Edinburg Diamond
Jubilee Military Tattoo
August 3 – 5, 2012
And Fringe Festival
Years ago,
my husband and I did a two week tour of Scotland. It was in late July (I remember being outside
Oban at some Highland Games and needing to buy a blanket to throw over me and
stay warm on August 1) and we started our tour in Edinburg. As we are wandering the old city and walking
the Royal Mile, we keep seeing adverts for the Military Tattoo. Didn’t know what it was but it looked like
something we were going to be sorry we missed.
Missed it by just a few days.
That said, we headed north and ended up in Inverness where they have a
smaller and more home-y version of the Tattoo.
We were lucky enough to score some tickets and enjoyed it very
much. We decided should the occasion
ever arise, we’d go to the mother of all Tattoos, the Edinburg Military
Tattoo.
Luckily, I
remembered all this so now that we are living in England, I started checking
for the Tattoo and discovered we could get there on one of our spare
weekends. Unfortunately, I didn’t look
in time so the only seats left for my time frame were the super duper expensive
VIP seats. Oh well, what is expatriate
pay for if you can’t splurge on some host country events every once in a
while. Went for the cheap flights though
which meant we were going to have to get up about 3 a.m. to drive to Gatwick to
catch our flight out on Saturday morning.
My hubby surprised me by suggesting we just stay at the airport on
Friday night then we wouldn’t have to get up so early. Wow, ok by me.
Being in
the VIP section means we had to wear nice clothes, coat and tie for hubby and
no jeans and T shirt for me. Probably I
figured that also meant no tennis shoes either so we packed accordingly and
headed to the Marriott Courtyard at Gatwick on Friday night. I found a park and fly program with them and
we could leave our car there and pick it up when we returned. Only problem was, we fly out of Gatwick and
fly into Heathrow. Well, there are buses
and it was still cheaper to do this than take our favorite taxi man.
Cats taken
care of with our housekeeper and away we go.
No worries for Friday night.
Everything fine. And we don’t
have to get up too early so get to the airport without a problem. Well, if we are complaining about anything,
the shuttle bus from the Marriott dropped us about as far as possible from the
terminal and it was raining but there is a covered walkway. Just a minor hiccup.
No problems
dropping off our bag and then we get to security. My husband has his stuff on the belt and
walks through the scanner. I am right
behind him when the security guy looks at my boarding pass and says, “OH,
British Airways has cancelled some of the morning flights to Edinburg.” HUH.
Why didn’t the ticket counter lady mention it?? Another security person runs over and takes
my boarding pass and runs off with it to see if this is one of the flights that
has been cancelled. My poor husband in
the meantime is standing on the other side of security and wondering what I
have done now to delay me. (I am always
getting stopped by security for one thing or another – NEVER anything to do
with security but always something to do with where we are traveling and they
are just curious and want to ask questions!!)
They send me through the scanner and then we wait for the lady to come
back with my boarding pass to see if all is kosher and fine and dandy. Luckily it was and apparently our flight is
going to fly this morning. Whew. Dodged one there.
Nothing
special about hanging out in Gatwick for a bit and then go get on the plane and
away we go. The flight is only an hour
but the flight attendants diligently served breakfast. We fly a lot.
We fly British Airways a lot.
This was the worst meal I have ever had with them, bar none. The roll could have been used as a weapon, it
was so hard. If it were thrown and
actually hit someone, it could have done some serious damage. The
eggs and sausage and ham and mushroom and tomato all looked and tasted like
they were left over from the nuclear bomb scares of the 1950s when everyone was
encouraged to store food for nuclear attacks (and a lot of the powdered
packaged stuff showed up around then).
Someone was cleaning out their underground bunker and sold all the
powdered food to BA. Sorry British
Airways, I know you can do so much better.
Oh well, wasn’t really hungry anyway.
Landed fine
in Edinburg and got our checked bag and decided that the best way to get to our
hotel would be by taxi. The bus going
into town just didn’t seem to go close enough to the hotel and I never like to
walk up and down hills with my suitcases.
We get a nice lady at the taxi desk that logs us into the system and
then says, “Let me take you to your car”.
