So yesterday was by far the worst day I’ve had since coming to this country all thanks to the UK’s complete inability to deal with snow. After waking up at 6 so I could get a taxi at 7 to the train station for my train to York I arrived in London to some slight flurries. It did not seem to be sticking, but there was panic in the air so I called my parents despite the fact that it was about 5.30 in the morning their time to ask them to check if my flight had been canceled. I was told that it was still on time and my Dad reassured me that the snow would not be lasting into the afternoon so because my flight shouldn’t be effected. He was right about the snow stopping by about 1.30, but little did he know that because of 3ish inches of snow London would stop functioning. So I was pacified for the moment, and decided to kill an hour in the British Library because I had arrived much earlier than was necessary.
An hour later when I emerged from the library it was snowing harder in the nice, fluffy, romantic Christmassy snow it does when it the temperature is hovering just below freezing and there isn’t much wind so it is just gently drifting down. So I didn’t worry that much, took some Christmassy pictures, and made my way to the underground so I could travel up to Heathrow. There was announcement made in the underground station that people should call ahead to their airlines to check on the status of their flights because there were some cancelations or delays, but my Dad had checked with them only an hour and a half before then so I wasn’t that worried. The train ride seemed fine until it made an announcement halfway through the journey that we would be going a little slower due to the snow, but I had time so I thought nothing of it.
Then just before the last stop before Heathrow the train in a long tunnel we came to a sudden stop (like emergency break, I fell over, sudden), and an announcement was made that there was something wrong with the signaling and we would be waiting for some staff to walk down the tracks to us to fix it and not to worry. The train was also filling with smoke/dust and smelled of burnt rubber, but we were reassured that this was because of the sudden breaking. At this point I was starting to panic because this meant I would be really rushed once we actually got into Heathrow. We ended up stuck in the tunnel for two hours, and after some tears and a few false starts we were finally going again. We finally got to the last stop before Heathrow and we were told that it would be best if we got off because the train would not be continuing in the foreseeable future.
So I got off the train with a girl from Madrid who I had made friends with on the train, and we went upstairs to try and get a bus or cab. We were told at this point that everything in Heathrow was delayed or canceled until at least 4 so we need not worry about missing our flights, but we were now concerned that we would never actually make it to Heathrow. We waited in the snow for a while for a bus, but were eventually told the buses going to Heathrow terminals were closed due to the snow. There were no cabs around, so we tried calling some companies all who told us that they were either booked or closed. The girl from Spain even tried stopping cars in the street. Eventually we were told that the trains were running again, so we got on the train grateful to be eventually making it to Heathrow.
Heathrow was a complete mad house, with major traffic jams and giant masses of very upset people rushing in all directions. By now I discovered that there was nothing going out for the rest of the day, and after calling my Dad I was told I was booked onto a flight for Tuesday and had a hotel reservation back near Kings Cross station (all calls I’d been making to my parents all day had been in a massive panic that my phone would die at any minute because the roaming in the underground for 2 hours killed my battery and I forgot my charger).
I now needed to make my way back into London, and because of my bad experience with the underground and an announcement that the Heathrow express train into the city was shut down I tried to find a cash point so I could grab a taxi back. After wandering through the crowds with all of my luggage I gave up on this pursuit and resigned myself to a long underground journey back. I made my way back to the underground and took a very crowded train back to Kings Cross and finally made my way to the hotel. Finally at a little before 8.00 pm I was checked into a warm hotel room, with internet access, and a phone charger they let me borrow.
So the long day is finally over, and I’m now ready to spend some time exploring a Christmassy London because really with all of this snow, it really is just like Christmas.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Snow and Scottish Adventures
First off, if you didn’t know we have gotten a lot of snow here (at least for England’s standards and really for New England’s as well if you consider how early it is). Starting on Thanksgiving it literally snowed every day for a week, and I’m not sure the exact amount of snow we have received but I’m thinking near a foot. It has been really lovely and has led to much sledging (yes they pronounce that ‘g’ so it sounds like ‘hedge’), snowball fighting, and excitement amongst everyone here because apparently we got more snow in one week than is usually received in an entire winter.
The one down side has been that they really don’t know what to do with the snow once they get it. The roads become terrible and the paths around campus although sometimes sanded are generally pretty slippy (apparently it isn’t ‘slippery’ here) or full of slush. This led to the most ironic thing I’ve experienced here so far, a cancelation of a ski training because...wait for it...there was too much snow. I kid you not; we could not train because apparently if you get more than an inch of snow the roads are not easily traversed so the drive to Manchester was out of the question.
