The Adventures of Sarah and Paul
And they’re booked. After much trial and error with the internet, Mom and Dad’s tickets to the UK are now officially booked. And so are ours. Poor Paul had to actually call and do it in the end, but it’s worth it. We can now book the holiday time and start to get things in order – shall I start cleaning now?
All that’s left to do is work out the itinerary. What shall we have them do first?
Aug 31st 2006adminLife & Transport
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
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.
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!
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.
