London wrapup

We have left the UK! We spent 1 week in London staying with Barbara's sister, Sue, and her husband Jeff. Staying at their house, that is. Sue and Jeff were on a vacation of their own when we arrived, so we spent all but 1 full day alone in their house Very gracious of them! We spent the first two days there getting over jetlag and recovering from sitting too much on the airplane. Then 3 days visiting the sites (mostly free) in London. Then the temperatures spiked, a lot, and we decided to take a day off from London. We did go on a nice 3 hour hike along the canal near Sue's house (gotta build up those muscles for Ireland), but by noon time it was a little too hot to want to go further. We took the rest of the day off, reading, planning our next bit of itinerary, and visiting with Sue and Jeff, who had finally returned. We heard later on the news that people were passing out from the heat in the London underground, which I completely believe, given how hot it had been down there the day before which was much more moderate in terms of maximum temperature. All in all I'm glad we took the vacation from vacation!

Next day we headed north to Cambridge. Sue offered to drive us to the bus station. Riding on the wrong side of the street felt really, really wrong. Panic inducing, at moments. And I thought it was hard to deal with crossing the streets by foot! I cannot imagine the process one would have to go thru to feel comfortable driving there.

Our train to Cambridge was uneventful, but not long after getting there it started to thunder. Not long after that comes the part you east-coasters would predict, though it came as a relative surprise to us: rain. Lots of it. We had planned to do a walking tour of Cambridge, and had gotten so far as finding a museum coat check to drop our backpacks in so we wouldn't have to lug them everywhere, and also to increase our chances at being able to sneak into the colleges without paying tourist fees (my plan: claim to be a prospective student). When the rain started to fall we had just gotten to the outer edges of the more historical part of Cambridge, just outside of kings college cathedral. After only a few more minutes of rain we decided we had better turn around in a hurry. The next hour was spent inside the museum were we had dropped our backpacks, looking at some very nice art, and a huge amount of Egyptian artifacts (so much so, that one wonders if any are left in Egypt!). Not at all what we had planned for our day trip, but fun nonetheless.

We had hoped the rain would finish up before we wanted to leave, but by the time we were hungry for some food it was still coming down enough that we decided it was unwise to get even furhter away from the trainstation. So we headed back to the train, and about halfway there the rain really started to fall in earnest, the kind of downpoor that soaks your bag in minutes. Plus the lightning was getting very close. We took refuge in the admissions office for "open university" and waited out the lightening, but not the rain. We had packed some rain ponchos, and jymm was pretty sure her pack was watertight, so once we felt it was safe we beat a path back to the train station. At that point the rain more or less stopped, but having been once-soaked we were twice shy and decided to move on to (via train) to the hotel we were staying in for the night, chosen so that we could be near the airport.

Being near the airport was important because our flight left at 7am next morning, and given some of the unusual bits of language on our ticket  (airplane doors lock at 6:30, and a somewhat obtuse discussion of bag and visa check desks) we felt the need to get there by 4:30. Feeling somewhat silly, I might add, since we expected the airport to be dead at that hour of the day. Instead it was the busiest airport I've ever seen, given it's size. Long lines, barely anywhere to sit, and not much more space to stand. Even so, we did manage to jump through all the required hoops and get to our gate waiting area only 35 minutes after we walked in the door. And that bit about doors locking at 6:30? Well, we didn't even start boarding until 6:40. Oh well. The important part is we made it to our next destination on time, and with no suprize fees to pay. As I type, we are sitting in the Baden baden train station in Germany, waiting to go see Boris, a friend of mine from my days in grad school when I worked for a german PI.

Today's photo is a shot of london. Given all the rain and trainstations we've been around, there's not much else to show of note from the last few days. I expect that will change soon!