running into the dark underground, all the subways around created great sound; to my motion fatigue, farewell

From the time I stepped off the plane in London, things never stopped happening until I arrived at Jack and Jan’s home.

First, off the plane, and down a long hallway to customs, stopping at a restroom on the way to freshen up. Then the customs adventure. Then finding my bag, which had been moved off the carousel because I took so long to get there. Then getting my money changed into pounds. It was a 3£ fee for getting up to 200£ changed, so I decided to go ahead and change that much. I asked how much it was in dollars, and counted out the amount.

“200 pounds twopence,” he said, and handed it to me. I tucked the pound notes into my envelope, and then stared in awed delight at the copper coin in my hand. Tuppence, really and truly!

The next thing was getting upstairs to the travel information center, stopping before I got there in order to consolidate my luggage (which meant putting my pillow into my suitcase and attaching my coat and jacket to my suitcase with a handy loop strap). The travel information lady gave me a map of the London tube system, and told me where the terminal station was.Happily for me, the Picadilly line, which is the one that starts at Heathrow airport, is also the line that Kings Cross station is on, which is where I needed to go.

So I went to the terminal station – which was right through a set of doors – and figured out how to buy the ticket I needed from the self-service kiosk without any trouble. I did have trouble, however, getting through the gates – I felt dumb when a man had to show me how to insert my ticket so they would open, since it worked just the same as getting on the subway in Greece – or into Disneyworld (except not with the fingerprint thing).

Starting out on the tube was embarrassing because my luggage seemed so dreadfully bulky and I didn’t know whether I was supposed to take it with me by my seat or leave it in the luggage place and sit down – I couldn’t sit next to the luggage place because the seats were taken. So I ended up standing in the luggage place with it. Fortunately at the first stop someone left an end seat so I could put my suitcase in the luggage area and sit by it. After that I saw lots of people put their luggage in the spot and sit anywhere in the row, so I felt a bit silly.

After about 20-30 minutes, we arrived at Kings Cross, and I got off. I was glad there were lots of signs to tell me how to get to the rail part of the station. But then there was a split, and platforms 1-12 were on one side and 13-20something on the other, and it didn’t say which cities went with which platforms! I was standing there, looking around for a sign or a map or something, when a man asked if I needed help.

“I’m trying to figure out which way to go for getting to Peterborough,” I explained. He pointed me the right way, and I went.

I couldn’t use the self-service kiosk because it didn’t take cash and wouldn’t take my debit card, so I went to the ticket counter. The nice thing about all the delays was that it was now off-peak hours, which saved me a lot of money on my ticket.

I chose the slow train because it was about 5£ cheaper and only arrived about twenty minutes later, and I had no objection to spending more time on the train. It was to leave in only a couple minutes, so I made a dash for the pay phone and made a quick call to Jan to tell her I’d be at thePeterborough station at 2 o’clock, then ran for the train.

Except it wasn’t the right train, so I had to ask the man where to go. It was platform 9B (:D), so I ran to get there. There was a train there for Peterborough – I didn’t know if it was the slow one or the fast one, or how to find out, so I decided to just get on and hope for the best. I found a seat fairly near a luggage spot.

That train ride was so wonderful. I took a few movies and pictures out the window, but they don’t really capture how beautiful everything was.

A bit of English village:

The stones under the tracks - what are they called, Bram? - were blue and pink granite, like the Benjamin Islands.

The station name "Biggleswade" made me think of Marshwiggles.

This station name, on the other hand, made me think of getting married.

Now a couple movies:

Just some English countryside:

One neat thing with the movies is that when we go through a tunnel you can see inside the train because of the reflection on the glass.

More countryside, and a bit of city:

I arrived at Peterborough at two, so I must have gotten on the right train. Getting out of the station was difficult because I had to go up and over the tracks via (in England they say it vi–uh not vee–uh ) the walkway, and there wasn’t a lift, and my suitcase is heavy.

As I was coming to the last flight up, a redhaired girl just a little younger than me asked, in a voice just exactly like the girl who plays Susan in LWW, if I wanted help. She asked me in a very English phrase, but I can’t remember what it was now. I accepted, and we carried it up together, and I thanked her. I wish I could have talked with her, because she seemed like a friend.

Someone else, a man, helped me get it down the steps, and then I went through some doors, and then there were Jan and Jack! (Jan is, incidentally, prettier than her facebook picture makes her look.) We greeted each other as though we had known each other forever. And that’s how it’s been ever since. They treat me – and I treat them – as though they’re an aunt and uncle I’ve grown up with since I was a baby. There’s no strangeness. They feel like family, not friends, and certainly not like acquaintances I only met yesterday.

When we got into their car, Jan told me to sit in the front, and I went to the door, and Jack said, laughing,

“I don’t think you want that side – unless you’re driving!” I burst out laughing and went around to the correct side. I know that the English drive on the left side, but I’d forgotten that the steering wheel is on the left as well!

The drive was as lovely as the train ride – better, because I could see out the front window, and because I was chatting with Jan and Jack, about all kinds of things about England and about me and about them. And everything so incredibly beautiful. What possesses us to build such ugly buildings in the States? In England all the buildings are brick, and the grass is so green already...

We came into Gorefield, and turned down their street, and – but you can see for yourself.

Never mind - you can't. Blogger won't upload my video. Grr. Oh well, I'll try it again tomorrow. At any rate, the house is beautiful (and tiny), and so is the back garden, and my room is lovely. It is yellow, and it has a queen size wooden bed with white bedding, and I have my own little closet and three drawers for me. I love my room.