She proceeds to walk us out of the airport, through the car parking
garage, around a few corners and across some walkways until we finally get to a
semi-remote car park with some taxis sitting there. It was a good 5 minute walk. Wow, she must get some good exercise during
the week.
Before we
left the airport, we spent a good amount of time standing in front of the
tourist brochures and collecting various brochures for my trip in September
when I am bringing a friend of mine up here.
She’s never been so thought I should grab tours and such to help plan
the trip. Now we are armed with about 3
pounds of brochures. Did NOT see on any
of the brochures anything about the Royal Yacht Britannia which is moored in
Edinburgh. Had totally forgotten about
it but we passed one sign on the way into town that said it was “that a
way”. I thought you could do tours of it
but perhaps I am mistaken since no brochures.
Poo.
Pulled into
the Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa at 9:45 a.m.
I had paid 20 pounds extra to get a “Club room” so we could use the club
room for breakfast and have access to a computer and also have drinks and
snacks when we wanted. And the Sheraton
delivered!! At 9:45 a.m. they gave us
our room immediately and we checked into the hotel. I love fancy hotels where no matter what time
of day you turn up, they give you a room.
I once arrived at 5:00 a.m. at the Intercontinental in Dubai and got my
room right away. Just perfect.
Went to our
room and we have a view of the castle.
Admittedly, from this view, it doesn’t look very castle like, more like
a bunch of old buildings on top of the hill but still, it was a view. We are also looking out on Festival Square
which has an area set up in front of a huge screen and people can sit and watch
the Olympics. There were a couple dozen
people sitting out there this morning already.
Cycling was on. Plus there was a
Cadbury booth out there with people able to play some kind of game and win
prizes, was never sure what it was.
Took
advantage of our Club Room immediately and went to the lounge to plan our
day. Turns out, the Edinburg Fringe
Festival is also happening. Lots of
programs and plays and spoofs and buskers and all sorts of things out in the
street. How lucky for us. Once we hit Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
during a similar festival. Just by
chance now we’ve hit another one so it’s given us something to do today. And we had a much better breakfast in the
club room.
Time to hit
the streets. We had a map from the front
desk that showed us how to get to the High Street, also known as the Royal
Mile. It’s probably the best known
street in Edinburg in that it goes from the castle at the top of the hill to Holyrood
Palace at the bottom of the hill. There
are tons of shops and restaurants along the street, churches and cathedrals,
small hidden closes (little streets that end in a courtyard of some sort
usually) and mews (kind of the same), and bars, and today, buskers as
well!!! Exciting.
We walk out
through the people watching the Olympics.
They are sitting on low folding picnic chairs and there are a bunch of
beanbags in front for the kids. We head
up to the crosswalk and turn down the street towards the castle and run into a
farmers market right away. Wow. Wish I had known about this and we could have
just gotten some fresh bread and cheese for breakfast. Up the hill past the rocks that serve as the
base of the castle. My hubby looks up
and contemplates that they would be easy to climb for a free climber. Yes, they would but also easy to defend from
the ramparts above us.
We choose
not to climb up the steep stairs that go to the castle but continue up the
sidewalk and round the bend into the high street which is thronged with hundreds
of people milling around and moving in and out of shops and up and down the
street. There is only one block of car
traffic and then the street is closed for the fringe festival. We wade into the horde and move downstream to
see what we can find. We are also looking
for The Real Mary’s Kings Close which a brochure has advised us has an
underground Edinburg tour. We like the
offbeat and odd kind of tours. Have done
ghost tours and underground tours and haunted tours and murder tours and such
in many cities and while sometimes they are a bit stretched to fit the genre,
usually they are interesting enough and fun and worth our time and money.
It’s
several blocks down the street but we find it and go into the Close to get some
tickets. Unfortunately, the first
available time is about 1 ½ hours away so we decide to go tomorrow as we will
have a long day available before our flight home. That done, we head out to find some
entertainment.
A lot of
the fringe festival consists of people advertising for afternoon and evening
shows. The advertising consists of
everything from tabloids of people in freeze mode to characters dressed in
period costume to musicians to acrobats to some protesters as well. Mostly there are people trying to hand you a
flyer with every few steps you take.
