The last night in London was nicely quiet and surprisingly long. Going to bed before midnight has its good sides, too.
I awoke to a great sunny autumn-morning, had one last full english breakfast and then went on my way. The flight was uneventful. But still not loving Ryanair.
So, how was the trip? Here it comes, the blow by blow account:
I got up rather early last friday. To be exact around 6. Went to the airport after some frantic last-minute packing, took the plane and showed up in Stansted around 11. The first thing I discovered was that England is a lot warmer than Berlin at this time of year. I needed not have packed my gloves after all. Bugger.
I found the cheapest transportation into London short of walking, a bus that dropped me off at Liverpool Street Station. A short look on the map should have told me that this was the wrong line, since I had an appointment under Nelson's column and the bus to Victoria would have suited me better. One never stops learning, right?
That way I got to wander around a bit. After all, I was way too early anyhow.
Pretty much exactly at 15:00 Linda and Rachel showed up. We had a short chat but postponed the real catching up until later, since Rachel wanted to go to the National Gallery.
In the evening we met a friend of Linda and had pub-food for dinner.
Since I had not been able to reach the people who I wanted to couchsurf with, I decided to sleep at the hostel. After we had dropped Linda off at the hostel (and stored my stuff), Rachel and I went out. We ended up driving around with busses, looking at London at night.
On sturday the girls wanted to go to Portobello Road market. I came along but let them to their market quickly and instead found me two shops for second hand books and CDs. I picked up a copy of Douglas Adam's Dirk-Gently-books (two books is not enough to call it a saga or cycle in my opinion) as well as a great recording of Schütz' Musikalische Exequien.
Later we went to a completely different part of town to go to some bee-related shop Linda's friend had told us about. I got my revenge, though, by dragging them into a bookstore later on. I did not find what I was looking for ("Moab is my Washpot" by Stephen Fry, which I got this morning on my way to the airport) but instead could do some practical literary advisory for Rachel (i.e. bought her a book; "Good Omens" by Gaiman and Pratchett, which I can only recommend warmly to everyone who enjoys english humor).
That evening saw Rachel and me realizing that we had nothing to dress up in for Halloween. So we went to the cinema to see "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" which is a rather enjoyable little piece of fantasy-cinema. Also we could watch sexy dead people in it ;-)
On sunday we originally had planned to go to Bath (the town, not the facility), but Linda did not feel so well and Rachel and I decided that the weather (rain, rain, rain) was more suitable to a day spend indoors, preferably a nice museum. So we were good little tourists and saw the Tower.
After a bit more bussing around we decided to go to the movies again and ended up in "Surrogate", a quite OK sci-fi-flick.
On monday we got our car and went to York (via Oxford). The trip had a bit adrenalin in it but apart from that was pleasant. I did, however, finally got sick and tired of fish and chips. It was good that Rachel and I had indian food for dinner ;-) It was really good indian food, too. Us two then took a walk through York, which was cut short by bad weather.
Yesterday was to be my last day with the two. We poked around York for a bit. Unfortunately the minster was closed during the morning due to preparations for some big event.
Also we go into a hailstorm during our tour.
At this point I decided that I should take at least a few pictures, even if it was only with my cellphone. So here are the first two, from York's old abbey:
notice the rather dramatic weather...
Then we went to Howard castle. After finding out that the Tunnells are a (rather disgraced) side-line of the Howard family, I had to take a picture of Linda and Rachel in front of their ancestral home.
The park was beautiful, too and we were almost alone in it.
After that, they dropped me off at York station. It was finally time to say good-bye. I was very sad, but the world moves on.
Over the whole trip the two made it rather clear to me that they would very much appreciate me going to Snohomish, rather sooner than later. The ways they presented their point to persuade me were a bit different, though.
At the ticket counter I was told that the next train to London would cost me 85 Pounds, but if I took a later one, I could get a ticket for 35. Which I of course did.
That way, I had a chance to see the Minster and the remains of the castle.
After waving Linda and Rachel a last good-bye, I went back into town. At the Minster, they were just preparing for the evensong service. Seeing a chance of getting into the Minster for free, I decided to attend the service. The name also promised good music to take place.
I was a little bit disappointed. The choir sang very well, but the congregation was not allowed to sing anything. On the other hand, the service was over very quickly.
I took a quick look at the castle (unfortunately, my cell-phone had just died, so no pictures) and then jumped unto the train to London.
Thus ends the lecture for today...
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