Monday, June 30, 2014

Fixing the flat, and a walk through Musselburgh

I think Ayden is still a little leery of us. I will try to buy her affections with sweets.

After breakfast, Bella and I walked with Steve and Seren to school. It was sweet, because all over the neighborhood, other parents were walking their kids, converging at the school. One of the community bonuses of bigger city living.

First order of business was to get the tire fixed. Steve and I (and Bella and Ayden) drove to the nearest Kwik-Fit in Portobello, and they guys were very nice and said it would be done very quickly. Bella made a hot chocolate in the waiting lounge. We considered taking a walk while we waited, but they seemed to be getting to it pretty fast. After about 15 minutes, it was done. They never even asked to see my contract.

Outfitted with a new tire, we stopped at a grocery store (Lidl...even cheaper than Aldi!) for some items for lunch and dinner. I got gummy worms for Ayden, even though she was already warming to us.

We returned home, and had a bit of lunch. Steve and I played some music together in the backyard (for the first time live for years) while the kids drew with sidewalk chalk. We had accrued an entire suitcase of dirty clothes, so Cristina washed and hung clothes on the line.


We went for a walk. We checked out the River Esk near Steve and Laura's house, walked down High Street, saw Ayden's nursery, then walked to Musselburgh beach. It was a warm, sunny day for Scotland, but the Floridians were wearing light jackets. A few kids were actually playing in the water. I bought everyone an ice cream from a food truck called Sizzlers.






Laura picked Seren up from school and met us at the beach. Ayden was tired of walking so Steve and I (and Bella and Seren) drove the car back and the rest walked back.

Dinner was nachos with chili. Amazing dinner #2.

After dinner, I set up my laptop and we pow-wowed about what to do with the rest of our visit. I was about to send my Aberdeen couchsurfing host a message as to what time to expect us, but Steve and Laura had told us several times that we could stay another night with them if we wanted to. The thought of not packing up yet again so soon was very appealing, so Cristina and I sent our Aberdeen host a message that we'd had car trouble (which was true) and were not coming.

We didn't plan out every day for the rest of our Scotland time but Steve made a good list as we discussed, and we knew what we were going to do the next day, which was a fine start.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Liverpool for real, and Scotland

A list of highlights from today:

  • Drove to Liverpool
  • Because of time, we only hit a few Beatles highlights
  • Because it was Sunday, most places were closed, so we couldn't even find a post card
  • I did find the elusive freezer packs (for the cooler) that I'd been looking for, and they were less than a pound for a 2-pack.
  • We ate lunch in the car
  • The drive to Scotland got really pretty when we got off the highway about 30 miles before Edinburgh. I thought nothing could beat the beauty of Denmark, but this was just as pretty with the addition of depth (rolling hills)
  • Steve and Laura's daughters are cute, but shy at first
  • Steve and Laura are excellent cooks and served a chicken and chorizo stew to die for
  • Steve and Laura are very generous to share their one bathroom with five more people for over a week

 A mailbox in Liverpool

 Paul's childhood home. Many Beatles songs were written here.

 The sign says it all

 John Lennon's childhood home. Wild to think he lived here almost half his life.

 The Penny Lane barber shop. Is it the one from the song? The owner sure wants you to think so.


 The Penny Lane roundabout

 The replica gates at Strawberry Fields. A jogging woman took our group picture but they all came out fuzzy.

 Scotland at last. Next time we visit, will crossing this border require a passport check? Hmm...

Seren (in her PJs) with Ash (in her everyday wear) in the Turney-Malone back garden.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Liverpool...or not

I woke up in the warm comfort of a dark room, and as much as I would have liked to sleep in, I needed to get up and put the spare tire on.

Helen has a couple of horses which are stabled on the edge of town. She offered to take Bella to feed and care for the horses, so the two of them were already gone before I even got to the tire-changing.

I got the tire changed, though it took me a little while longer than it should have. I'm unfamiliar with locking lug nuts, so Les educated me (my cars are so old, they just have plain old lug nuts). I also made the mistake of not setting the parking brake. So as I jacked up the car, it seemed like the jack was leaning a little. I asked Les if it looked crooked to him. He asked if I set the brake, and just then the car rocked forward and fell off the jack. Luckily, no body parts were crushed in the learning of this lesson.

