Hello there, friends… family… random visitors… from England! As I type this, I am travelling north on a GNER train from London to Leeds at 11:20am local time, or 6:20am US Eastern, on Monday the 19th of September. In a nice touch, they provide power outlets for laptops and mobile phones and – being the prepared traveller that I am – I have the proper converter plug handy, so I thought I would get started in writing about my travels thus far. Apparently they also generally provide wireless internet access – but I only know this because they announced their apologies that it would not be available on this trip. :( Considering the exorbitant fee I paid for this ticket and the horrendous exchange rate I got for my US cash at the airport, though, I am happy for any small luxuries.
Returning to being a prepared traveller for a moment, however: First of all, we left rather late for the airport. Entirely my fault for not packing early. On the way to the airport, I realized first that I had forgotten the blanket that I was going to take with me and then that I had forgotten my electric razor. The razor irks me the most, I think, because it’s a little thing that will drive me crazy. Hopefully my parents will be able to send it over, or I’ll be able to pick up a hand razor for a reasonable price. Besides those couple things I forgot (hopefully those are the only things..), what I did wrong was pack too much. I knew I had, but I didn’t have time to weed things out a bit; I had to leave for the airport or I’d miss my flight. I seem to do that rather frequently with packing, I pack too much stuff. The thing is that the suitcases don’t seem that heavy when you just lift them by themselves briefly, but carrying or pulling them around the airport gets to be a royal pain in the arse (hehe, arse).
Ah, I have to interject here to say that we just passed a herd of cattle out to pasture. Which, I don’t know, I guess I find of note because I plan to stay away from beef in England on account of mad cow disease. And there go some lambs.. There is a surprising amount of farmland out here. I would have thought cities and towns would be closer together, but we have been passing farmland for about fifteen minutes now. I would take pictures to show you, but I’ve tried and discovered that a speeding blur isn’t very interesting. We must be travelling fairly fast.
In general, coming from New England as I have, the land and towns really don’t seem that much different. The architecture is of a different style, to be sure, and things look different – like their subway, the underground – and of course there are the accents, but all in all the differences are rather like going from one city to another, going from, say, New York to Boston. From what I’m seeing on the train, the land is also very similar – similar vegetation and plots, except that there isn’t the sheer space that there is in the US; plots are right next to each other, without any wild space in-between. No, I think the biggest differences I will see will be in the customs and people’s cultural attitudes. I’ve felt uncomfortable the whole trip so far, because it is strange. The money is different, the accents are different and not always understandable, and people behave a bit differently. Mainly, I think, I’m worried about doing the right things and not sticking out like a sore thumb.
Tags: Heavy Things, Life
Wow, pictures of an airplane wing and of the blurry countryside. So exciting!
Wow, a pointless and ill-thought-out comment. So interesting!
Well I had to say something, but I had nothing of substance to say.