There was no need for us to take any flyers since we are booked for this
evening but it was quite hard to fend off the flyer people. My husband ended up with a handful of flyers
before we figured out that shaking our head and saying “we’re booked” would
make them back off.
Passed a
large tabloid of people dressed in what looked like Les Miserables costumes and
they were all lined up in a “scene” which they had “frozen” while their flyer
people were frantically handing out flyers to entice people to come and see the
show. Never did figure out exactly what
their show was but they were interesting looking. Hubby is doing camera duty today as my purse
was too heavy to carry the camera as well J
There are
some covered mimes, the men and women who paint themselves silver or gold and
then stand like a statue until enough people have stopped for them to do their
little performance. Later we saw one who
was dressed in small square mirrors.
That was a new one. We stopped
with a crowd gathered around a woman who was doing juggling but had, as well, a
volunteer from the audience who was checking out her straight jacket. Figuring this busker would be escaping from
the straight jacket, we stood there to watch.
She was entertaining enough but sometimes it takes them forever to get
through their patter to get to the good part.
Guess that’s part of it, you need good patter so people will give you
money. Always thought it a very hard way
to make a living and yet some people do quite well from being a busker.
Her
volunteer put the straight jacket on her and before tying her hands behind her,
she climbed up on his shoulders as a part of her act. She didn’t look like she weighed too much but
his legs were shaking as she was standing on him. She jumps down and he wraps a chain around
her and pulls it tight and locks it.
Patter, patter, patter, yada, yada, yada. And then she starts her wriggling and
twisting and such until she is able to get one hand over her head and then is
able to go from there with jumping and wriggling and such to finally get
totally out of the straight jacket and the chains. Good show and she was entertaining. A man in a cloth dalek costume was standing
watching as well so hubby got some photos of him too.
We wandered
on and passed some young men doing headstands on the cobblestones, ouch! A lady in court dress posing for photos. Some hip hop singers on a stage. Some green aliens with long fingers. A couple of balloon animal makers. An early Scotsman in a very early kilt with
his sword and shield. A tourist Scotsman
in a leather kilt. That was a bit odd
and unsettling. Some bad*ss
Scotsman. And every few feet, someone
trying to hand us a flyer.
We decide
not to walk all the way down the hill to the Palace because that means walking
back up the hill! We are wise beyond
belief. We cross the street to start working
our way back to the castle and find some lunch somewhere. Finally we head into Deacon Brodies Tavern
and squirm through the bar crowd to climb the stairs to the restaurant. We are third in line to get a seat and the
hostess tells the first couple it’s about 10 minutes and the second group of 5
would be ½ hour and they leave. It’s a
rather small restaurant of about 20-30 tables depending on the
configuration. The first couple gets in
and we wait another 10 minutes and get a table.
There are
three ladies working tables and one barmaid and they are all running as fast as
they can but unfortunately, don’t seem to be very well organized. Took another 10 minutes before they took our
order and then three tables of people who arrived after us all received their
food before us. We didn’t have anything
fancy that took a long time to cook so think our order was momentarily
lost. As our breakfast had been rather
late, I just went for a couple of starters.
My hubby spied the “shrimp scampi” advertised on the menu as “shrimp
scampi with the tail on”. One of our
rules to live by is “remember where you woke up this morning” meaning what you
think you know from where you grew up or live in the states or whatever, could
be totally different in another place.
My starters were just as I expected but my husband’s shrimp scampi with
the tail showed up on his plate as deep fried and breaded shrimp balls. According to many cookbooks, shrimp scampi is
never breaded and deep fried but oh well.
He ate it and it was at least real shrimp and not mystery fish trying to
pretend it is shrimp. Still, we weren’t
that pleased with the restaurant at the end.
Too long to get seated, too long to get an order taken, food not as
advertised and too long to get the bill at the end.
Back
outside, it is going on 3 p.m. and we have the late show at the Tattoo so we
had decided that we would do a nap in the afternoon in order to stay awake for
the show. We continue up the hill back
towards the hotel and pass another busker in the same place where we had
stopped for our lady busker before lunch.
He was also doing a straight-jacket escape. Hmm.
That busker location must specialize in straight jacket escapes and
there must be a lot of people who know how to do it. Stop in for some ice cream and then go down
the steep stairs back to the hotel.