Les and I took the car to his tire place (or tyre place, as they spell it here). This is a locally-owned business that Les has used for years. He trusts the owner. I understand the value of a trusted mechanic. They didn't sell the brand that the rental car had, so I called Alamo and they said I needed to take it to a Kwik-Fit (a big chain) because they had a contract with them and no money would have to even change hands. Luckily, there was a Kwik-Fit just half a block farther down the road. I didn't have the rental contract with me (or I didn't think I did) so we went home first and had breakfast.

It turned out the contract had been in the glove box all along (it's a really deep glove box, and I hadn't seen it) so Les and I headed back to Kwik-Fit. They said they were really busy and it would take two (maybe even three) hours. This was around 10:30 am, so we walked home. Our original plan was to drive to Liverpool and see the sights and be back for dinner. But with the car in the shop till 2 or so, that plan was in jeopardy. We thought if they finished the tire early, we'd still run to Liverpool. If not, we'd do Liverpool the next day on our way to Scotland. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

While we waited, Helen took Cristina and the three kids on a walk, while I stayed home and worked on my blog, which I was woefully behind on. It was nice just sitting in the front room overlooking the street with Les, him reading the newspaper, me clicking away on my laptop.

the "front room," which is the reading and TV room (this photo taken Friday evening)

Les got a phone call, which I hoped was Kwik-Fit, but it was Helen saying Bella was tired and could he come pick up some of the tired ones so they didn't have to walk the whole way back.

By 3, it seemed really strange that Kwik-Fit hadn't called, so I called them to check in. It turned out that they had been trying to call me but they had the number wrong. They hadn't been able to replace the tire because the rental agency wasn't answering the phone on the weekend to give them authorization, and without authorization they couldn't change the tire. Since the spare was full-sized, he recommended we drive on the spare and go to a Kwik-Fit on Monday in Edinburgh. If only we'd known this earlier we could have gone to Liverpool on the spare.

Liverpool is about an hour away, but the center of Manchester is only 20 minutes or so. So as an alternative to Liverpool, we drove into Manchester. Some friends had recommended Unicorn grocery and Barbakan bakery across the street. Helen and Les thought they'd be closed, but we got their at 5:30 and they closed at 6. It was a pleasant little health food grocery, though Cristina was disappointed that all their products used agave instead of sugar. Unfortunately, Barbakan was closed.

We headed for the city center, but it was so crowded and parking looked difficult that we settled for just driving through. I felt a little cranky and didn't care too much about Manchester at the moment. I just wanted to get home (home being Glossop).

We spent the rest of the evening checking out the library across the street, shopping for an English flag for Alex's collection, and preparing for dinner. When Helen heard that some members of my family had never eaten lamb chops, she decided to cook lamb for dinner. This is certainly the part of the country for fresh local lamb.

the gorgeous Glossop library across the street from Helen and Les

Dinner was wonderful and everyone enjoyed the lamb chops, the fresh peas, the spinach and boiled potatoes. The second course was a variety of cheeses and crackers. After dinner, I drove to Tesco to get cash from an ATM, breakfast things, and picnic lunch items (a pattern is forming). Fun fact: eggs in stores here are not kept in a fridge. The eggs looked washed (unwashed eggs, like the ones in Costa Rica, don't need to be refrigerated) but they are not kept in a fridge. And bacon like the bacon we have in the States is called streaky bacon, as opposed to back bacon, which is more meat than fat.

In order to facilitate getting to Liverpool earlier, we got a head start on packing a little before bed.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Glossop and the peril of curbs

I got up and took a shower, then walked down to the Tesco Express, a small big-city version of the popular mega-grocery store chain. It reminded me of the little grocery stores you always see in movies that take place in New York. I got things for breakfast, but also things for our picnic lunch on the road to Manchester.

For breakfast, I spooned plain yogurt into five bowls, sliced fresh strawberries and bananas on top, and sprinkled a generous amount of the chocolate granola that we still had from Denmark. Sue said it looked like an awfully healthy breakfast for holiday, but I pointed out that it was chocolate granola. Still kind of a splurge.

Byron House, Sue's beautiful home


The house was so old it didn't originally have bathrooms. So rooms had been converted to bathrooms, and were huge.

We knew today was going to be a long driving day. Sue estimated 4 hours to Manchester. Google said 3 hours 15 minutes. We hoped it might be somewhere in between. We were wrong.

We packed up the car, which went a little better than at the airport; I actually had a sliver of rear visibility.


We took our group photo with Sue in the front garden. I used my wallet under the camera to get the angle right, then set the 10-second timer. Alex and Bella climbed up in a tree and the rest of us stood in front. In case you're wondering why I haven't posted it, it's because I'm saving all the group photos with our hosts for a single post in August.

