Category: Britain

A summary – back in the U.S.A.

Posted on June 11th, 2007
in Britain
I didn’t have time to make a conclusion posting for my trip to Great Britain because I’ve been busy the past few days moving into my new apartment in Madison. I’m subletting in this apartment, but I selected it because I’m also on the lease for the 2007-2008 year as well, starting August 16th.

But now that I have some free time this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I’ll summarize (as best as I can) my thoughts on some of the important and inane differences that I noticed between the UK and the USA, as well as some statistics pertaining to my 16-day trip.

Differences between America and Britain
1. Shower heads: a silly thing, really, but one of the first things I noticed while at Nathalie’s house and throughout the rest of my trip. Shower heads tended to be of the detachable variety instead of fixed like the norm in the states. Of course in each country there’s variation, but I’m pretty sure that every hostel, home, and hotel I stayed in during my trip had mostly detachables, but the Generator and some of the hostels in Scotland had a couple “fixed” as well.
2. Electricity in water closets: I was caught by surprise my first night in England as well because I couldn’t find any place to plug my electric shaver in. I put it off as an eccentricity, but when the same thing happened the next night, I questioned the hostel I was staying at and found that there’s actually legislation opposed to having open outlets in the toilets. For that matter, many light switches were outside of the WC’s as well, making a sealed light fixture the only electrical appliance possible in the bathroom. I found this ironic because the vast majority of British homes are made out of non-burning stone, and they’re the ones worrying about things starting on fire? To continue this trend of cautiousness, all of the double outlets that I saw had switches for each individual outlet to control them, or turn them both off if need be. I wonder if this was done for any energy-conservation purpose, or just for safety?
3. High-flow toilets: Once again, I speak as one who didn’t spend a lot of time in Britain, but just as one who went from coast to coast, and I didn’t see a single low-flow style toilet. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, a low flow toilet uses much less water than the old standard “high flow” toilet, about 6.8 litres in a low-flow compared to 16.1 litres in a “standard” toilet. I’m not sure whether this is because Britain, obviously being an older country than America, has different plumbing systems, but while staying at Christine’s beautiful new home, I noticed that the toilets were high flow as well. Perhaps this comes down to an issue of personal preference (as several Americans, most notably Dave Barry, have expressed outrage at the USA mandate for low-flow toilets) but in closing – it IS an island, after all. It’s not like the British are lacking on water!
4. Street signs: this was probably one of the toughest and more annoying things to get used to. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not always the biggest proponent of the USA in general, but after traveling abroad, by myself, and mostly by map, I really have to beat my head against my desk when I think of the time I spent figuring out just what street I was currently on, which way I was going, and what streets were going to be in front of me because of the street signs. In the UK, the norm was to have them attached to buildings, little posts near the ground, or fences. I don’t know if it’s mandated or just the norm in the USA, but being used to seeing them on green signposts at every intersection (the keyword being every intersection) I felt lost quite often in Britain.
5. VAT versus sales tax: One thing that any American tourist will love while shopping in Britain (and with the current exchange rate, sadly one of the few things in an fiscal sense) is that tax on purchased items has been conveniently factored into the final price already. I can’t think of a single person (both here in the States and in Britain, where a couple people actually did ask me why we do this to which I could only shrug helplessly) who prefer America’s annoying need to put prices on items “before sales tax.” In Britain, if an item is 3 pound 50, that’s how much you’ll be charged, end of story. On receipts, you can see the VAT (value-added tax) does exist, the same way our sales tax does…but lo and behold! They’ve already done that for you. I’m no fiscal genius so I won’t continue to compare and contrast these two systems…but unless Alan Greenspan calls me and tells me what gives, I’m going to continue to be very much in favor of this method of taking payments.
  …(yes, I know he’s retired.)
6. Restaurants and off-peak hours: I vividly remember my first day in England, where I was desperately cycling through Salisbury first to find Stonehenge, and then to find a toilet. I thought I’d be in luck at a little restaurant that I passed by, but was horrified to discover that it was closed. I thought to myself…”why would this restaurant/pub be closed at 3 in the afternoon?!” but as I learned later, this is a fairly common practice to close non-chain restaurants on off-peak hours and only have them open at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then the drinking hours into the evening. Of course, my bladder wasn’t consoled by this information…
