The Great European Adventure: Christmas of Ought Nine and New Year's 2010 (Part 1)
"Disaster" is about the only word that can describe the beginning of my trip.
About midnight before my train was going to leave from Bordeaux, I got news from my mom that the Eurostar might not be running the next day. Confirmation came around 2:30, when I began scrambling to book a last minute plane ticket from Bordeaux to London Gatwick, where I figured I'd catch my previously-scheduled train from Waterloo to Poole.
Little did I know that Gatwick had been closed the two previous days, or that British Airways was planning a 12 day holiday strike. Luckily for me, the plane did make it to Gatwick, though it was delayed an hour and a half.
Customs in London turned out to be a hassle. I didn't think to write down Tom's address before leaving, since he was going to pick me up at the airport. This fact did not make the customs agents feel comfortable about my being in the country. They seemed to think I would just decide to disappear somewhere in England and just never go home. I got asked about 35 questions, then told to fill in Tom's address (but without using my phone). I used my phone anyway, and when I got back there was a different guy on duty, who asked me who I was staying with and what that person did for a living about 5 times. When he asked me how we'd met, and I told him a Decemberists concert, he was like "I've heard of them. I like their album The Hazards of Love." We talked about the Decemberists for about 5 minutes, and then he asked me a lot more questions. Little did I know, those minutes detained by grouchy Colin Meloy fans would cost me my train.
I had to take a 30-minute train from Gatwick to Victoria, and two Underground lines from Victoria to Waterloo (at the time of entering the Underground I had 20 minutes to make my train. I began to lose hope.) I made it to Waterloo two minutes before my train was going to depart, and ran to the ticket machine to pick up my tickets...but I needed the card I'd purchased them with AND a reference number, which I'd really meant to write down, but never actually did. So I ran to the ticket counter and asked an agent to print them for me...he told me I was lucky that the train was delayed anyway, take a look at the screen, it's still -- oh, would you look at that, it's just disappeared. But not to worry, you can take the next one.
He made a little note on my ticket and I waited 40 minutes for the next train. Unfortunately, the "next one" wasn't the same train at all. It wasn't going to the stop I needed, but it was stopping not too far away. I texted Tom and he told me they'd come to get me at the farther-away train station.
Due to "inclement" weather (huge friendly flakes of snow) a lot of trains were being cancelled. They kept adding stops to the train I was on as it was winding through England, so that by the time I arrived, not only had they added the stop I needed to the list of ones they were stopping at, but we were almost 2 hours late. Unfortunately, Tom had already left to pick me up, so we met at a train station further from his house. Ridiculous.
At this point I'd already not slept in 24 hours, and had been travelling all day. And just when I was going to slip into a Conor-Oberst-and-rocking-train-induced trance, the woman on the train next to me asked me to turn my iPod down. Lame.
I finally got to Tom's, though, and I was glad I did. There was a rainy trip to the grocery store in search of candy. I was pleasantly surprised by the UK-version Skittles and Starburst. Skittles there have blackcurrant instead of grape and strawberry instead of cherry. The Starburst have strawberry instead of cherry and lemon-lime instead of lemon, which was a little less awesome.
The second day in Bournemouth, Tom and I were both really sick, and spent the majority of the day in his bedroom, alternately shivering and playing Wii Bowling. I also slept through the Matrix, waking up intermittently to comment on various things. Other than the being sick for part of it bit, the trip there was really fun. The photo on the left is the only one I took of Poole itself, really. A blustery day by the water. I think I took this photo right after we had gone into an arcade to play air hockey and guitar hero.
On leaving, Tom walked me to the train station, and I changed at Woking from the train to a bus that took me to Heathrow. I got to Geneva without incident, and tried to catch a cab. The first driver I approached asked me where I was going and then proceeded to take the people in line behind me...so when more cabs arrived and saw me talking to him, they got suspicious that I hadn't ridden with the first driver, and interrogated me in French about it. Finally, one of them angrily told me that they weren't allowed to pick and choose which people they drove and that next time, I should take it up with "that guy" instead of him. Then he angrily shoved my suitcase in the trunk and spent the taxi ride yelling at people in Arabic and braking really suddenly. It was a little alarming.
Met Rachel at the hostel and we went out for some pho, which bore little resemblance to the pho I've experienced in the US. We spent the evening walking around looking at Geneva. There were some interesting lights...a lot of trees full of giant glowing spheres, where there was a recording of children singing playing from a speaker hanging from a tree. An exhibit of golden, headless parachutists suspended from another tree. Waterfalls of lights. It really was very pretty, and very deserted. We didn't see anyone. We desperately wanted somewhere warm and dry to sit, and maybe a cup of coffee. These things were unattainable.
We saw a cathedral on a hill and tried to walk to it...turns out the hill was never ending, and once we finally did find the cathedral, the entrance was elusive. When we did find the entrance, it was blocked by an iron gate. So we gave up.
We finally found a place that was warm and dry, and which had coffee. It turned out to be some kind of church function, but we hung out and ate some crepes, and drank coffee, then went to the midnight mass nearby. It was cool in that I got to hear the French versions of a lot of Christmas songs. I'd had no idea that there were alternate versions, although now that I do know it makes a lot of sense. The meanings all a bit changed in another language.
