Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 12: The Longest Mile
Robert & Laura
Sore Roots Trip Log--Day 12: The Longest Mile
Thu, Apr 19, 2012
Last night, we headed out to Sandy Bell's, which is a pub that our guidebook and several other people we have talked to say is THE place to go to listen to good folk music. We figure that if everyplace to eat closes up by 10:00 pm, then maybe we should be early to the folk music place, in case they wrap up by ten o'clock, also.
We end up in the bar at 8:00 pm, and after asking the bar tender (pub tender?) we find out that the music doesn't get going until 9:30.
Here's another difference between U. S. and them (Scotland): you cannot get something to eat in a place that serves up beers and drinks (pub or poob as they're called here). In most bars and taverns in the U. S., you can get something to eat. It might not be very good (sandwiches and pickled eggs), but it's something to eat. Sometimes, it's quite good (like the nachos and onion rings we had at a tavern in Lake City after a gig a couple of weeks ago).
Here, the only thing you can get in a pub is a packet of peanuts and some crisps (what we call "potato chips," but the United Kingdomites can't call them that because they used up "chips" to describe "french fries").
We figure there's an hour and a half before the music starts, we're in Edinburgh, so we'd best eat early (before 10:00 pm), and there's a sports bar across the way that does serve food. Of course, our first question on entering the door is to inquire if their kitchen is still open (they have to check to make sure it's open as late as 8:30 pm), but it is!
Robert gets Chicken Tikka Masala (quite good), while Laura gets a Rump Burger (same as a hamburger only made from a cow's butt; but it doesn't have any pickles, because this isn't Wendy's). We sit and watch the soccer ("rugby") game for a while and Chelsea totally stomps Barcelona in a 1-0 shoot-out (the bar crowd is pretty pleased about that).
We head back across the street to the pub. At this point in our story, it helps to understand the size of this pub: it's maybe 400 square feet (18 Celsius), and about half of that is taken up by the bar and booze.
So, it can comfortably seat about 20 people. There are now about 50 people packed in there and five of them are, indeed, musicians. The other 45, however, are talking AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS so they can hear themselves over all the racket the musicians are making. If we concentrate, we can almost hear the musicians, and we can't get closer, because they're surrounded by a wall of people trying to hear them (while they holler BOY, AREN'T THESE GUYS GREET?).
Plus (there's always a plus), the musicians are sitting smack in the middle of the pathway to the toilets, so if we want to go to the bathroom at some point in the rest of the evening (which is likely, since we had a couple hard ciders over at the sports bar), we're going to have to clamber over the fiddle player and shove the guitar player out of the way.
We decide that this is not really what we had envisioned and we head home. We're extra glad, though, that we got to hear Graeme on Sunday night, and we now understand why he had his own amplifiers and why they were turned up to 11.
9:00 am
We're packed and ready to grab some breakfast before we head back to Jolly Old England. It's raining pretty steadily and we head to Starbucks, because we still have our gift card, and we'll be able to score some sandwiches for the train trip. The place is packed, but we enjoy our lattes (even Starbucks doesn't have cream!) and yoghurt mixed with a package of dried fruit ("Ymmhrd," says Robert).
10:35 am
At the hotel, they offered to call us a taxi, but Robert says that "We hauled our luggage all the way uphill, and we're darned sure going to enjoy lugging it downhill!" (Also, "There's nae charge for walking!")
On the way down the hill, we pass a place that sells bongs and Robert says they would have made awesome souvenirs. "We could have said we visited the high-lands! Nyuk, nyuk!" It's times like these that Robert is careful to stay out of Laura's reach…
At the train station, there's a shop selling "American muffins," which we jokingly say must mean muffins with big bottoms. On closer inspection, that's exactly what it means.
11:25 am
Our train is finally here, but we don't want to try to hoist our bags into the teeny overhead compartments. Fortunately, we know about the luggage car and Robert flags down Gavin, a railway employee who promises he'd take care of it.
Robert asks if we need to get claim checks for our bags, and Gavin said, "Ach, no, aye'll phane ahaid and tell Landon it's all oookay."
That's good enough for Robert!
12:35 pm
We're on the train traveling south towards London. We enjoy our lunch, which is the sandwiches from Starbucks, and some candy from a Scotsman store (these are like 7-11's; they're everywhere and sell a bit of everything except what you want) and a couple of bags of crisps made from "100% British potatoes." We guess somebody out there is selling crisps made from less than 100% British potatoes (Irish potatoes? Belgian potatoes?)