7. Traffic conveniences for the disabled: I was at first confused as to why there was always a loud buzzing or beeping noise whenever a light turned green at a crosswalk, and as to why there was patterns of raised bumps all over the place in every city, town, and village but gradually I realized that this was a greatly-advanced version of the conveniences that are just now appearing in even major cities in the United States. Raised bumps in L-shapes in front of every crosswalk path so that a blind person can feel not only when they’re in front of a crosswalk, but also when they’re about to walk past one. And the more-common loud beeping when the walk signal appears. This might not seem like too much, but the sad thing is that it is quite a bit in comparison to what I’ve seen in Madison and, for example, Washington D.C. (naming the largest city in America I’ve been in recently). And the amazing thing is that this wasn’t just in London and Edinburgh I saw these helpful additions, but every single little village, from London down to Peel on the Isle of Man. On that note too, I’ll make another traffic-related comparison. In Great Britain, the traffic lights don’t just go green-red-yellow-green like in the States, they go green-yellow-red-yellow-green, which just makes sense in my opinion.
8. Clothing differences: were difficult to quantify through different regions, even in a comparatively-small country like Britain. But a striking difference in the United Kingdom was that women seemed to be much more willing to wear comfortable clothes instead of what American women consider appealing clothing (treading carefully as I write this). Not to say that I was staring at a lot of women while traveling, but I saw that British ladies would wear loose khakis or baggy jeans, even with holes in them. It’s sad that I would notice such a gender-stereotyped issue like this, but that’s the state of female clothing in America – almost every woman that I know wears tight clothing, or at least tight pants. I might be causing some eyebrows to raise in offense here, but don’t kill the messenger.I found this trend to be remarkably refreshing while I was overseas. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy attractive women as much as the next guy. But my feelings on the mass media here in America is that they present unrealistic images of women that far too many women feel that they have to strive to keep up with. Thankfully in recent years, this seems to have abated somewhat as people like Jean Kilbourne have called attention to it, but few will deny that our society has not yet been “cured” of this advertising disease. In London though, women seemed to be more comfortable with what they were wearing, literally. Obviously, I have no research to back up my thoughts, but if anyone has any commentary on this issue in either direction, I would love to hear from you.
9. The Beer: the most important part of any trip, of course! I was a little bit worried when I was told that in England, the bitters/lagers/ales are often served at room temperature, but after the first few days as my taste buds got used to it, I found that it was the natural way to drink beer. As any travel guide will tell you, Brits find American beer “comical” at best and “not even classifiable as beer” at worst. Compared with our cold, carbonated beer, British beer is heavier, more filling, and has a taste to it. Since it was part of my mission to sample the “house beer” at every pub I went to (most of them, such as the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, had their own special brew made either by them or for them), I was pleased that beer didn’t all have to taste the same like it does in the States, but instead had a whole rainbow of varieties, from the sweeter ales, to the heavy thick lagers to the aptly-named bitters. My favourite was probably “Newcastle Brown” out of them all though; I’m going to have to find out if I can get that anywhere around here…
Trip Statistics
- Pictures taken total: 2,689
- Pictures deleted because they were of my thumb: 13
- Videos taken: 41
- Pictures of myself taken either by some kind soul assisting me or by holding my arm out and trying to photograph my face: 216
- Money spent in pounds sterling overseas: 593.72
- Money spent in US dollars before leaving: 1,351.66
- Total money spent, translated to USD with current exchange rate: 2,598.47
- Pints drank total: 17
- Pints purchased for me by various friendly people: 7
And that’s that! Time to spend the rest of my summer taking classes in Perl scripting language, web design (so that someday I can write something as good as WordPress), and most importantly, working to replenish what’s left of my monetary reserves. But no matter what, I’ll never forget Britain, the sights that I saw, the smell of the mountains, the tastes of the ales and the rest of my tantalized senses. I’ll always remember the wonderful people I met like Neil, Christine, Chris, and Michael.

For the first time in my life, 4,861 miles doesn’t seem so far away!

edit: It looks like Google Maps took out the cute little prank they put on their maps, where they would tell you to “swim across the Atlantic Ocean” if you queried two destinations across the ocean. Sad, it was funny…and informative too!
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Last of London, homeward bound

Posted on June 6th, 2007
in Britain

My last day in London was sad for me; I felt like there wasn’t nearly enough time for me to do accomplish anywhere close to what I wanted to see. On the other hand, one of the very reasons why I planned my trip to be short in Europe’s most expensive city was because I wanted there to be something left of my bank account when I get back, so in that sense, it was probably best that I did get out with the clothes on my back. But regardless, I viewed the sights like a condemned man looking about before going to the gallows. An exaggeration of course; America isn’t that bad, but from an architectural and historical sense, it might as well still be the colonies. Great Britain is where it’s at.