We said our goodbyes to our wonderful host and headed out of town. 20 minutes down the road, Sue texted to say that I had left my wallet! I really need to stop using it to prop up my camera. We turned around and drove back through the London traffic, retrieved said wallet, and set out again.

Not a whole lot to report about the drive, other than to say that driving from London to Manchester on a Friday afternoon is a bad idea. Traffic was terrible. Like constantly stopping to a standstill on the freeway bad. I had always imagined the drive north would be through idyllic English countryside, the Cotswolds, or All Creatures Great and Small kind of country.

I pictured this:

But this is what it was:

A pull-over picnic area, like Denmark, would have been nice, but we were so behind schedule due to traffic that we ate our picnic lunch in the car while driving. We've really embraced the open-faced sandwich thing from Denmark. Slice of bread, smear of hummus, chunk of tomato or avocado or cucumber,...instant lunch. I had also bought a few Mars bars to junk it up a little bit, UK-style.

We stopped at a service plaza for potty and coffee, and chatted with some girls demonstrating cosmetics. They said we could stay and talk to them forever because they loved our accents. That was a funny turn-around, since we're not used to being the ones with the accents.

The drive took about six hours.

Our couchsurfing hosts, Helen and Les, actually live in a small town called Glossop, about 10 miles from Manchester. Once we finally got off the boring freeway, the scenery was beautiful. Glossop is an old market town in Derbyshire (which is pretty much All Creatures Great and Small). Just as we got close to their house, I attempted to avoid a speed bump and drove too close to the curb. After a low-speed but harsh scrub against the curb, the car immediately drove rough. Cristina told me to stop, and hopping out, she confirmed that I'd blown the front tire. We were very close to the checkered flag (our GPS destination) so I drove on the flat about 50 feet and turned on to the next street. I parked in front of a house that I sort of recognized from my Google street view of Helen and Les's place, and sure enough, I was right in front of their house.


They came out and met us. Les said we'd deal with the tire in the morning. No point in changing it now with it evening and us at the end of our journey for the day. We unloaded the car and got a bit settled.


Dinner was so nice after a long day on the road. Gorgeous chunks of chicken breast, couscous, roasted potatoes, and tomato and avocado salad with slices of fresh cheese. Conversation with Helen and Les was warm and entertaining from the start, and we could tell this would be a pleasant visit.

Bella took to Helen immediately, and I think the sentiment was mutual. Within an hour of meeting, Bella was in the kitchen helping them whip cream for dessert.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Stanley Kubrick Archives--unless you're a film geek, you might want to skip this post

I look slightly crazed as I prepare to cross the street to the University of Arts London

In planning this trip, I had discovered that the Stanley Kubrick archives, containing the film director's private papers, scripts, props from films, etc, was housed in the University of Arts London and it was free to the public (as long as you made a reservation). Even though I am the only one in my family that gives a hoot about Kubrick, I made a one-hour reservation and worked the visit into our already-crazy full day. This appointment was really the only thing that had a specific time, so even though we started our London day much later than I had planned, I still made it to the university in time. It's in a section of town called Elephant and Castle.



I left the family at Harrod's and took the tube down to Elephant and Castle. Checked in at the desk of the college (they had me in their system), got a visitor badge, and then got lost in the building trying to follow the guy's directions to the archives. Asked someone else, finally arrived.


Down the stairs, behind those glass doors, are the archives.
The red chairs reminded me of chairs from the space station in 2001.

Sarah, who I had corresponded with via email, greeted me and showed me my shelf of items that I had asked to look at. I wasn't allowed to take photos, but here are the things I saw (copy and pasted from the online archive directory):

To Do lists: SK/1/2/3/7
The file contains handwritten lists by Kubrick, referring to various activities throughout the day including his notes relating to subjects such as the story for Wartime Lies [which later called called Aryan Papers] or lines where he was simply trying a pen. It also includes typed Christmas Gift lists for 1997.

A Life in Pictures book: SK/1/2/15/1
Materials related to the production of Christiane Kubrick's photobook about the life of her husband Stanley Kubrick. Materials include photographs reproduced for the publication

War Room pie fight photos: SK/11/10/1/5
The pie fight scene was to occur near the end of the film but was cut. A letter relating to the editing of the scene is dated 1 Nov 1963 [see, SK/11/5/4/2]. Images include ones of Weegee and Sellers, taken by Bob Penn. I had to wear latex gloves to look at these.