There are
more people sitting outside watching the Olympics now but I think we will be
able to nap without worrying anyway. Inside
and to the room and drapes closed and temperature cool and a few minutes of
kindle reading and then we are asleep.
Alarm goes
off way too soon. We are about to start
on our Royal Military Tattoo experience.
So far the weather has been holding and it looks good for this evening
too but maybe a bit chilly. We are
dressed and ready to go by 7 but we
don’t need to be at the Scotch Whiskey Experience until 8. Maybe we should get a taxi because I can’t
walk far in heels but decide instead to do an “Ascot” where I carry my good
shoes until time to slip into them and walk the distance in my tennies. Have to get some safety pins from the
concierge too because my skirt is too large and in danger of falling down. No, unfortunately, don’t think I have lost
weight, just tried on the skirt without the requisite proper
“undergarments”. Wow, what a
difference.
As we are
early, we sit in the chairs in the park and watch the Olympics for a while. Then we trudge up the hill to The Scotch
Whiskey Experience where I whisk out my VIP tickets and we head into the Amber
Restaurant for dinner. First off, we get
a dram of whiskey. It was a brand I’ve
never heard of before but not that unusual for Scotland as every loch, glen,
island, and village distills whiskey. It
was 10 year old and tasty but not the best we’ve ever had. Supposedly there was a whiskey expert at our
disposal as well but although I asked our waitress several times if we could
talk to him, he never materialized. Maybe
he’d been enjoying his work a little too much today.
Our meal
included a bottle of wine and a bottle of water and a starter, a main, and a
dessert. I had the asparagus tartlet
with an egg benedict which was very, very, very yummy. Excellent choice on my part. Hubby went with the shredded duck which came
in a small ramekin but it was pretty much a solid chunk of duck in duck fat and
he didn’t care for it. Again, “remember
where you woke up this morning”. He got
the lamb for dinner and I got the fillet of beef. Again, mine was delicious and his was too so better
choices there. But I can’t eat a lot of
beef without getting stuffed to the gills so don’t think I did the meal
justice. I was only able to eat about half. Really would have liked a doggy bag on this
one. Finally for dessert, I had some
Scottish dessert that I can’t remember what it is called but it was a whipped
crème with berries and oats, I think, swirled in it. Again, delicious. My honey had the chocolate mess which was a
dark brownie with some fruit puree with it.
For once, I think I made the better food choices on this trip. At the end, tea and coffee.
Finally it
is time to be escorted to our seats.
There are three couples waiting to head over to the Tattoo. We skip all the queues and head for a set of
stairs to take us to the VIP seats. He
asks if we want the elevator and I stupidly say, No, we can do the stairs not
realizing until too late that it’s about 6 flights. I don’t think the other guests were too happy
with me. We are escorted to our seats
which have a tartan blanket for our knees and a gift bag which consists of a
Tattoo pin, two DVD’s of 2011 and 2010 Tattoos and the program. I thought we would be able to purchase the
tattoo tartans at the event but was told they were at the Tattoo shop. She gave me an extra lap rug though for my
shoulders.
The field
below us is full of people heading to their seats and also a good number of men
in kilts posing for preshow photos.
Edinburg castle is the backdrop at the end of the field with a tunnel
opening into it and lit by fire torches on the ramparts. It’s all very dramatic looking. The master of ceremonies (never did see from
where he was speaking) starts his warm up patter with the welcome and does a
little “where is everyone from” by applause.
The VIP section is filing with two groups. One group seems to be visitors like us but
they are dressed way better than we are.
Evening dresses and suits and led by a gentleman in uniform with medals
and a bright red coat and huge hat. They
settle in and I notice a couple of women standing on the stairs right below the
VIP section. They are dressed in what I
would call “best raggedy camouflage”.
The other
VIP group are Scotsmen and they are all dressed in their best kilts but mostly
all black which I didn’t realize that kilts came in solid black thinking that
all of them had to have a tartan of some sort.
They are totally kilted out with all the accessories including the knife
in the sock. None of their women are in
tartan though. Ah well, it will be dark
up here for most of the show so no one will know we are underdressed.