My day started with an unintended long walk (I seem to have had several unintentional trips throughout these weeks) because the Underground pass they sold me at the Generator didn’t start working until “off peak” hours, which means after 9:30. I wanted to get to the Tower of London before the masses of tourists and their screaming children swamped it, though, so I decided to walk the mile and a half through the back alleys of London and along the Thames. I enjoy taking in the sights during a walk as any tourist in London might, but my legs were still killing me from last night so they certainly weren’t at their peak performance.

The Tower of London, manned by the severe-looking Yeoman Warders (or Beefeaters, as they’ve been nicknamed) is almost 900 years old. The most famous components are the ancient central building, the White Tower, which was created by William the Conqueror of Normandy in the 1100’s, and the (in)famous Bloody Tower. The Bloody Tower got its name because it’s where two princes were supposedly murdered by their uncle, Richard III to prevent the elder of the child princes, Henry V, from taking over after their father’s death. Other such notable names are Anne Boleyn and Walter Raleigh the explorer. And that’s only within the tower walls; there’s a grassy knoll outside the hill where the gallows once stood. Many thousands of people were “punished” there over the centuries, often partially strangulated, drawn, quartered, and then had their heads mounted on a pike over the South Gate of the old London Bridge. William Wallace was the first to receive such preferential treatment, but many others would follow.

The Beefeaters were excellent guides, a perfect combination of militaristic sternness, barking orders at the immense tour group of over a hundred people that I was part of (that’s what happens when it was the first tour of the day and it’s free) and amusing commentary and explanations. They got their nickname for their job in medieval days of having to test the king’s food before he ate it, but I don’t think they have to do that anymore. Our particular guide was particularly gruff; I think he frightened a few of the small children on the tour. I don’t know why parents bring their small children to a place like the Tower of London, considering its morbid history. I highly doubt that most kids understood what was going on. I mean, I’ll be honest – I doubt I would have at that age either.

The problem with the tour however was that it ran a little long, and I didn’t have time to go and see the Changing of the Guard. I used this newfound extra time to continue looking at the exhibits, but I am my father’s son – meaning that I made it to the London Eye with only minutes to spare before my ride went up (meaning no offense to you, dad). Looking out across the 60 square miles of London into the distance, I could have sworn I saw the Eiffel Tower, but the guide assured us it was only a transmission tower at the edge of London. Since the wheel is right on the edge of the curve of the Thames, it provided great views both to the east river and the south. It was a little short though, and our guide talked very quickly. I’m not sure if it was quite worth the £16 but I guess it was good for a one-time experience.

After the observation wheel, I stopped by Parliament (and St. Steven’s Tower, in which the bell nicknamed “Big Ben” is housed) and chatted with some English antiwar protesters that were staked out outside. I talked with them for awhile about the UK antiwar movement, exchanged websites and emails, and continued on to Buckingham Palace. I was disappointed to see that there weren’t any of the famous cue-tip guards, only the guards that actually look like they can kill you in moments, instead of being comical. I grabbed some lunch from the Sherlock Holmes cafe (located in the Northumberland Hotel, which appears in several Holmes novels) and spent the last few hours on the south banks of the Thames, over the Tower Bridge (the one that poor idiot, Fergie, was dancing on during the music video for “London Bridge) and then back over the Millennium Bridge that the tour went past the previous day.

I figured that I had better get some sleep, what with my plane leaving at 8:30 in the morning. I set my alarm for 4:30 in the morning and figured I’d reap the consequences later, but I didn’t have any problems this morning when I woke up. For that matter, the whole Tube ride was an uneventful hour-long ride that I slept through most of the way.

As the plane left the runway, and London vanished under its famous layer of fog as we sped towards the rising sun (now that’s cliché), I pressed my face against the glass and watched the cars shrink below. I know that I’ll be back soon.