Kubrick's 2001 notes: SK/12/1/2/6
Handwritten notes by Stanley Kubrick regarding the plot and characters for 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

The notes are organised in the order of the film as it was seen at when they were being written. The first three sections have tabs on the right hand side with the section title written in red felt tip. The first section is entitled Prologue [this relates to the planned prologue of interviews of scientists and and philosophers discussing major themes covered in the planned film]. One set of the notes in this section have the date 10/30/65 [30th October 1965]. The next section is entitled Floyd. Some of the handwritten notes are dated Nov 1, Nov 4 and Nov 19 [it is probable that these are the dates when the notes were made]. 
There then follows a typewritten piece entitled Minsky Computer Notes. Following that there are 19 sections of notes, each one numbered and with a chapter title, the titles are: 1) Tour of Ship, 2) Dinner with Poole, 3) TV Interview, 4) Typical Day, 5) The Rumour, 6) Computer Lies, 7) Chess Victories, 8) Illusions, 9) Hyperchondria, 10) Insecurity, 11) Decision to Replace, 12) The Accident, 13) Dehibernation, 14) Killing the Computer, 15) The Explanation, 16) The Stargate, 17) Journey, 18) Hotel Room, 19) Finale. The final page has no title but handwritten lists for stages of the film onboard the Discovery spaceship including prospective timings for part of the sequence. This final page has a note in red ink stating Checked June 17 1967.


Shining clapperboard: SK/15/3/16
Wood clapboard (also called a clapper or slate), painted black with white accents. Information written on masking tape labels taped onto clapboard. Labels: 'The Shining', 'S. Kubrick' under Director, 'J. Alcott' under Cameraman, and '28th Feb 1979' at bottom.

Shining scrapbook: SK/15/3/4/3
Large brown scrapbook with gilt detailing on cover in which are pasted clippings of newspaper articles. The subjects of the clippings are varied from reports from the Second World War, court cases in England and reports about hotels. Many of them report on violent acts or their subsequent prosecutions. The bulk of the articles are undated but most appear to date from c1920-1945. The scrapbook measures 40 x 43 x 7 cm.

[The scrapbook plays a much more important role in the original novel and early drafts of the script than in the final film]


Jack's manuscript: SK/15/3/4/2
Jacks Manuscript: eight sets of typewritten stacks of paper on each sheet of which which is written "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and its equivalents in other languages. Four in English and one each in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

London in a day

We slept in, and over egg breakfast, had a proper chat with our host, Sue. Originally, we were slotted to leave her house by 9, to begin the day I had scheduled. But with our late night, we slept in until 10 or so. The choices were to shorten the London list, or to do it all the next day and shift our stays with upcoming hosts, or push on and do as much as we could. We chose to push on!

About two months ago, in planning this day in London, I googled "things to do in London when you have no money and only one day." I got some helpful tips which I used as the foundation of my plan for the day. To give you the abbreviated list, this was my (admittedly selfish) list of things I wanted to do in London (in no particular order):
  • Walk west along the south bank of the Thames, seeing all the sights, from London Bridge to Big Ben
  • Piccadilly Circus
  • Trafalgar Square
  • Leicester Square
  • Berwick Street Market (for lunch)
  • 3 Savile Row (where the Apple offices were, where the Beatles played on the rooftop)
  • Abbey Road Studios and crosswalk
  • Stanley Kubrick archives
  • Hyde Park
  • Royal Albert Hall/Albert Memorial
  • Harrod's
  • Buckingham Palace
  • ride the underground (tube)
  • ride a double-decker bus
  • British Library
Even though we started around noon instead of 9, we actually got everything on our list done except for Trafalgar Square and Berwick Street Market. Oh, we also missed the treasures gallery of the British Library (it closed earlier than the rest of the library) so we missed seeing the magna carta and handwritten Beatles lyrics. Thanks to an all-day travelcard, we could use the tube and buses to get from place to place quickly. We didn't exactly have much time to spend at any particular place, but we got it all done.

Sue walked us to the tube station at Highgate

Going underground

First tube ride

Leicester Square

3 Savile Row - Beatles on the roof

A rest in Hyde Park - Cristina had just fallen in a hole, but you'd never have known it if I hadn't told you.

At the Albert Memorial, with Royal Albert Hall in background

Double-decker to Harrod's - Yeah, tourism, baby!