Luckily this snow did not prevent me and X from taking a lovely trip with the ERASMUS society up to Edinburgh for the weekend. There were no fanny packs involved unfortunately, but we had a really nice time. The two of us decided that because we were traveling in a group of 50 people it would probably be easier if during our free time we went off on our own to do some exploring and because of this decision it was a weekend filled with some great adventures and ridiculousness that could only happen to the two of us. We arrived on Friday and decided to wander off down the Royal Mile into Grassmarket. Along the way we had our first amusing encounter of the evening with these two very drunk men came up to X while we were both taking pictures of St. Guiles and tried very enthusiastically to explain to us the history and importance of the Heart of Midlothian which we were apparently missing out on and wouldn’t understand because it was covered by the snow. They also tried to explain the source of human life and a few other entertaining things before moving on. We then enjoyed a lovely American style pizza (not actually terrible which was good) and decided to go on a little adventurous pub crawl.
The first pub we entered after first hearing loud music coming from inside and seeing a sign advertising a live band. We disregarded the fact that said pub was Irish and not Scottish and went inside. This first pub was nice and the band was good, playing a weird mixture of old school country music, traditional Irish songs, and a few Christmas songs thrown in for good measure. After a while we figured it would be a good idea to just go back to the hostel and we assumed that the others would probably have already turned in because we had a big day of touring ahead of us. We were wrong.
Upon arriving back at our room in the hostel we realized we were the first back. We decided that it was necessary to ‘not be lame’ and go back out and do some more exploring. This led to us first following a group of what looked like Uni students into a club that turned out to be a little too punk for our taste. So after looking around briefly we were about to head back to the hostel when we were approached by a group of students visiting from Ireland looking for a club ‘Dropkick Murphy’s’. Obviously we had no idea where this was, but we decided to follow this large group of students to this club they seemed really desperate to go to, because obviously that means it must be good. Wrong. Despite the fact that it claimed that it was a club, it was in fact a very large rugby bar (yes I would accidently wander into one, that’s just how my life works) that was in a cave under a bridge with a ceiling that leaked, but apparently this was the place where all the ‘cool kids’ went because it was soon filled with a large number of University of Edinburgh students. We ended up enjoying ourselves dancing to the live band that was playing a strange mix of some old school music and country. But all in all despite the randomness and occasional creeps it was a very good first night.
Saturday was extremely busy. We had a lovely full Scottish breakfast complete with haggis (nice) and black pudding (not so nice), and then went on a really great walking tour throughout the city and ended up our tourist experience with an audio tour of the Palace of Hollyroodhouse. We then found ourselves in the midst of another adventure.
With about two hours to kill before dinner time, I decided that we should wander into the park area right near the palace that our tour guide earlier said was lovely. I spotted some people climbing a path along this hill/rock formation and it looked like we would get a very nice view from up there. I was apparently not thinking about the fact that paths like these were more than likely completely covered in snow, but just saw other people up there and assumed I could get there as well. Wrong. X and I got about 200ft up this path which was snow covered but still manageable when we encountered a problem, neither of us were able to move in any direction because we had suddenly lost all traction and two guys were sledging down the path directly at us. Thankfully they swerved and missed us, but that did not prevent me from accidently sledging myself. We then decided to take the path less traveled (it seemed to have more snow and less ice) and made it far enough that we could get a few nice photos in of the sunset before slowly making our way down. After dinner the entire ERASMUS group went on an attempted pub crawl that was a bit strange, and did again involved me wandering the streets of Edinburgh looking for somewhere that looked exciting, but ended up being a really good time.
Sunday after another full Scottish breakfast (this time with no black pudding), X and I spent the day touring the Edinburgh Castle which was really amazing. I think by the end of it we were a little bit exhausted (I may be one of those annoying people that listen to every single thing an audio tour has to offer…not a big deal). We therefore spent the late afternoon doing some shopping (of the window variety mostly) and enjoying the German Christmas market where we did buy some chocolates and a pretzel. All in all it turned out to be a lovely weekend, and Edinburgh is a really amazing city which I could definitely tell last time I went, but can appreciate much more now.
Sorry for the excessively long blog post. I’ll post some of the pictures later, but for now I’ve got to get my academic hat back on, stop procrastinating and buckle down for the last two weeks of term.