And that brings us up to Christmas. I'll post the next part soon.
About midnight before my train was going to leave from Bordeaux, I got news from my mom that the Eurostar might not be running the next day. Confirmation came around 2:30, when I began scrambling to book a last minute plane ticket from Bordeaux to London Gatwick, where I figured I'd catch my previously-scheduled train from Waterloo to Poole.
Little did I know that Gatwick had been closed the two previous days, or that British Airways was planning a 12 day holiday strike. Luckily for me, the plane did make it to Gatwick, though it was delayed an hour and a half.
Customs in London turned out to be a hassle. I didn't think to write down Tom's address before leaving, since he was going to pick me up at the airport. This fact did not make the customs agents feel comfortable about my being in the country. They seemed to think I would just decide to disappear somewhere in England and just never go home. I got asked about 35 questions, then told to fill in Tom's address (but without using my phone). I used my phone anyway, and when I got back there was a different guy on duty, who asked me who I was staying with and what that person did for a living about 5 times. When he asked me how we'd met, and I told him a Decemberists concert, he was like "I've heard of them. I like their album The Hazards of Love." We talked about the Decemberists for about 5 minutes, and then he asked me a lot more questions. Little did I know, those minutes detained by grouchy Colin Meloy fans would cost me my train.
I had to take a 30-minute train from Gatwick to Victoria, and two Underground lines from Victoria to Waterloo (at the time of entering the Underground I had 20 minutes to make my train. I began to lose hope.) I made it to Waterloo two minutes before my train was going to depart, and ran to the ticket machine to pick up my tickets...but I needed the card I'd purchased them with AND a reference number, which I'd really meant to write down, but never actually did. So I ran to the ticket counter and asked an agent to print them for me...he told me I was lucky that the train was delayed anyway, take a look at the screen, it's still -- oh, would you look at that, it's just disappeared. But not to worry, you can take the next one.
He made a little note on my ticket and I waited 40 minutes for the next train. Unfortunately, the "next one" wasn't the same train at all. It wasn't going to the stop I needed, but it was stopping not too far away. I texted Tom and he told me they'd come to get me at the farther-away train station.
Due to "inclement" weather (huge friendly flakes of snow) a lot of trains were being cancelled. They kept adding stops to the train I was on as it was winding through England, so that by the time I arrived, not only had they added the stop I needed to the list of ones they were stopping at, but we were almost 2 hours late. Unfortunately, Tom had already left to pick me up, so we met at a train station further from his house. Ridiculous.
At this point I'd already not slept in 24 hours, and had been travelling all day. And just when I was going to slip into a Conor-Oberst-and-rocking-train-induced trance, the woman on the train next to me asked me to turn my iPod down. Lame.
I finally got to Tom's, though, and I was glad I did. There was a rainy trip to the grocery store in search of candy. I was pleasantly surprised by the UK-version Skittles and Starburst. Skittles there have blackcurrant instead of grape and strawberry instead of cherry. The Starburst have strawberry instead of cherry and lemon-lime instead of lemon, which was a little less awesome.
The second day in Bournemouth, Tom and I were both really sick, and spent the majority of the day in his bedroom, alternately shivering and playing Wii Bowling. I also slept through the Matrix, waking up intermittently to comment on various things. Other than the being sick for part of it bit, the trip there was really fun. The photo on the left is the only one I took of Poole itself, really. A blustery day by the water. I think I took this photo right after we had gone into an arcade to play air hockey and guitar hero.On leaving, Tom walked me to the train station, and I changed at Woking from the train to a bus that took me to Heathrow. I got to Geneva without incident, and tried to catch a cab. The first driver I approached asked me where I was going and then proceeded to take the people in line behind me...so when more cabs arrived and saw me talking to him, they got suspicious that I hadn't ridden with the first driver, and interrogated me in French about it. Finally, one of them angrily told me that they weren't allowed to pick and choose which people they drove and that next time, I should take it up with "that guy" instead of him. Then he angrily shoved my suitcase in the trunk and spent the taxi ride yelling at people in Arabic and braking really suddenly. It was a little alarming.
Met Rachel at the hostel and we went out for some pho, which bore little resemblance to the pho I've experienced in the US. We spent the evening walking around looking at Geneva. There were some interesting lights...a lot of trees full of giant glowing spheres, where there was a recording of children singing playing from a speaker hanging from a tree. An exhibit of golden, headless parachutists suspended from another tree. Waterfalls of lights. It really was very pretty, and very deserted. We didn't see anyone. We desperately wanted somewhere warm and dry to sit, and maybe a cup of coffee. These things were unattainable.
We saw a cathedral on a hill and tried to walk to it...turns out the hill was never ending, and once we finally did find the cathedral, the entrance was elusive. When we did find the entrance, it was blocked by an iron gate. So we gave up.
We finally found a place that was warm and dry, and which had coffee. It turned out to be some kind of church function, but we hung out and ate some crepes, and drank coffee, then went to the midnight mass nearby. It was cool in that I got to hear the French versions of a lot of Christmas songs. I'd had no idea that there were alternate versions, although now that I do know it makes a lot of sense. The meanings all a bit changed in another language.
And that brings us up to Christmas. I'll post the next part soon.
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