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
-Samuel Johnson

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Pinch me, I’m in London

Posted on June 4th, 2007
in Britain

I hate to have to keep retracting my previous statements like this, but if I thought my legs were knackered after climbing the mountain, then biking the island, I have to say that this new level of pain (or rather, numbness) takes the cake now that I’ve arrived back at the Generator from a night of watching The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare’s very own “personal” theatre, the Globe on the South Bank. I bring this up out of chronological order because it’s the most prominent thing on my mind right now, but to clarify: you are either a noble-person or a peasant. The nobles get chairs in the back and pay the big pounds, but the peasants get the best views right up front next to the stage and pay the meagre pittance. Notice that I say “views” and not “seats” because yes; part of the experience of being a “groundling” at the Globe Theatre is that your £5 only pays for your spot on the ground and nothing else; no seat. I have been standing still in one position with about a hundred other souls for the past 3 hours. Thank god for the 15 minute intermission at the 2 hour mark in which we all collapsed like marionettes with our strings cut; but we weren’t allowed to even sit on the steps up to the stage; I asked the attendant and she told me that groundlings weren’t allowed any seating other than the ground (fitting, hence the name) and if I wanted to sit, I’d need to go outside out of the theatre.

(more…)

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Great Britain, full circle

Posted on June 3rd, 2007
in Britain

The last leg of my Great Britain trip is at hand. The train is about an hour from St. Pancras Station in London, which many Americans have seen without realizing it – it’s used in the Harry Potter films for the outside shots, instead of King’s Cross Station (from what I hear, there’s plaque for Platform 9 ¾ in King’s Cross with a statue of a cart going through the wall; I’m sure it’s well-photographed). From there I’ll be heading to the Generator hostel nearby.

This morning I went to the 10:30 service at the Liverpool Cathedral, and it was just as wonderful as I would have hoped, and also gave me the chance to observe some of the differences between a church service in America and one in England – there were few. The organ, as hoped, was simply incredible. I sat in the third or fourth row of the cathedral and listened to the thunder of the pipes as I stared up in the vaulted stone ceilings. I understand now what it is to feel small in the presence of God; the combination of the high ceilings and the raw power of the organ is enough to make the building echo for at least 10-15 seconds after a note is played, and we had the honour of witnessing a professional choir in from London to sing for us. I’m glad that I went to it, and it gave me a great starting point for getting right up to the Vestey bell tower as soon as it was over to see the amazing bells and look out over the city of Liverpool. I could see the sights I visited yesterday – from the Beatles Story over on the Mersey bank, to my hostel over to the west, and even a glimpse of the football stadium farther to the north.

However, the train system has done me in once again. I didn’t dally at the cathedral, rushing out to catch what I thought would be my train to Nottingham at 12:50. However, when I reached the now-familiar Lime Street Station, I was told that “the train was cancelled for maintenance on the tracks” and my next option was another hour later, with 2 transfers instead of zero. Oh well…I should be used to this by now. As many Brits have told me now during my trip, the rail system really isn’t that great; without a rail pass it can be hundreds of pounds to make a trip without time aforethought and planning to lower the price. I’m glad I have the pass, especially since it allowed me my memorable (or it would have been, had I the energy to remember anything at that time) night as a hobo between York and Manchester.

My stop in Nottingham was sadly brief, especially because I had lost 2 hours due to the change in my rail trip plans. I had originally planned to see the gallows tour, which had exhibitions of the dungeons and prisons of the era and was well-recommended by my guidebook and see the ruins of the castle too, but those had both closed by the time I had arrived at 17:10 and I consoled myself with a pint of house ale at the “oldest pub in Britain,” the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. The pub is so named for its founding in 1189, about the time of the crusades, as it’s where the soldiers would gather before starting off for the Middle East with Richard the Lionhearted. The pub had the further benefit (for a time-strapped traveller such as myself) of being embedded in the base of the ancient castle itself, so with only an hour from arrival to departure, I was able to see the castle too, or at least the outside of it. Then it was back on the train to London where I am now.

I’ve been spending my time on the train thus far by going through my guides to London; there’s so much to see and do in a city like this that unless I go through the books and make a list of specifically what I want to see, I know I’m going to miss something that I’ll learn about later and be sad that I missed my opportunity.

Only about two and a half days remain, and then it’s back to Chicago and then to Wisconsin! I’ll make them count.