The Tattoo
started with a bit of Scottish history in the two ladies previously standing in
front of the VIP box in ragged clothes and dirt on their faces ran down to join
others on the field as the first Scots, or rather Picts. Well, it just got better and better from
there. Admittedly, this Tattoo was a bit
different than prior years because they were adding some Diamond Jubilee
celebrations into it. And for me, there
wasn’t near enough drums and pipes. I’d
have been happy had the whole thing been drumming and bagpipes but they had a
lot of guest artists to celebrate the Jubilee and each act was excellent and
well performed and also warmly welcomed by all 8,500 of us in the
audience. No empty seats here.
Performers
included guests from South Africa, Canada, Australia, the U.S. Naval Forces
Europe Band, Switzerland, and the King of Norway’s Guards Band and Drill
Team. And of course there was a dozen
or more different Battalions and Regiments of Dragoons and Highlanders and the
Black Watch of Scotland. Just so many
excellent drummers and bagpipers and dancers and bands. It was all glorious from the first massed
pipes and drums that marched out of the castle tunnel onto the parade grounds
to the last bit of fireworks and the Lone Piper on the ramparts and the
marching off under our stands at the end to clear the field. Just wonderful.
I think my
favorite (besides the massed pipes and drums) was the Top Secret Drum
Corps. This was a group from
Switzerland, and a small group, but so very, very talented. These drummers did a lot of fancy drumstick
work where they flipped and tossed drumsticks and hit on each other’s drums and
then their drums started lighting up and flickering as they drummed even more
furiously with their shared sticks and shared drum skins. It was wonderful.
My other
favorite group (again, besides the massed pipes and drums) was His Majesty the
King of Norway’s Guards Band and Drill Team.
These men (couldn’t tell if there were any women in the group) were
excellent in their precision drilling with their rifles and marching and
intricate weaving of their rows and throwing and tossing their rifles and up
and down and over the shoulder and a shot in the air (which startled us
all). Very impressive precise work.
My absolute
favorite though of course are the massed pipe and drum bands. Just can’t beat a good set of bagpipers and
drummers going to town. When we saw the
Tattoo in Inverness, we heard the lone pipe play The Sands of Kuwait which I
thought was hauntingly lovely. Sad to realize that was in the 90’s after the
Gulf War I. This time the piper played
The Crags of Tumbledown which I didn’t like as much but the Lone Piper section
of the program is always brilliant.
When the
finale came around, they did a piece to Queen Elizabeth II where the “crown”
was carried through the massed performers into the castle. Then the National Anthem, fireworks with “Diamonds
are Forever” and ending with Auld Lang Syne which is sung much differently than
I learned it. Then slowly the groups
march out and it is, sadly, over. Didn’t
seem to take that long and we stayed awake without a problem in spite of the
late time.
We had a
small reception behind the VIP seats with canapés and champagne or
whiskey. My honey chose to go for the
whiskey and it upset his stomach so we didn’t stay long, basically long enough
for a brief chat with the lady who was in charge of one of the groups of
dancers who was quite pleased that we had enjoyed it and then time for me to
change my shoes and head down the hill to the hotel.
Supposedly
our VIP ticket would allow us to use the steep stairs to cut off some of the
walk but they had the stairs blocked and wouldn’t let anyone use them which
seemed a bit stupid but whatever. We
joined the crowd of people thronging the streets and headed for the hotel. When we got to our hotel, there was a large
crowd of people in line for taxis. Thank
goodness we only have to go up to the 7th floor and nowhere
else. Wonderful evening.
We didn’t
have to check out until 12 so we slept in but were both slowly awake by a bit
after nine. I was feeling less than top
notch. I am not a late bird I guess and
anything past about 10 p.m. turns me into a pumpkin and apparently a rotten
pumpkin at that. Our flight was not
leaving Edinburgh tonight until 8:30 p.m., putting us into Heathrow at 9:45
p.m. upon which we would then have to take a national express bus over to
Gatwick to pick up our car at the hotel.