 BuckPal Selfie

Park near Buckingham Palace

On my way back from the Stanley Kubrick archives (there's another post about that) I got on the wrong Northern line. It was rush hour, so the train was packed. And I mean packed. There's something surreal about being pressed vice-like between the firm bottom of an attractive blonde and the belly of an Orthodox Jew. My back was to the door, and because of the curvature of the train, I was bending over, face to face with the person in front of me. And when the doors opened at the next stop, I'm thought surely no one else can get on this train, but a few more people got on, pushing into me like we're in the front row of a general-seating rock concert. You could smell the humanity. And while I was riding along in this transit sardine can, I noticed that a woman standing in the middle of the car was actually reading a newspaper, holding it in one hand and grasping the hand loop with the other. How could she have enough room for that, I thought, while the fragrance of another woman's hair in my face evoked images of meadows of wildflowers. Then I realized that the most packed part of the train is right by the door. Right where I was. I eventually got back on track and got to the right train, but it ate up an hour. The family was waiting for me at Buckingham Palace, which I guess is not the worst place to spend some extra time waiting. No signal in the underground meant I couldn't update them on my delay until I came up.

 Abbey Road zebra crossing, with studios in background

Mind the gap! Hey, even the Beatles didn't do it in one take.

 This one came out cool

These guys were trying to do it too, but I doubt their's came out as good as ours

Bella pretended to write on the wall outside Abbey Road Studios

British Library - one more for Sofia's collection

 Still smiling after 9 hours of walking around!

 South bank, 10 pm, in the rain. We're dedicated.

Before our final bus ride back to Highgate, a tube employee that helped us find our bus stop shared his pastries with us. It was a gift from God, because we were all starving and tired.

By the time we walked the south bank, it was dark, late (10:30 ish), raining, and our feet were killing us. But the walk was still beautiful. We couldn't exactly see Big Ben and Parliament from the Hungerford foot bridge like I thought (a train bridge obstructed the view...plus the rain) but that's okay.

We planned on eating a late dinner at a pub, and we were all starving by the time we got back to Highgate around midnight. To our dismay, we learned that all pubs close at 10. So the only food available was a 24-hour McDonalds. Sue said we could raid her fridge, so we made BLTs and baked beans.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Packing and our first experience with Sleasyjet

Here's the dilemma. We came to Europe with five checked bags, because we were allowed that many for free by Delta. The fifth bag was a relatively small duffel bag that could be packed inside one of the other bags, to get us down to four bags. When we flew from Denmark to the UK, and again to Switzerland, we would be flying Easyjet. On discount airlines like Easyjet, you have to pay for your checked bags, so we planned on only checking four bags. The reason for this was not only to save money, but also to keep our bags as minimized as possible, since we'd be fitting all our stuff in intermediate-sized rental cars. All this means is that this morning, as we packed up, for the first time we had to get all our stuff into four bags, and they could not weigh more than 80 kg combined. Challenge accepted.

It was not easy.

In fact, when we were down to our last bag, and I looked at all the clothes yet to be packed, I felt quite hopeless. It felt like our stuff had doubled in size since we arrived, but we hadn't bought anything. On the contrary, we had left some things with Marion (the massage salt).

We finally got everything into four bags, but they weighed a combined 84 kilos. Some creative shuffling of heavier items into our carry-ons and we were down to 80.

We needed to leave by 1, and it was 1:15 when I loaded the car. Again, it felt like our stuff had grown, because I had a hard time fitting the four bags into the trunk. However I had done it at the airport no longer worked, because the bags were thicker now. On top of it all, it was sunny and hot, and while I sweated with rearranging the bags, I wished the cool windy weather we'd had the previous days had hung around.

We said goodbye to the lovely summer house.

One of the pin-up sketches in the summer house

On the road, the GPS said we'd arrive at the airport at 2:45. Enough time to top off the gas tank. Excellent.

No problems turning the car in. We now had about four hours to kill at the airport, but we'd brought a picnic lunch, so all was well. My only remaining concern was whether our carry-ons were too big. Easyjet doesn't give you any wiggle-room, according to David, but our bags were mostly squishable. Still, it wasn't until we got to the Easyjet check in and tried them in the carry-on tester that I could breathe a sigh of relief. They were all fine.

When we checked in our luggage, the man told us a French air traffic strike had caused a delay, and our flight would leave probably about 30 minutes late. I didn't care. I was just glad our carry-ons fit and our checked luggage was under 80 kilos. I hoped Alamo rental car in Gatwick would hold our car a little longer but I felt confident they would. He gave us 5 snack vouchers of 67 kroner each to spend at the airport, so that was nice. That's about $12 per person.

We had our picnic lunch at the table of a 7-11 before going through security. Yes, there is a 7-11 in the Copenhagen airport.