KMT
The one down side has been that they really don’t know what to do with the snow once they get it. The roads become terrible and the paths around campus although sometimes sanded are generally pretty slippy (apparently it isn’t ‘slippery’ here) or full of slush. This led to the most ironic thing I’ve experienced here so far, a cancelation of a ski training because...wait for it...there was too much snow. I kid you not; we could not train because apparently if you get more than an inch of snow the roads are not easily traversed so the drive to Manchester was out of the question.
Luckily this snow did not prevent me and X from taking a lovely trip with the ERASMUS society up to Edinburgh for the weekend. There were no fanny packs involved unfortunately, but we had a really nice time. The two of us decided that because we were traveling in a group of 50 people it would probably be easier if during our free time we went off on our own to do some exploring and because of this decision it was a weekend filled with some great adventures and ridiculousness that could only happen to the two of us. We arrived on Friday and decided to wander off down the Royal Mile into Grassmarket. Along the way we had our first amusing encounter of the evening with these two very drunk men came up to X while we were both taking pictures of St. Guiles and tried very enthusiastically to explain to us the history and importance of the Heart of Midlothian which we were apparently missing out on and wouldn’t understand because it was covered by the snow. They also tried to explain the source of human life and a few other entertaining things before moving on. We then enjoyed a lovely American style pizza (not actually terrible which was good) and decided to go on a little adventurous pub crawl.
The first pub we entered after first hearing loud music coming from inside and seeing a sign advertising a live band. We disregarded the fact that said pub was Irish and not Scottish and went inside. This first pub was nice and the band was good, playing a weird mixture of old school country music, traditional Irish songs, and a few Christmas songs thrown in for good measure. After a while we figured it would be a good idea to just go back to the hostel and we assumed that the others would probably have already turned in because we had a big day of touring ahead of us. We were wrong.
Upon arriving back at our room in the hostel we realized we were the first back. We decided that it was necessary to ‘not be lame’ and go back out and do some more exploring. This led to us first following a group of what looked like Uni students into a club that turned out to be a little too punk for our taste. So after looking around briefly we were about to head back to the hostel when we were approached by a group of students visiting from Ireland looking for a club ‘Dropkick Murphy’s’. Obviously we had no idea where this was, but we decided to follow this large group of students to this club they seemed really desperate to go to, because obviously that means it must be good. Wrong. Despite the fact that it claimed that it was a club, it was in fact a very large rugby bar (yes I would accidently wander into one, that’s just how my life works) that was in a cave under a bridge with a ceiling that leaked, but apparently this was the place where all the ‘cool kids’ went because it was soon filled with a large number of University of Edinburgh students. We ended up enjoying ourselves dancing to the live band that was playing a strange mix of some old school music and country. But all in all despite the randomness and occasional creeps it was a very good first night.
Saturday was extremely busy. We had a lovely full Scottish breakfast complete with haggis (nice) and black pudding (not so nice), and then went on a really great walking tour throughout the city and ended up our tourist experience with an audio tour of the Palace of Hollyroodhouse. We then found ourselves in the midst of another adventure.
With about two hours to kill before dinner time, I decided that we should wander into the park area right near the palace that our tour guide earlier said was lovely. I spotted some people climbing a path along this hill/rock formation and it looked like we would get a very nice view from up there. I was apparently not thinking about the fact that paths like these were more than likely completely covered in snow, but just saw other people up there and assumed I could get there as well. Wrong. X and I got about 200ft up this path which was snow covered but still manageable when we encountered a problem, neither of us were able to move in any direction because we had suddenly lost all traction and two guys were sledging down the path directly at us. Thankfully they swerved and missed us, but that did not prevent me from accidently sledging myself. We then decided to take the path less traveled (it seemed to have more snow and less ice) and made it far enough that we could get a few nice photos in of the sunset before slowly making our way down. After dinner the entire ERASMUS group went on an attempted pub crawl that was a bit strange, and did again involved me wandering the streets of Edinburgh looking for somewhere that looked exciting, but ended up being a really good time.
Sunday after another full Scottish breakfast (this time with no black pudding), X and I spent the day touring the Edinburgh Castle which was really amazing. I think by the end of it we were a little bit exhausted (I may be one of those annoying people that listen to every single thing an audio tour has to offer…not a big deal). We therefore spent the late afternoon doing some shopping (of the window variety mostly) and enjoying the German Christmas market where we did buy some chocolates and a pretzel. All in all it turned out to be a lovely weekend, and Edinburgh is a really amazing city which I could definitely tell last time I went, but can appreciate much more now.
Sorry for the excessively long blog post. I’ll post some of the pictures later, but for now I’ve got to get my academic hat back on, stop procrastinating and buckle down for the last two weeks of term.
KMT
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