Yuck. The more I thought about
it, the less I wanted to do it or wait that long. Just wanted to get home to my kitties. So I hit the club lounge and started seeing if
there were possibilities to changing our airline ticket. That was a laugh and a
half as the price to change to an earlier flight was about double what it cost
to fly up here in the first place. How ridiculous. So I went ahead and checked us into our
flight. I investigated just buying new
tickets on Flybe or another cheap airline but it was still going to be over 400
pounds. No way. I may be extravagant sometimes but this was a
bit much even for me. So I figured we
were stuck... Well, wait. What about a
bus or train? Started checking those
out. A train was doable but to get home
before our flight and make it worthwhile, we needed to forgo our underground
tour and leave by 1 p.m. or so. Turns
out this was OK with my hubby because he does like to spoil me and he really
didn’t want to wait that late either. For
some reason, we were just “done” with Edinburgh. Lovely city that I like a lot but we had come
for the Tattoo and it was over so I felt like we were done and I was ready to
go.
Booked
tickets on line for the 1 p.m. train and reserved some seats which didn’t look
like they would be next to each other but they were. Asked for forward facing seats which we didn’t
get. I hate riding backwards in a train
and have been known to get carsick doing that.
Also needed to get the train from London Victoria to Gatwick (although I
thought I was getting a bus) and then we are packed up and ready to head for
the train station.
Oh, should
mention that when we got up, it was raining.
There was no one outside watching the Olympics on the big screen but
there was a resistance pool set up in the square and a couple of different
people were trying it out when we looked at different times. We also heard that we were extremely lucky
with our weather as both the first two nights (including ours) had been
clear. Last year, it had rained every
night on the Tattoo but they never cancel.
So we are
off to the train station via taxi that drops us at the far end and took us a
minute to figure out where the entrance was.
According to my instructions, we could pick up our tickets 2 hours after
I placed the order which would make it 12:30.
We headed into the train ticket office instead and she was able to print
out our tickets immediately. She said
they were good for any time of day on any train but since we didn’t have
reserved seats for any other train, we’d be hard pressed to find seats next to
each other on the 12:30 train because it was crowded. We thought we’d try anyway.
Went to the
platform stopping at a Marks and Spencer food shop for some lunch and then to
platform 2 to wait. It wasn’t too
crowded but it got more and more so until by 12:30, it was heaving with people
waiting for the train. When the train
pulled into the station, we could see that it was going to be difficult indeed and probably impossible to find seats next to
each other and maybe even impossible to find seats so we left the platform to
go wait for our scheduled train and reserved seats at 1 p.m.
Wow, that
train was sitting on the tracks just waiting for everyone. As we found our seats in coach B, I was
pretty sure I was going to be facing backwards.
I found a seat facing forward that only had one reservation tag on the
seat of two so we sat there until the train was left and no one came to claim
the seat so it looked like we could stay there.
The train went to Newcastle first and by the time we got there, it was
pouring rain, hard. Last month, Newcastle
had serious flooding and a rather soaked lady who got on there said it was the
same kind of rain and her husband had to detour around flooded roads to get
home. Gulp. We got lucky and no one arrived at Newcastle
to claim this seat so I am happily riding facing forward still.
On to
Durham which had some lovely looking cathedral buildings, minister type, and
possibly a castle. Wow, didn’t know so
many villages had huge cathedrals. This
looks like a good place to come visit. I’ll
have to add it to our list which keeps growing rather than shrinking. The conductor comes onto the loudspeaker and
says the train is being held for a bit at Durham and he doesn’t know why
because no one is talking to him. He
sounds rather plaintive and we all enjoy a laugh with him over his predicament
which then becomes our predicament as the train has brake problems. I LIKE trains to have working brakes. I think it’s rather important. We pull out of Durham station but we are
going rather slow and the engineer keeps trying the brakes, either to make sure
they are still working or to keep our speed low enough that we could all jump
off the moving train if necessary.
Well, a
nice leisurely ride was not to be had as the engineer announces that we are all
going to have to change trains in Darlington as this one is going into service
for the brakes. Poo. So when we pull into Darlington, everyone
piles off the train. We’ve been told to
take the 12:29 (coming along right behind us) from Darlington, stopping at York
and then into London’s King’s Cross station.