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Liverpool – Beatles, Football, and Cathedrals

Posted on June 2nd, 2007
in Britain

Well, I’m extremely happy to say that this day is finishing up a lot better than it started out. I still haven’t had any sleep yet today owing to my much more necessary requirement of a shower and then email correspondence and the room is starting to get a little blurry as I struggle to maintain consciousness long enough to finish this up (at 19:14; isn’t that sad?) but I can honestly say that I’ve fulfilled pretty much all of my hopes for Liverpool.

After doing my hobo-riding from Manchester to York to Manchester, it was finally late enough in the day (6:30 or so) that there were trains to Liverpool and I got to the hostel (the Embassie again, same as last week) at about 7:15. The owner greeted me with familiarity, and I finally got a scalding hot shower in the horrific bathroom. For me though, after I reach a certain level of sleeplessness, my skin goes numb so I couldn’t really feel it. I set off as early as I could to get to the Beatles Story exhibit down on the docks, and spent the next couple hours engrossed in the historical story of the group’s beginnings, middles, and sadly, the ends. The place is essentially a museum to the Beatles, with a lot of the props from their (comical) movies and album covers as well as some rare artifacts as well (such as John Lennon’s tinted glasses, worth approximately £1,000,000 at its auction, and the only blue vinyl copy of The White Album LP in existence).

From there, I decided it would be within my best interests to find out something about this little-known sport that a couple regions in Great Britain occasionally play…”football,” I believe they call it. In all seriousness though, it’s amazing the Brits’ devotion to football. It makes American devotion to our “football” look like maybe having a preference for a certain breakfast cereal. I toured the museum of the Liverpool Football Club to the north of the city, where I struck up a conversation with a die-hard Liv FC fan who explained the history of the team to me as I was walking through the museum, what the various trophies were, and also a little bit of the darker and sadder consequences of the zeal of the fans. Liverpool is the best Club in the British nation, and have won 5 European Union trophies since the late ’70s (and just barely missed out on one last week, too). However, as I discovered, the massive crowd rushes can be deadly, as there’s been a few incidents involving the deaths of dozens, and in the most recent case, almost a hundred people in trampling or just being crushed to death under the weight of tens of thousands of eager, excitable fans. I didn’t get to see the field itself, unfortunately, but it was nice to have someone tell me more about the famous sport that America has essentially ignored. Of course, being an American, of course I was asked the question, “why the hell does your bloody country call it the wrong name?” and all I could do was shrug helplessly. I’ve sometimes wondered that myself; what the heck was the person who named it thinking when he chose a name that was already taken?

Finally, I decided to make my last stop of the day the huge and imposing Liverpool Cathedral, which I had walked past several times when I was here last week but never gone into. The cathedral is known for its superlatives, as my guidebook says…not only does it have the tallest ceiling in the world, it also has the heaviest set of church bells too at somewhere around 40 tons. The arches that hold up the huge ceilings are 107 feet in the air! I was a little late getting from the Liverpool stadium, so unfortunately the last tours of the tower were finished for the day and only the main body of the huge building was available to tour. I asked a passing tour guide though who was chatting with the electrician, and lo and behold, the two of them ended up giving me a private, personal, and free tour of the building! It was incredibly nice of them to stick around, even still guiding me around after the building was closed. Because the cathedral is actually comparatively new, built between 1904 and 1978, it had electricity built into it, and the electrician actually took me into the bowels of the church to show me the wiring (not interesting for most people, I’d wager, but it was for me) and the guide told me that it wasn’t often that she “met a young man with such an interest in architectural and religious history!” which embarrassed me because I really don’t think I’m that out of the ordinary. What got me though, is that the pipe organ has 9,765 pipes to it. That’s about 3 times the population of my hometown, and is ridiculous to even conceive. After chatting with my two guides for awhile longer, they asked me if I wanted to come to the service tomorrow morning, and I actually think I’m going to take them up on that offer. I think it would be nice to see an English church service, and the chance to hear those thousands of pipes going is one I wouldn’t dream of passing up.

I finished up my touring with an excellent dinner. I promised myself before I started this blog that I wouldn’t talk about food too much (something that I wasted pages on when I went to Europe a few years ago!) but this little bistro, Tabac, was a few blocks from the cathedral and recommended by my guidebook. They had the most amazing chicken and mushroom sandwich on focaccia bread, and the bread was so delicious I actually bought more from the waiter (he seemed surprised, but easygoing about it) and ate it on my way back to the hostel. Bloody brilliant; I’m going to have to find some of that bread when I get back to the States.