Bella is holding the Danish pancakes Trine packed for us

Once we got through security, we checked out some of the restaurants listed on the voucher. Ouch! Danish restaurants are pricy to begin with, but airport prices are just laughable. Most places had burgers for about 160 kroner ($30). So we could either buy two burgers for all five of us, or something small, like a side of fries. To Easyjet's credit, they were snack/beverage vouchers, not meal vouchers.

The shops at CPH look nice and fancy. You get the feeling that you're in a high-end shopping mall. Good for people-watching. But the true indication of a good airport comes down to--like most things in life-- access of power. In my opinion, at the gates, there should be ample places to plug in your laptop, or recharge your phone. Power outlets at CPH, however, are few and far between.

I hoped to use all this time at the airport to catch up on my blog, but my laptop was completely dead. I finally found an available outlet at the farthest gate possible. I got one post written, and then it was time to get our dinner snack.

We had found a place on the voucher list, Food Market, that had reasonably priced eats. A bit more IKEA-esque, or Marks & Spencer. Mostly prepackaged sandwiches and a few hot items. We planned carefully and got two pieces of cheese pizza, two large fries, a chicken wrap, a yogurt parfait, a chicken baguette sandwich, and a bottle of water for 335.50. When the lady added up our vouchers and saw that we only had to pay half a kroner, she was impressed. Score for team Eury.

I'm holding a half-krone coin...what we paid for this "meal"

We boarded our flight (only 20 minutes late instead of 30). The plane was an older one and a bit shabby. No snacks or drinks (not even water) unless you pay for them. But we expected that, so no big deal. The flight was an hour and a half. Cristina fell asleep.

I got the passports and my calendar down from the overhead bin to fill out the immigration papers. When we landed, I made sure not to leave them in the seat pocket, so I put them on the seat. We were so rushed to get our bags out of the overhead bin and get moving (you hate to hold up the line of grumpy passengers eager to get off) that I left my calendar in the seat. Didn't realize it until we were all the way at the car rental place, and by then Easyjet was closed for the night. The calendar was no big deal, but inside my calendar I had an envelope containing copies of our passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, and debit cards. Sensitive info to say the least.

The next glitch of the evening was the car. The paperwork part of it went fine. I even got a free upgrade again, although instead of a BMW, this was a Mercedes. We loaded the bags in. Not tons of room, bt we got them in, so that was great. Everyone was settled into the car, I was about to leave, and Cristina noticed that the cigarette lighter didn't work. We wiggled the cable for the GPS and looked for another outlet (sometimes new cars have more than one) but to no avail. We asked the attendant, a nice chap from Poland, who had a look but couldn't solve the problem. He said the only option was to go back in and get a new car.

So I lost my upgrade.

The Mercedes that got away

They gave us a Skoda Rapid, a similar style car with a less powerful engine and slightly less cargo space. We had to remove the trunk panel thing to get all our stuff in, and I had no visibility out the back window. But the cigarette lighter worked, so we had GPS, and it was still a diesel, so good gas mileage. Strangely, it was an automatic. Didn't expect to drive one of those here.

Driving on the left side of the road. Not as big of a deal as you might think, but the hardest part for me is fighting the temptation to drive too close to the curb. When you drive on the right in the States, with the driver's seat on the left, you get conditioned to orient yourself on the left side of the lane. You know, you're looking down roughly where the left tire track is on the street. But with everything switched, you have to break that conditioning. It is not hard, but you have to consciously do it. If I stopped paying attention and ran on auto pilot like it's so easy to do on the freeway, I would tend to drift to the left. I told Cristina to let me know if it seemed like I was getting too close to the curbside.

Glitch number three of our brief time in England was our inability to call our couchsurfing host to let her know we were running late but were on our way. The flight was already a late one, arriving 9:45 pm, but then it was delayed 20 minutes, and then we had the car issues, and then it was over an hour drive from Gatwick to Highgate, in northern London. We had to communicate with Sue through couchsurfing messages, which was slow and cumbersome. During the long drive to Highgate, I kept thinking how driving back down to Gatwick to get that bloody calendar would be such a pain and time consuming. We finally got to Sue's house around 1 or 1:30 am (it's all such a delirious blur now). She was lovely and welcoming despite the hour and her feeling under the weather. Her house was huge and beautiful and we got settled as quickly as possible and went to sleep, our full-planned day in London now in serious jeopardy. We needed to sleep in, so we'd have to improvise our plan. You know what Robert Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men...