Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sydney's informal travel tips

When you're traveling, remember to check the weather. Especially if you happen to be in England. The thought never really crossed our minds until this morning, when we woke up to three fresh inches of snow on the ground in Shipley. Our trek up the hill at 10 am to the train station was a direct path this time (thank goodness!), but oh so ridiculous. What a sight- four American girls with backpacks dragging suitcases through snow while freaking out. Luckily, we left early enough to account for this sort of delay. Arriving in Leeds after a slightly delayed train, we discovered that the wonderful city bus that we had used to travel to the coach (bus) station DOESN'T run on Sundays. A drunk guy tried to tell us how to walk to the station. Riiight. He kept apologizing for how inebriated he was, and we thanked him for the 'help' and quickly walked away. Travel tip #2: A short cab ride is very cheap when split amongst 4 passengers. And that, my friends, is how we avoided a fiasco en route to the bus. One cafe latte and a bathroom break later, we finally boarded the bus. No unexpected layovers this time, but we had a few brief moments of panic in Milton Keynes when our connecting ride was a few minutes late. These few minutes provided opportunity for me to buy a water bottle.. which ended up making me miserable. For some dumb reason, I can't drink the dadgum thing slow. Ever. About 40 minutes outside Oxford, I could no longer focus on anything else aside from the urgency to find a loo, fast. I reached a state of desperation, and caved to use the charter bus restroom. Your mental picture of the whole thing is probably bad enough. Sorry that you'll probably smell that for the rest of the day. Fast forward.. arrival in Oxford. We succumbed to another taxi ride back to the house. Please read this with mercy.. we had been traveling from 10 am to 5 pm, and were not enthused about lugging suitcases through another city. For 1 pound 10 each, heck yeah I rode a taxi back to the house! I love spoiling myself on 'vacation'. It pulled up to the front door and everything. It's the little things.

I haven't recovered. Traveling nonstop is stupid exhausting. Dinner here, a little homework there, and 9@9 devo. It's such a great way to start the week back up. Had a little meeting with the people on my Ireland trip, and am SO excited about the trip, which starts late Tuesday night. I laughed so hard tonight that I got side stitches! If that is any indication of how the rest of the week is going to be, I can't wait.

Hitting the hay. Hard.

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