Early that next morning, we headed for the airport to drop off the car and fly to the UK. We have little trouble navigating the streets and find ourselves loosing what has become a trusted friend at the Avis car return. We have now determined that our car is a Seat. I had never heard of it but determined that it is a Spanish car owned by the same company as Porche and VW. It is not sold in the United States. The Seat is a diesel with a 5 speed transmission. It got great fuel mileage and is very responsive. It had plenty of room for the two of us and all of our gear and yet it was small and very maneuverable. All in all it was a great car and served us well. I think the total rental cost for the time since Barcelona was 850 Euros. And they didn’t even charge us for Jim’s tollroad direction changing attempts that involved a little off roading and some front end damage!
The flight was unexceptional other than the sandwich was pretty good and it was nice to be on British Air. We navigated terminal 3 at Heathrow and headed to the “Tube.” The Tube is what the Brits call their underground railroad. It runs all the way through London with a stop, it seems, about every 300 yards. It takes about an hour to get from Heathrow to King’s Cross station. (That’s the one the Harry Potter took to Hogwarts.) There is a train from King’s Cross to Cambridge every half hour. We made great time and ended up sitting on the curb outside the train station waiting for Phil.
Phil and I had been in communication via the internet and the Satphone, but somehow all of my technology was not functioning well. (technology was functioning but Jim did not have Phil’s number on him!) Ok… so we patiently wait and enjoy the beautiful weather and watch the bike riders.
I guess, honestly, I have to accept the responsibility for the fact that I had very little way to get ahold of Phil and tell him that we had arrived early. I did not put his phone number on my computer so I could access it without being on the internet. I did not have the number in my Satphone and my Cell phone does not work in the UK. I could have accessed Phils number on my cell but the battery was dead as we have not used it in two weeks. The Satphone minutes are down to the last few minutes with little time left to make a mistake. I checked “The Book” and I had not put his number in it. I tried to find a wireless internet connection at the station, but one was not available. I called my office on the Satphone, but the ladies were taking their sweet time arriving at the office so when I called no one answered. So there G and I sat on the curb in the shade next to short term parking. Oh, I forgot to mention that Phil and I had completely worked out all of the trip from the plane to the station, but I could not remember whether he was going to meet us at the station at 17:00 or 7pm. I thought it was 17:00 and G thought we should go with that and chill out. She read a book and made herself comfortable on the sidewalk while I continued to weigh my options on contacting Phil. Finally, the ladies at the office (Gina that is) answered the phone. I only have about 3 minutes of airtime left on the Satphone so I really couldn’t talk, which must have been frustrating to Gina, but I needed Phil’s cell number. She gave it to me and I had enough time left to contact Phil. It is very difficult for a person who comes from competence to have the wheels come off even when the situation is by no means threatening. I had a good laugh at myself and considered how I would handle this type of situation differently so this type of thing did not happen again in a more serious situation.
We made it home with Phil in his little car. Phil and Zoe do not live far from the station in Cambridge which makes sense because Cambridge is not that big. We got cleaned up and visited for awhile and we went to an English pub to meet Zoe for dinner. I said it was an English Pub, which it was, but it was owned by people from Malayasia so the food was not English. We had PadTai chicken or Sweet and Sour chicken, just about the same type of food we would get at Thai-O-Rama in Phoenix. Not exactly what you would expect from an English Pub, but excellent. We headed back to Phil and Zoe’s and crashed hard in their wonderful bedroom upstairs with the wooden windows wide open and the evergreen trees smiling at us all night long.
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