Day 14: Last thoughts
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Robert & Laura
Apr 22, 2012, 12:20:22 PM4/22/12
to robert...@googlegroups.com
Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 14: Last thoughts
Sat, Apr 21, 2012
Whew! We'll engage in a bit of foreshadowing here and say: our heroes survive! But exactly how (and in what shape)? Read on and find out…
Friday night we went to dinner at a traditional local pub just up the road called "The White Horse." We know this was a traditional pub, because printed on their napkins was "Traditional Pub Since 1601." In other words, this place was serving up beers about 20 years before the Mayflower took off and started the land of Proper Coffee.
Which means that it's entirely possible that one of Robert's ancestors (who, after all, came over on the Mayflower) stopped by for a beer and a munchie, just like we are! If so, they departed a bit poorer; we order the cheapest things on the menu (we're trying to use up our British/Scottish pounds before they become idle curiosities) and we manage to get away for "only" 20 pounds ($32).
It was good, though.
We note that here, as elsewhere in England, they have a dish labeled "chilli con carne," which apparently is extra hot, because it's got extra 'ell in it, eh? (Nyuk, Nyuk--guess who wrote that joke?)
We make it back to the hotel room in time to watch "Doctor Who" broadcast from the mother ship! Yes, it's a repeat (David Tennant as The Doctor), but it's being broadcast on the BBC (BBC Three, to be precise), so it's like reading "Kidnapped" in Scotland. We watch the episode where River Song makes her first appearance and gets killed (but shows up lots more in later episodes).
There were no commercials during the show, and afterwards they showed a short "Dr. Who Confidential," where they talked about how they filmed the show ("We put actors in front of cameras, yeah?")
8:00 am
We're packed and waiting to catch our free bus to the airport (turns out there's a "ride free" zone here that encompasses our hotel and the airport, so we're saving money!). While we wait, an old guy walking his dog stops and Robert and he have a long conversation about Seattle (Laura's cold is plugging her ears, plus she has trouble understanding some of the thicker accents, where Robert has learned to nod and smile at the right places).
Turns out that he's under the impression that Seattle is a dangerous, treacherous city, because he and his wife stayed there some years ago and apparently managed to book a hotel in Downtown Drug Deal, because that's all they saw.
Robert apologizes on behalf of Seattle, and promises that we'll try harder the next time he visits. He did like the scenery quite a bit, though.
9:30 am
Travel Tip: Heathrow airport covers several Postal Codes (or Zip Codes as the colonies refer to them) and you do not want to walk between Terminal 5 (where the bus drops us) and Terminals 1-2-3. So they let the riffraff ride the express train for free(!).
This train costs about three times what the regular train costs, but has comfy seats, free WiFi, luggage racks, and goes a lot faster. We are on it just about long enough to check our e-mail.
11:30 am
Getting on board your plane is a multi-step process at Heathrow:
1. First, check in with your baggage. This involves standing in queue.
2. Then, an electronic display tells you to "Go to Departure."
3. In the Departure area, another electronic display tells you what time your flight will be assigned a gate.
4. When the time arrives, your flight is assigned a gate.
5. You go to the gate and mill around for an hour or so.
6. You're allowed to board your plane.
1:40 pm
Our 1:00 pm flight finally leaves. On board the plane, the flight attendants say, "As we are running behind today, we'd like to ask you to take your seats as soon as possible."
Our response: And whose fault is that?
6:20 pm (Still British Summer Time)
Robert has been drinking seltzer water to try and stay hydrated. He manages to spazz out for a second and spill cold seltzer all over his pants (this is never fun, but it's extra not-fun when you're sitting in a cramped airplane seat and you can't really move around much).
Robert raises the question: "How do I get the seltzer out? Should I pour red wine on it?"
1:15 am (British Sleepy Time)
All the flight announcements are given in both Icelandic and English (the Icelandic version first). Icelandic doesn't seem to be as compact as English, because the announcements last about twice as long. Either that or there's more to them ("See those idiot English speakers all around you? Soon it will be time for the uprising and they will be your slaves. Smile at them!").
