Facebook Quizzes

          We probably all do them, the Facebook quizzes that pop up in your timeline when a friend shares it.   Looks like fun to see "what city you should live in", "guess your age", "which Star Trek character are you", "Which Star Wars character are you", "What kind of dog would you be", "Which Disney princess are you", "Do You Know Your British Slang", "Are you a Redneck"and on and on and on - quizzes only limited by someone's imagination and the time it takes to put it together.  People take them and then share their answers, OR like me, they just take them for the heck of it, mild curiosity to raging "gotta know!" curiosity, and then never share.  There are some that drive me crazy in that they have gross misspellings or incorrect grammar usage.  OH wait!  There was a grammar quiz just today and it was correct in its grammar.  That was kind of nice.  Some others are so bad that I just leave them mid-quiz.  Come on, quiz-makers, police your work and at least make it correct grammatically and with your facts!

          When you think about it, it's ludicrous that you could answer 10 or 15 totally meaningless and random seeming questions and come up with an iron clad opinion on where you should live or what 60's screen siren you most closely resemble.  Plus, if you're like me, you take some quizzes multiple times.  The same ones pop up as other friends "share" them so it gives you the opportunity to take them multiple times.  Usually my answers are different each time too.  A different time of day, a different day, different state of mind, different physical feelings, etc., make different answers and hence different answers.  Countries I should live in range from: New Zealand, England, France, USA, Spain, and China.  wow, how did China get in there?  Must have really been feeling a bit odd when I answered it that day, although I wouldn't mind living in China for a period of time.  When I have taken a quiz multiple times, I have never, ever gotten the same answer twice.

          Let us Guess Your Age made me realize that everything is connected because no matter how I answered those questions, they always got my age correct - Oh hey, my age is listed in my profile!  What a surprise - NOT.     It often says you can "make your own quiz".  I haven't tried this because haven't been interested enough.  Some of the quizzes must really do some extensive research though as in finding the most popular dogs so that everyone always gets a popular breed as the "dog you would be".  Same with the Disney Princesses.  I must have missed seeing the "What Disney Villain do you most resemble" quiz.

          Facebook does not claim that these are scientific quizzes or absolute answers or even accurate depictions of your opinions and likes and dislikes.  They are fun to do though and so an excellent marketing tool for them.  And that's what we must remember - they are fun and they are marketing so there's the possibility that they can sell you something somewhere down the line.  My friends that take them and share and post are hopefully like me, doing it for fun.  Although I have seen a few posts where they are sooooo very, very happy that they are like a certain movie star or should live in a certain location that I am wondering if everyone realizes the silliness of the quizzes and the fickle nature of them.  Oh well, they can be enjoyable just to see what questions they will ask.  I will continue to take them as I am sure will most everyone else.  When they disappear from Facebook, I will know they have lost their popularity and their ability to give the marketing agents any useful information about us.

Catching a Volcano Dream

first view

first time past the fissure

As a child, I had two dreams that persisted: after the ballerina phase, cowgirl phase, and circus entertainer phase. I would be a vet or I would be a volcanologist!  Animals are so cool & wonderful.  And who possibly couldn't love the glory and power of nature with a volcanic eruption (baring that anybody would get hurt which never occurred to me as a small child!)  These two dreams stayed with me - well, just about forever because they are still there. Needless to say, my life took a completely different path from either one, I became neither, but I don't regret the path I took. Just a smidgen of "if only".

I do love animals and do get to play with them, pet them, interact with them as often as possible such as going to Paradise Wildlife Park in England to sit with the meerkats or feed the lions. But the volcanologist part has eluded me. Couldn't afford to go see Mt. St. Helen's when it blew, couldn't get to Italy for their frequent episodes nor even Hawaii kept eluding me at the times when it had spectacular eruptions. The money, the timing, the whatever, just didn't ever line up for me.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to re-visit Iceland with a group of women. My last visit to Iceland was at a time when nothing was happening geologically or volcano-wise. This time, I really hadn't been paying much attention to what was happening in the country with regards to volcanoes so was rather surprised when our guide told us that there was a current eruption going on in the highlands. The Bardarbunga caldera.  OMG. is it my time?? Is it my chance?? Thank goodness, the lady in charge of our group is so nice and generous and gracious that she had no problem with me wanting to leave the group for a quick run to the volcano. Our guide then started working out how to make this happen for me.

                                                                                              

hot fissure, throwing up lava

My first choice would be to take a helicopter flight over the fissure. HA! that was going to cost about 1200 pounds! In spite of being a life long dream, there was the money thing again. No way I could justify that for just me. But he found out there is also a plane flight where they just sell window seats and they cruise back and forth over the lava field and the erupting fissure so each side has equal opportunity to see the eruption. That works for me.

The plan was for a taxi pickup from our sightseeing point during the day, a ride into Reykjavik, onto the plane for the viewing and finally a taxi ride to meet the group back at the hotel. The plan was offered to the group but I was the only taker. Guess I am the only one with the lingering vulcanology dream.

Our group got to Gullfoss - the wide waterfall of beauty and glory, even with the rivers looking quite frozen!  But no taxi.  Our guide and our bus driver kept calling and talking to someone and finally our bus driver says follow me.  I figure the taxi is somewhere in the back of the parking lot but nope - we climb on the bus and he drives the bus back down the hill and the 7 miles or so back to the geyser viewing area.  We just came from there but somehow the taxi had decided to wait for me there!  Nothing like making a huge bus negotiate the snowy roads for one passenger!