Then we chatted for a little in the living room, and then I went and unpacked everything and got it all put where I wanted it. In the middle of that we had dinner – oh my, but Jack can cook. Mashed potatoes and a sort of pot roast except made with turkey, and cauliflower cooked perfectly. And, to my surprise, Jack asked me if I’d like a glass of wine with my meal. I accepted, since I liked the wine we had at Shayna’s house once, but unfortunately I didn’t like this one. This made me feel a little awkward at dinner but Jack wasn’t offended.

After dinner I wrote the post I put up yesterday, and then took a shower. It took forever for me to get to bed because I had a hard time with uploading the pictures and getting them where I wanted them.

Then, when I did get to bed, I was too excited to sleep even though I was so tired, and I don’t think I fell asleep until about 1am.

[In case you’d like to know what I’m doing at the moment – Jack has come home and we’re going to have lunch. I’m heating carrot and coriander soup on the stove, and he’s gone out to get some other ingredient – he didn’t tell me what it was. Very mysterious.]

I woke up very happy. Jan had already gone to work, and I didn’t hear Jack. I got myself all dressed and ready – making along the way the happy discovery that the headphone I brought for the mp3 player is loud enough that I can use it as a speaker – and when I emerged from my room Jack was just coming down the hall, about to leave for an appointment. He showed me where the cereal and bowls and spoons were before he left.

I had Oatabies (same thing as “Weetabies” but made with oats) with honey for breakfast, and read The Enchanted Castle. Then I went online, wrote a short note to Papa and sent him my blog post, and started writing this. And it’s taking me a dreadfully long time, it seems, as it’s now a quarter past two. We’ve had lunch now – the extra ingredient was “single cream” – it’s 30% cream – it was supposed to be “double” but they didn’t have any at the shop.

And so now, I am going to post this, and then Jack and I are going to have a cup of tea, and I am going for a walk around the village while a lady comes to see how much they should charge to rent out this house, if they decide to, while they are in Greece.

Well, I didn’t end up taking a walk because I was uploading the pictures and videos and it took until time to go pick up Jan from work and take her to her physio (PT) appointment, and I went along so as to see Wisbech. (Incidentally, it’s Wis-beach, not Wis-beck. Oops.)

I took pictures of the front garden of the house next to the physio office because it was so pretty, but I accidentally deleted them, so I can’t show them to you…

While she was at her appointment, John and I went into Wisbech and bought some antibiotic ointment (antiseptic cream is what it’s called here) for me because for some reason while traveling I got hangnails and they got infected. Then we bought buns, but they didn’t have the kind with cream in them, so we bought cream from a store. They call it “double cream” and “single cream” instead of heavy and light cream.

The market in Wisbech is so nice. You have to park in a separate car park and then you walk to all the shops. So it feels very nice and old fashioned. In Wisbech there’s a roundabout where rabbits used to live in the middle of it. There was a great debate between those who loved them and those who hated them, and they planted plants that rabbits don’t eat so that they could stay if they wanted but they wouldn’t keep destroying the plants, and they painted the names of the rabbits from Watership down on the boats that are there for decoration, but then the rabbits all caught some kind of disease and died. Which is too bad. I should have liked to see them. Jack says people would throw carrots and cabbages out the window for them.

All the houses and nearly all the buildings here are brick, and so pretty. Even little ones. And even run down places still look beautiful because the brick is all crumbly and ivy covered. And moss grows over everything. It’s very green here in general. Everywhere you go looks like something out of a book, really and truly. It’s even better than I imagined.

Jack says he wants to take me up to Norfolk sometime because it’s beautiful, and we can go hiking.

A couple things Jack and Jan say are “That’s a good job” (about anything that’s good, not just something someone did) and “Steady on.” There’s more but I can’t think of them at the moment.

They don’t have tea-time, but sometimes they call supper “tea,” and they drink tea all day long. It’s a good job that I learned to like it before coming, or I’d be sadly out of things.

I asked them what an American accent sounds like to them. Jack said that my accent sounds very polite, and that I have very clear diction, but that southern accents sound slangy. Jan said that my accent was mild for an American accent. I think that’s because I’m picking up the English accent. It’s nice that it comes across as that I have a mild American accent rather than as though I’m trying to speak with an English accent.

Really, all the things that they said might just be how I personally talk rather than how an American accent sounds, so it didn’t really answer my question, but all the things were complimentary, so that’s nice.

I haven’t gotten comfortable enough to talk a lot yet, or to do much about the house on my own initiative. I can only talk what I think, and when driving that’s mostly just repeatedly “how beautiful everything is!” which doesn’t make good conversation more than once or twice. Fortunately, Jack is a good talker, so we don’t have uncomfortable silences. And really, silences haven’t been uncomfortable anyhow. I do wish I could stop feeling slightly nervous – I’m just trying so hard to do things nicely and the right way and not bump things about or do anything bothersome, and it’s not because of them, either, they’re very relaxed, it’s just me wanting to be perfect… but I’m always like this in any new situation until I figure things out. By the time four or five days have gone by I’ll feel perfectly normal.

I am hoping to turn in early tonight and “wake up like an early birdie” tomorrow. And take my walk around Gorefield. I don’t know what their plans for tomorrow are yet, although I do know that they want to go over my schedule and figure out when to do things sometime soon.

We’re working on that now - the results of which are that I now have a ticket to the Owl City concert the night before I leave, and a hotel in London for that night. Jan is now trying to find the cheapest way for me to get to John O'Groats.

Things are going rather well, I'd say.