1:40 am (British Snooze Time)
We manage to arrive in Seattle, where it's 5:40 pm, meaning that on the clock, our flight halfway around the world has only taken about three hours (we had an hour and a half on the ground in Iceland). Our bodies know better.
Laura has planned ahead though, and we don't even try to drive home in this Zombie-like condition. Instead, Laura's brother Steve and his wife Karen meet us and drive us safely home. Thanks, guys!
7:00 pm (Seattle Early Time)
Culture shock!
Robert walks to the store across the street, which has: HALF AND HALF! And even weirder: there's no line! (Well, there are actually four lines, but when one of the lines gets two people in it, they open another cash register.)
Also, they sell Pop-Tarts! (Not a part of the Traditional British Breakfast.)
Lessons learned
=============
We decide to reflect on what we've learned and preserve it for posterity--and for any of you that might head out U. K. way in the future.
- Everybody was very hospitable.
We never felt like we were intruding (although this could be because the Brits are so bloody polite and we were totally missing the underlying sarcasm, but we don't think so).
- Everything is expensive.
Even though we were mostly spending money in big cities (Edinburgh and London), even in Kingham, we regularly paid ￡4 per beer ($6.50). You can get by for cheaper, but not by much.
- Cash is king
In the U. S., you can cruise through life with just a couple of dollars in your pocket and charge everything. This is less widespread in the U. K.--there are many small cafes that don't habla Visa or MasterCard. We even found stores that looked at us blankly when we asked about charging. Also, some places only take American Express.
- Bring your own half-and-half
If you like your coffee to not taste as bad, bring your own half-and-half (called "single cream" or "what?" in England). You're never going to find any. If you whine and plead and make confused older people noises, they might bring you some "cream" but it's usually clotted or whipped.
- Plan to make your own coffee
Really. Even if somebody British tells you, "Oh, you'll be staying next door to the best coffee in London!" this is like saying, "It's the warmest spring day in Seattle." It will technically be "warm," but you'll still freeze your butt off. British people don't "get" coffee, so do it yourself. Also, bring your own beans, because they like to age their coffee for a few years by putting it on a shelf ("Genuine Henry VIII coffee!").
- Free WiFi access is spotty
Again, we're spoiled because there's so many free WiFi hotspots in the U. S. now (at least in downtown Bellevue, where we live). They are unusual in the U. K. Also, in the U. S., we tend to build our houses out of cardboard and drywall, so the WiFi signal carries really far. In the U. K., houses are built from foot thick stone, which cuts the WiFi range down to pretty much the inside of whatever cafe you're sitting in.
- Hotels charge for internet access
And usually a lot, like ￡10 ($16) per day. Again, most of your finer motels (such as Best Western) give it away.
- Don't drive
Seriously--we could barely manage to cross the road without getting killed. Everything is backwards, and as long as you're in the city, you don't need to drive, as there's lots of buses and light rail. Or just walk--most cities were started back when running was considered High Speed Transit.
- Avoid the "Traditional Breakfast"
Even though it seems cool and neat to eat traditional food (and we think it is), take a pass on the Traditional British Breakfast. Unless you like beans, cold toast, and fried tomatoes first thing in the morning. Yikes!
- Be ready to stand in queues
British people stand in queues for everything, and sometimes there's a queue to queue for the queue. While this is handy for Words With Friends players, it gets old pretty quickly if you're not used to it. Bring something to read. Something like "War and Peace."
- England is really, really, north.
Seattle is about the northernmost city in the U. S., and it's at 47 degrees latitude. England is at 60 degrees latitude. That means during the spring and summer, it gets light early and stays light late (sun was coming up about 6:00 am and staying out till about 9:00 pm). But it would be pretty damn gloomy to visit here in the winter.
=============
That's it for the Sore Roots Trip Log. We hope you've enjoyed it. Remember: if you change your e-mail address, you'll need to join this group again so that you stay on the list.
And, of course, we have no idea where we'll be going next or when, but you'll be the first to know!
(And if you run into us in the next few days, excuse our muddled confusion. We're not used to everything being open so early and staying open so late.)