3:35 pm
The rain is falling pretty steadily now, and it's gray and cold. Robert is reading "Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson (set, kind of, in Scotland) and is at an exciting part. Look out, David! Shoot him!
3:55 pm
Our train arrives in London right on schedule, but Laura is worried that Gavin is running some kind of scam where he dresses up as a railway employee and offers to take people's luggage back to the luggage car, but really just takes off with it.
"Aye," says Robert, "And you should see the stack of dirty underwear he's accumulated! He'll hit the big time with my Hawaiian shirts--those go for good money down at the Salvation Army!"
As it turns out, Gavin is honest, so if you run into him at an Edinburgh train station, say hello and thanks from us. He's the real deal.
4:09 pm
Now we roll our luggage down the platform and into King's Cross station (the King must have had a bad day at some point). Robert guards our bags while Laura calls the hotel to find out exactly how we get there. Apparently, the directions on their website were written by technical writers after a particularly hard night of drinking, because they're a bit fuzzy and assume you already know where you're going.
We discover that we need to be on the Underground, taking the Picadilly line (of Cockfoster's fame) and that the Underground is in the same place as the train station, only, you know, underground. So we head to the -3 level (this is really what it's called on the elevator), get our tickets and head for the tube.
On the way, a nice policewoman is handing out bookmarks to everybody. (And we've been here long enough that this seems almost normal.) The bookmarks have a map of the Underground system on one side ("Conveniently too small to read," notes Laura) and a slogan on the other side exhorting us to "Keep your valuables out of the reach of pickpockets."
4:30 pm
An unhappy policeman gets on at a stop and scowls for the entire ride to the next stop.
"I'll bet he wishes he had a gun," says Robert. Police here don't have guns and there's a big argument going on about whether or not they should have Tasers, because, you know, you could hurt somebody with one of those.
"I'll bet he wishes he had a doughnut," says Laura. We have seen two doughnuts in our entire time here, and one of them was at Starbucks. There are NO doughnut shops in evidence and no doughnuts in stores and this probably makes the police very sad.
We get to experience a genuine London rush hour on the tube. Everybody is packed in so tight that they can't move, which is handy, because it means our luggage (remember that? we do--we're still hauling it around) can't fall over.
This means we've now ridden the New Yawk subway, the Washington DC subway, the Boston subway, the El in Chicago, and now the Underground during rush hour. We're becoming experts on being squished!
5:10 pm
We (and our luggage) get to make the trip from one end of the Picadilly line to the other, since we need to get off at Heathrow. But there are three different stops at Heathrow, so we need to get off this train and wait for one that's going all the way. Fortunately, the train voice lady is very clear about this and we know what to do.
She also says that "There is good service on all lines," with no small amount of pride, and we're glad that she's happy. She's been apologizing for the wet spots all day ("Due to today's weather, there are wet places. Do be careful!") and she deserves a spot of brightness.
The Underground turns out not to be underground the entire way. Sometimes it emerges into the light and enjoys a kind of bleak view mostly covered with trash before plunging back into the comforting darkness.
We think we've been traveling too long today.
5:30 pm
We've made it to Heathrow Terminal 5, and are now waiting for a shuttle bus to our hotel. While waiting, Robert chats with a Bob Hoskins look- (and sound-) alike, who says that he lives in a small village just near the airport, but it's not in the flight path. He gives us tips on spotting whether you are in an English village where millionaires live (such as Kingham), or one with regular blokes: "Check the prices in the pub. If they charge a lot for scotched quail eggs, then it's an upscale village."
6:00 pm
The hotel bus serves a number of different hotels, so it doesn't drop us at the door to our hotel, but instead drops us about 200 yards from the door, so our luggage gets another rolling trip. And before you say we whine too much (although we do), bear in mind that we each have one rolling suitcase, plus carry-on PLUS one autoharp each (and each autoharp is worth more than our car, so we get a bit protective about them).
We're pretty sure that we're going to need a new set of wheels for our luggage by the time we get home.
But we're safely in the greater London area, and we've scoped out where the nearest bar is, and as soon as we push "Send," that's where we'll be rolling ourselves off to.
Robert & Laura
Sore Roots Tour