Am I really old enough for a ten year reunion!?

Day 4 - Feb 2 2010

Today is the day for reunions. Yes, more than one! Early in the morning, I jumped on a train in Kings Cross Station in London from Lisa’s flat. Obviously there were a few more steps involved including a seriously blonde moment trying to find which train. You see, the monitor only says the ending point with the stops in between in little tiny font beneath it. I had about 60 seconds before my train was supposed to leave due to the fact that I’m not very speedy in the morning (coupled with poor planning) and started freaking out because I couldn’t see ‘Derby’ anywhere. Well, I wasn’t paying much attention to the small font. Nowhere on my ticket or anywhere did it say which line, the final destination, rail number, nothing! Luckily a man standing there clued me into the fine print…literally. I saw which train and ran off with my bookbag bouncing around like I was in grade school, got to the correct platform, and lept on the train feeling triumphant as is pulled away. Wow. I nearly missed the train! Also to help you visualize this, the Harry Potter train station scenes were all filmed in King’s Cross and apparently there’s a cart stuck in the wall at Platform 9 ¾ in honor of it. Luckily I didn’t need a flying car to get me to Derby. Once on the train I pulled my laptop out and started typing away and discovered about an hour into the trip there are electrical outlets as well, then got off in Derby and saw a poster advertising free internet aboard my train that I didn’t take advantage of. Doh! Strike two for blonde moments.

No worry. I got off the platform and met my sorority sister Linnea, whom I haven’t seen in 7 years! It’s been so long, she now has curly hair! We went for lunch at a place near the station called ‘Orleans’, and I enjoyed the irony that they meant the one in Louisiana, not the French village so much closer. After some traditional fish and chips and a great 2 ½ hour conversation, Linnea headed back to Rolls Royce for a meeting and I was able to catch an earlier train to Leeds. I was feeling quite proud of myself, as I caught this train with only a minute to spare, though this time it wasn’t because of poor planning, it was luck. Had I been there one minute later I would have had to wait an hour to get my original train. Once in Leeds I procured a roundtrip ticket to Harrogate so I could check into my hotel before meeting my high school friends for dinner in Leeds. I got off the train in Harrogate and was suddenly filled with images that sparked memories from 10 years before. I saw the Victoria mall, Body Shop, Marks and Spencer, and WH Smith I always wandered around and the drab but characteristic yellow and red of the local buses. I was in North Yorkshire! Additionally, it was snowing! I can’t believe it, but there was beautiful flakes dances around and dissolving as they hit the ground. It snowed once in the three years I lived in England, but apparently, they were quite hit this winter with many snow days.

I only had 25 minutes to get to my hotel and back to ensure I had time to get lost in Leeds finding the dinner spot. While I had a map printed out, on old British streets that all curve (instead of the nice gridded straight streets of Phoenix), with not a street sign in sight, and a strong desire not to look too touristy by reading the map for too long (gasp!), you know I got lost. Not severely so, but the streets had changed just enough, and my memory had dimmed, leaving out important details, so I wandered for a while, before finally finding my way to the Old Swan. Sounds majestic and quaint, right? That’s what I thought when I booked it. It turns out (according to Lindsey, as I have not confirmed this with my parents) that we stayed at the Old Swan our last night in Harrogate, splurging on the charming B&B instead of staying on the military base. I have no memory of this whatsoever. It just goes to show how useless it is to do nice things for kids as they’ll only remember a small portion of it.

So my (apparent) second visit to the Swan was lovely. It’s set up on a hill and is the supposed site for where Agatha Christie stayed during the 10 days she disappeared when the whole of England was looking for her. There’s a plaque that says this in the lobby. I ran up to my room, threw my things on the really nice bed and had to stop to admire how nicely everything was decorated. A typical British B&B has the most gaudy fabrics and designs that all somehow conflict with each other. It’s often an assault for the eyes to see the hideous bedspread (that alone is a gross pattern) mixed with the awful wallpaper (again, bad pattern), multicolored carpet (I assume there’s a pattern though it’s never obvious), and really busy drapes. You’d think the decorator was blind except for the fact that both drapes match. Sometimes I want to look at the different rooms in the hotel to see if each room was maybe themed and they just accidentally mixed the themes. Additionally, the rooms are typically quite small, half the size of most American hotel rooms. I’m not trying to sound rude, just illustrate the room I was expecting, especially since I booked a single room. I literally stopped in my tracks to the see enormous disparity between my expectations and the very quaint room I was standing in. The drapes coordinated with the wallpaper, bedspread and floor. The bathroom had a giant bathtub and standalone sink. I wasn’t expecting a shower. This was a very exciting turn of events! (I was relieved to see that the doorknobs on either side of the bathroom door didn’t match. One was silver and the other gold. Phew…there was still some order to the universe).

Once I gathered my composure, I fast walked back to the train station, very aware of how sore my calves were from St Paul’s the previous day. This time I got to the platform with 3 minutes to spare. Nice huh? I went to Leeds and wandered around while waiting for my friends. The third and final blonde moment of the day was when I realized I was an hour early after all that rushing. Oh well, at least I got to finish my first book of the trip.

I had a lovely dinner at Nandos – Portugeuse sit down fast food…. if that makes any sense. It was a nice restaurant, and great to see my friends Kirstie, Claire, and Emily again. It’d been 10 years since I left England and though we’d corresponded a bit over facebook, it was a true reunion. Finding out about jobs, boys, houses, college experiences, and the good ole days of GCSE’s at St John Fisher’s. Oh and their only request from the States was Hot Tamales. Yup that awesome cinnamon candy is Claire’s favorite, that she discovered when I had the great idea to buy candy from the base and sell it to my friends at school. It turns out (as I learned from my very red faced father about a month into this scheme when I was printing out order forms) that this was some kind of illegal trafficking and he could be kicked out of the Air Force and be deported to America. Ha…oops! Anywho I didn’t charge for the candy this time…

We closed the place and while waiting for the last train back to Harrogate, I loitered in the McDonalds using their free internet and enjoying a Tika Masala Chicken Wrap. Yes, in Britain, McDonalds has Indian food for quite a good price and a really pleasant taste. I made the train with plenty of time headed to the Swan, with only one wrong turn, feeling very grateful for the dry run earlier. I took a steamy hot bath to relieve my achy bones (no I’m not seventy, I’m just not used to so much exercise) set two alarms and called it a night in my lovely room.

(Yes I realize these posts are getting longer, but a lot has happened that I don’t want to forget!)

Books: Finished – 1, Currently reading – 3 others on 3 different mediums (laptop ebook, actual book, audiobook)

Summary: Long lovely day of reuinions, trains, 3 blonde moments (as all things come in 3’s) and memories of North Yorkshire