Robert & Laura
Sore Roots Tour
Sat, Apr 21, 2012
Whew! We'll engage in a bit of foreshadowing here and say: our heroes survive! But exactly how (and in what shape)? Read on and find out…
Friday night we went to dinner at a traditional local pub just up the road called "The White Horse." We know this was a traditional pub, because printed on their napkins was "Traditional Pub Since 1601." In other words, this place was serving up beers about 20 years before the Mayflower took off and started the land of Proper Coffee.
Which means that it's entirely possible that one of Robert's ancestors (who, after all, came over on the Mayflower) stopped by for a beer and a munchie, just like we are! If so, they departed a bit poorer; we order the cheapest things on the menu (we're trying to use up our British/Scottish pounds before they become idle curiosities) and we manage to get away for "only" 20 pounds ($32).
It was good, though.
We note that here, as elsewhere in England, they have a dish labeled "chilli con carne," which apparently is extra hot, because it's got extra 'ell in it, eh? (Nyuk, Nyuk--guess who wrote that joke?)
We make it back to the hotel room in time to watch "Doctor Who" broadcast from the mother ship! Yes, it's a repeat (David Tennant as The Doctor), but it's being broadcast on the BBC (BBC Three, to be precise), so it's like reading "Kidnapped" in Scotland. We watch the episode where River Song makes her first appearance and gets killed (but shows up lots more in later episodes).
There were no commercials during the show, and afterwards they showed a short "Dr. Who Confidential," where they talked about how they filmed the show ("We put actors in front of cameras, yeah?")
8:00 am
We're packed and waiting to catch our free bus to the airport (turns out there's a "ride free" zone here that encompasses our hotel and the airport, so we're saving money!). While we wait, an old guy walking his dog stops and Robert and he have a long conversation about Seattle (Laura's cold is plugging her ears, plus she has trouble understanding some of the thicker accents, where Robert has learned to nod and smile at the right places).
Turns out that he's under the impression that Seattle is a dangerous, treacherous city, because he and his wife stayed there some years ago and apparently managed to book a hotel in Downtown Drug Deal, because that's all they saw.
Robert apologizes on behalf of Seattle, and promises that we'll try harder the next time he visits. He did like the scenery quite a bit, though.
9:30 am
Travel Tip: Heathrow airport covers several Postal Codes (or Zip Codes as the colonies refer to them) and you do not want to walk between Terminal 5 (where the bus drops us) and Terminals 1-2-3. So they let the riffraff ride the express train for free(!).
This train costs about three times what the regular train costs, but has comfy seats, free WiFi, luggage racks, and goes a lot faster. We are on it just about long enough to check our e-mail.
11:30 am
Getting on board your plane is a multi-step process at Heathrow:
1. First, check in with your baggage. This involves standing in queue.
2. Then, an electronic display tells you to "Go to Departure."
3. In the Departure area, another electronic display tells you what time your flight will be assigned a gate.
4. When the time arrives, your flight is assigned a gate.
5. You go to the gate and mill around for an hour or so.
6. You're allowed to board your plane.
1:40 pm
Our 1:00 pm flight finally leaves. On board the plane, the flight attendants say, "As we are running behind today, we'd like to ask you to take your seats as soon as possible."
Our response: And whose fault is that?
6:20 pm (Still British Summer Time)
Robert has been drinking seltzer water to try and stay hydrated. He manages to spazz out for a second and spill cold seltzer all over his pants (this is never fun, but it's extra not-fun when you're sitting in a cramped airplane seat and you can't really move around much).
Robert raises the question: "How do I get the seltzer out? Should I pour red wine on it?"
1:15 am (British Sleepy Time)
All the flight announcements are given in both Icelandic and English (the Icelandic version first). Icelandic doesn't seem to be as compact as English, because the announcements last about twice as long. Either that or there's more to them ("See those idiot English speakers all around you? Soon it will be time for the uprising and they will be your slaves. Smile at them!").