Most of the people on our train must have been going to one or the
other. At first, the boards say stay on the
same platform but then they change our platform to #4 so everyone starts moving
over there. I think we’ll be smart and
go to the end where not many people like to walk all that way. BUT when the train comes into the station, it
is not nearly as long and we have to run back up the platform. I skip the first three coaches as there is
too big of a crowd trying to get on the train and hop onto the train at the
fourth carriage I come to and there are two seats still available. I was super-duper extra lucky on that because
one seat had a young woman who was just really slow at removing her gear from
the other seat. My hubby plopped down
there and I went to get the other seat that I could see. It was a facing backwards seat but there was
just enough room on the luggage rack overhead to stuff my suitcase and then hubby
and I changed seats as he doesn’t mind traveling backwards.
A lot of
people are standing at the ends of the carriage. OH, I am so happy we found seats. I remember years ago when my daughter and I
were doing a grand tour of Europe and had first class reserved seats in Ireland
for a train that never came. By the time
a train did come, it was packed and crowded and so full of humanity that we had
to stand between cars for about 2 hours and nobody cared that we had first
class reserved seats. I am so glad this
didn’t happen to me this time. As we
reached York and a few people detrained, a couple came up to the seats in front
of us and tried to claim them as their reserved seats. They probably were their seats but none of
the stranded passengers from our first train were giving up seats where they
had their butts firmly entrenched. Good
luck even finding the conductor to try and enforce any reserved seat status.
From there
on into London’s Kings Cross station. It
was crowded and busy but not overly so from the Olympics or visitors. We detrained and found our way to the
underground. Hubby thought maybe our
tickets would get us through to London Victoria so we asked someone official
looking hovering at an underground map and she squinted at our tickets and said
she thought so. Away to the underground
and it did let us into the turnstiles so we are sitting pretty on the
underground about 4 hours ahead of landing had we flown.
Problem at
London Victoria though. Our tickets
would not let us out of the underground.
Mine read “seek assistance”. My
hubby’s probably read that as well but he didn’t see it so as I turn to him to
say, we’re screwed, he kicks the turnstile gates. OMG. Don’t
break the gates! It would probably cost
a lot of money to either fix or get bailed out of the hoosegow for unseeming
conduct in the underground or whatever they would charge him with. He just thought they were stuck.
We walk
over to the security guard at the handicapped gates and I hand him my ticket
and say, “It won’t let us out” fully expecting him to direct us to a machine
somewhere to pay for an underground ticket.
He sighs, heavily, and says “this is a national railroad ticket and it
won’t work on the underground. You
should have bought an underground ticket” and then opens the gate for us to
exit. Wow, I’ll take a small scolding anyway. Guess he thought we were some dumb Americans
come to see the Olympics and he’s probably been having to let a lot of them out
of the underground because there was no place inside to top up a ticket or buy
one if you’d made it onto the subway, like we did, without a ticket. Hmmm. Their
system isn’t totally foolproof then.
Hubby
thinks that our next set of tickets is for the train to Gatwick and I think it
is a bus but we find a helpful clerk who says it is a train and if we hurry to
platform 13, we can make the next train.
Away we go and we have about a minute to jump on and find a seat and
start moving to Gatwick. Once there, we
arrive at the South Terminal. We are
feeling that we need to tell British Airways that we have arrived in London without
their help and please do not wait for us in Edinburgh as we are checked in but
obviously we aren’t going to get on the flight.
Did not know that British Airways does NOT have a presence in the South
Terminal but we had to take the shuttle over to the North Terminal. We get into the special assistance line and
are waited on fairly quickly. The terminal
seems a bit dead and quiet. Not many
flights going out on Sunday evening I guess.
The man listens to me explain and then says, in quite a stern and loud
and commanding voice, “Follow ME!” OMG,
we are in trouble and I think he’s going to take us into the back room and
whack the soles of our feet or something but turns out he’s just not up to
speed on what to do when someone has already checked in for a flight and they
want to cancel. He gives us to a lady
who does the tappity tappity for 5 minutes on the computer and says, all
set. Thank you very much.
Almost
home. We have to find the bus back to
the hotel and pick up our car which we accomplish without too much hassle and
then home in time to watch the Olympics and see Bolt win the 100 meter! What a great weekend.
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