Well, it’s time for me to finally get some sleep, I think. I say that now, but I’ll bet I’ll still be up two hours from now doing laundry or writing emails or something. I have to be presentable if I’m going to be going to church tomorrow, and you know this is a posh church because Prince Charles was just here a few days ago to visit.

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Living on a train for a night

Posted on June 2nd, 2007
in Britain

I remember once in Madison, I had a horrific experience with the metro bus system that left me stranded halfway across Madison and I had to walk back to the dorms in the middle of the night. Well, imagine that now magnified several dozen times in terms of horribleness.

I’ve been on trains now for the past 7 hours, coming from Edinburgh to end up where I am now, somewhere around Manchester. It all started at the end of the Scottish tour, where I was supposed to follow my schedule that I had, be at the Haymarket station in Edinburgh, and then catch a train to Wigan, and then there to my night in Liverpool for touring tomorrow. However, Michael suggested to me that I just get off his bus at Waverly station, the main one for Edinburgh, because any west-running trains would stop at Haymarket in a couple of minutes. I was unsure for a few minutes, but agreed with his logic and followed his instructions. This would prove to be my undoing.

Everything went sour at Waverly and it was such a simple thing too. I found a train to Glasgow which of course would stop at Haymarket on the way out of town to the west. My train from Haymarket to Wigan left at 18:57, and this train to Glasgow should arrive at Haymarket at 18:45. A smaller station though; I figured there wouldn’t be any problem.
However, the train to Glasgow was about 5 minutes late, so as I was getting my stuff settled on the train when it finally arrived, I heard the following announcement: “Due to the lateness of the 18:45 train to Glasgow, it has been cancelled and is now the 19:00 train. We apologise for any inconvenience.” I looked at my paper and at my watch. Nineteen hundred…this was the cincher; it meant I would be missing my 18:57 ride out of Scotland.

After pounding my head against the wall a little bit, I rushed from the train and to the information centre and begged the man inside to tell me the remaining options to get me from Edinburgh to Liverpool. He made a few wise-ass comments about my timing but finally told me that I could take a train that was about to leave, to get to York, to get to Manchester, to get to Liverpool. However the kicker is that the layover between Manchester and Liverpool was about 4 hours of sitting at a station, and I would be arriving in Liverpool at about 5:30 in the morning.

I did have a nice ride between Edinburgh and a little past York – I met a nice Chinese girl, a student at Leeds’ college, who was riding back from Newcastle. She and her boyfriend had just broken up, literally a few hours before and she was pretty distraught. We were both heading the same way, so we spent the next couple hours talking about our lives and relationships, et cetera. She was wistful about the whole situation and what she was going to do with her life, and so I did my best to help her feel better about things and get her to think positively, using both personal experience and things I’d learned in my classes about relationship tendancies. Times like those that I miss being a psychology major; I like to help people with their emotions and thoughts but I’m like a plumber without his complete set of wrenches – I can only do so much with the background and limited education that I gained before switching degree programs.

Anyway, I arrived at Manchester at about 12:50 in the morning. Wandered around the station for about an hour, both inside and outside. The station was filled with the sort of drunken, unruly people you’d expect to be in a large city on a Friday night, and the police were not an uncommon sight. I staggered about, bleary-eyed, thinking about finding a loo but not wanting to spend the 30 pence to get into it. I could have killed for a McDonald’s burger and chips at that point, but the restaurants in the station were of course closed at 1 in the morning. So hungry…

So I got back on the train, where I am now. I’m heading back northwards to York, where at which point I will wait calmly for the next train to Manchester and go south again. The conductor has said that we’ll be in York by 3:45 or so, so then I can take another train back as soon as I can and maybe by that point the trains to Liverpool will be running. I just don’t want to wait in a station filled with crazed yokels; I’d rather be on a train where folk are slightly more controlled and the seats are comfy.

My only thought now is (besides finding a toilet as quickly as possible)…there are trains running all over the east side of the country, and I must have been only ten miles from Liverpool…and there are no trains to that?

Bloody ‘ell.

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Category: Britain

A summary – back in the U.S.A.

Last of London, homeward bound

Pinch me, I’m in London

Great Britain, full circle

Liverpool – Beatles, Football, and Cathedrals

Living on a train for a night