1:40 am (British Snooze Time)
We manage to arrive in Seattle, where it's 5:40 pm, meaning that on the clock, our flight halfway around the world has only taken about three hours (we had an hour and a half on the ground in Iceland). Our bodies know better.
Laura has planned ahead though, and we don't even try to drive home in this Zombie-like condition. Instead, Laura's brother Steve and his wife Karen meet us and drive us safely home. Thanks, guys!
7:00 pm (Seattle Early Time)
Culture shock!
Robert walks to the store across the street, which has: HALF AND HALF! And even weirder: there's no line! (Well, there are actually four lines, but when one of the lines gets two people in it, they open another cash register.)
Also, they sell Pop-Tarts! (Not a part of the Traditional British Breakfast.)
Lessons learned
=============
We decide to reflect on what we've learned and preserve it for posterity--and for any of you that might head out U. K. way in the future.
- Everybody was very hospitable.
We never felt like we were intruding (although this could be because the Brits are so bloody polite and we were totally missing the underlying sarcasm, but we don't think so).
- Everything is expensive.
Even though we were mostly spending money in big cities (Edinburgh and London), even in Kingham, we regularly paid ￡4 per beer ($6.50). You can get by for cheaper, but not by much.
- Cash is king
In the U. S., you can cruise through life with just a couple of dollars in your pocket and charge everything. This is less widespread in the U. K.--there are many small cafes that don't habla Visa or MasterCard. We even found stores that looked at us blankly when we asked about charging. Also, some places only take American Express.
- Bring your own half-and-half
If you like your coffee to not taste as bad, bring your own half-and-half (called "single cream" or "what?" in England). You're never going to find any. If you whine and plead and make confused older people noises, they might bring you some "cream" but it's usually clotted or whipped.
- Plan to make your own coffee
Really. Even if somebody British tells you, "Oh, you'll be staying next door to the best coffee in London!" this is like saying, "It's the warmest spring day in Seattle." It will technically be "warm," but you'll still freeze your butt off. British people don't "get" coffee, so do it yourself. Also, bring your own beans, because they like to age their coffee for a few years by putting it on a shelf ("Genuine Henry VIII coffee!").
- Free WiFi access is spotty
Again, we're spoiled because there's so many free WiFi hotspots in the U. S. now (at least in downtown Bellevue, where we live). They are unusual in the U. K. Also, in the U. S., we tend to build our houses out of cardboard and drywall, so the WiFi signal carries really far. In the U. K., houses are built from foot thick stone, which cuts the WiFi range down to pretty much the inside of whatever cafe you're sitting in.
- Hotels charge for internet access
And usually a lot, like ￡10 ($16) per day. Again, most of your finer motels (such as Best Western) give it away.
- Don't drive
Seriously--we could barely manage to cross the road without getting killed. Everything is backwards, and as long as you're in the city, you don't need to drive, as there's lots of buses and light rail. Or just walk--most cities were started back when running was considered High Speed Transit.
- Avoid the "Traditional Breakfast"
Even though it seems cool and neat to eat traditional food (and we think it is), take a pass on the Traditional British Breakfast. Unless you like beans, cold toast, and fried tomatoes first thing in the morning. Yikes!
- Be ready to stand in queues
British people stand in queues for everything, and sometimes there's a queue to queue for the queue. While this is handy for Words With Friends players, it gets old pretty quickly if you're not used to it. Bring something to read. Something like "War and Peace."
- England is really, really, north.
Seattle is about the northernmost city in the U. S., and it's at 47 degrees latitude. England is at 60 degrees latitude. That means during the spring and summer, it gets light early and stays light late (sun was coming up about 6:00 am and staying out till about 9:00 pm). But it would be pretty damn gloomy to visit here in the winter.
=============
That's it for the Sore Roots Trip Log. We hope you've enjoyed it. Remember: if you change your e-mail address, you'll need to join this group again so that you stay on the list.
And, of course, we have no idea where we'll be going next or when, but you'll be the first to know!
(And if you run into us in the next few days, excuse our muddled confusion. We're not used to everything being open so early and staying open so late.)
Robert & Laura
Sore Roots Tour
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