confusion, and it wasn’t as scary as you would maybe think it should be.

[EDIT] You can tell Sarah has lived in London for a while. A potential bomb on the train is greeted with something along the lines of “Can we not just carry on, I’m late enough” – Paul

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Two of my favorite things have combined to provide me with one of the best services in the world. When I drink Coke now, I get a free song from iTunes. I enjoy that. It gives me something new to listen to on my way to work and also keeps me from spending additional money on my new addiction. Yes, I’m rather hooked on iTunes at the moment, so this can only be a good thing.

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Gray day today, and a long day, but a really good one. We went into town to check out the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, and then we wandered around for a bit before heading off to Quaglino’s for dinner.
It was a good day, all in all. Started early, with me having to cut Paul’s hair off, but we were out of the house by 12. To Charing Cross for 1, and then had a bite to eat in the courtyard of a church in Covent Garden. Then high-tailed it over to Buckingham Palace for the 1:45 entry in to see the State Rooms there. They currently have a special display on of the Queen’s gowns for her 80th birthday. Absolutely amazing things to see. The State Rooms were pretty impressive – lots of gold, of course, and really antiquey stuff, paintings and the like. We saw some beautiful gowns and very impressive jewels. It was especially cool to see how the style has changed over the years.

We then walked along down towards Green Park, past The Ritz, and on to Fortnum and Mason. Fortnum and Mason was fun. I hadn’t been before, and I have no idea why it took so long. They’ve got a ton of cool stuff, and it seems like it would be really good for gifts. Paul and I started from the top and worked our way down. The ground floor is really just specialty foods. Very tempting to buy a box of chocolate or something yummy to take home with us, but we held off and headed to Quaglino’s for dinner.

Quaglino’s is one of the Conran restaurants – very posh. We got a nice deal off of lastminute.com, three course meal and a glass of wine for £20. I stole the idea off of one of my colleague’s. She had done it with her boyfriend and had good things to say, so I thought Paul and I could try it out. Needless to say, it was a good idea. Thanks for that!

For starter’s Paul had a goat’s cheese tart and I had some really fresh, fab oysters. I had a lobster and crab cake and Paul had the beef. The dessert was the killer, though. I had Pavlova with summer fruits and the man had creme caramel. So, so fantastic. The meringue was so pristine white and the berries so dark purple. To see the contrast was really impressive. It’s so good to live in London and have these places to eat.

So we’re now back home watching tv. NCIS to be exact. It’s our new favorite, and we have Mom to thank for that!

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I just cannot get over how busy we’ve been this month! And it isn’t over yet! We’ve been doing so much this month, it’s really unbelievable. Paul and I are usually pretty quiet people, but we’ve been to the theater, been out to eat, had people over, and last night we went to my colleague’s leaving drinks. Tomorrow, we’re on our way to Buckingham Palace, and out to dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. I know I know, oooooooo, how posh!

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Well, as you may already know, we’re on our way home to the states for a visit next June. But, you may not know yet who’s going to be coming back with us…
Woohoooooo!!!!!! Yep, you got it. Mom and Dad have agreed to our invitation to come visit us. How cool is that?  I can’t begin to tell you how cool it is. We’re buying them this weekend, maybe tomorrow, and they won’t be able to get out of it at all. It so ROCKS. I’m already planning the itinerary. I can’t wait.

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