I ask the bus driver one final time - "He knows where to take me, right?" and the bus driver assures me that he does.  So I hop out and try to get into the taxi but the driver can't get the door open!  Should have been a warning!  We both wrestle with the door a few minutes - the bus being on the way back up the hill by now for the rest of the group - and finally get it open.  I'm in and seat belted and we are away.

Driving calmly along for about 40 minutes when the taxi driver turns and asks what time is my flight?  He had to ask me three times because he had a gravely, mumbling voice.  Later my guide even said he was hard to understand.  I told him 3:15 and suddenly we are going much faster along the road.  Then he turns to me and says, where is the flight?  OMG!  HE doesn't know!  I don't know!   They said that he knew!  So now he is driving much faster along the snowy roads plus dialing his cell phone to find out where he is supposed to take me.  My guide and bus driver at the other end are having a hard time understanding him and keeping the connection going but he finally figures out where I am to go.  Someone calls the airline and tells them I am on the way.

 

 

We are truly speeding along the road, passing every car in front of us when feasibly possible to do so and occasionally NOT feasible to do so.  I am determined not to look at my watch and not to look out the front window but I am also wondering if I will survive this ride!  I hope he doesn't hit an icy patch as he passes a car, goes around a corner, over a bridge or anything.

Finally we reach the outskirts of Reykjavik and I look at my watch and it is 3:15!  OMG again!  this is the time I am supposed to be leaving!  The airline has my credit card number so whether I am on the plane or not, I am probably paying for it.  My heart truly sinks to the floor as I expect I have just lost a lot of money and a chance to see an erupting volcano.  We continue into the city though, barely keeping still at the few stop lights that were red.  Then he screeches and slides around a corner and I see a plane on the runway, a small plane that looks like just about the right size to fly over a volcano.  POOOOOOOHHHH!  I figure that's my plane.  But I get the money out the pay the taxi and start gathering up my stuff so I can at least take a different taxi back to the hotel so I can quietly sob into my scarf!

We screech to a stop in front of the terminal and he jumps out and runs around to my door to open it.  A lady comes out the front door and says Volcano? and I nod.  I throw the money at the driver as she grabs my arm and we run through the airport!  She hands me a small ticket which is my boarding pass and yells GATE 3! and points.  I run out the back door and down the walkway to gate 3 where a man comes out and says "relax and enjoy it" and I run to the plane and clamber up the stairs.  THEY WAITED FOR ME!!!  Of all the things I expected to happen, having an airline wait for me for this adventure was never in my realm of possibilities.

It is Iceland Air and a much bigger plane than I expected.  It probably holds 44 passengers or so.  But for the volcano flights, they only sell window seats.    I had expected to sit in my seat and at every other pass, I would see the eruption.  BUT there were only 10 people on the plane!  Glory BE!  Not only had I made it, we were all going to be able to move from side to side to see each and every time we passed the fissure.

It was about a 30 - 40 minute flight from Reykjavik to the lava field.  That time was spent getting my breath back and my heart to start beating normally again plus listening to our guide who was on the plane to explain everything to us and enhance our voyage.  There were a mix of English speakers on the plane and Icelanders and most with regular cameras but one gentleman with such a lens that I immediately got "lens envy" for it.  Of course with a lens the size of a small suitcase and no tripod, I have no idea how his photos came out but he seemed quite pleased at the end.

Finally we near the eruption site.  All of us are looking back and forth, not sure which side will come up first.  It's my side!  I won the first toss!  We see a massive black lava field first and then a bright glow comes into view with a huge ash and smoke plume leading away from it.  As we get closer, we can see rivers of lava flowing away from this fissure with pockets of hotter lava mixed in the flow.  OH I am in heaven!  It is so much more than I expected and hoped for to see.

Since we are overhead, it is quite difficult to see spouts of flame and gasses but after several passes over the fissure, I could see them and could tell when the magma was boiling up to the top of the fissure crater where it was all escaping from the earth.    The plane makes its first pass and turns for the second pass.  We all move to the other side of the plane.  I'm sure the pilots must be used to this because we must have caused an imbalance in the weight distribution for flying.

Another pass and another move to the opposite side of the plane.  I start noticing other things.  The plume extends all the way across the lava field and thins as it disappears into the distance.  The plane never, ever crosses through the ash plume.   The lava field is spread over many acres and while it looks quite solid, there is no snow on it anywhere and at various times, we can see tiny hot spots as the lava breaks through the surface.  At the edges of the field, the snow slowly builds as it moves away from the field.  There are places in the lava field where there is steam and smoke escaping.  The lava rivers are moving out but one looks very much like it is flowing back into the ground and back under the black crust.  This seems to be the case as one pass there are a few red spots, the next pass even more, and by the fourth pass over this one site, the lava has broken through the crust "downstream" from where it went back into the ground and is starting to flow again on the surface.  Oh wow!  I call it "seeing a lava river being born".  works for me.

Since there were only 10 of us and we made roughly 10 passes over the field and fissure and lava rivers, each of us was given the opportunity to go stand behind the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit and look out the window at their view.  How magnificent is that!  I can tell you that it is truly fantastic and just brilliant!  My husband made the comments that my photos from the cockpit were not as great as some from just out the windows.  Yes, probably true since I would have been leaning over the pilot and the controls to put my camera as close to the window as I was in the back of the plane and I think he wouldn't have liked that.  But the view from the cockpit was just a dream.

More passes and watching the lava bubble and pop and jump in the fissure and watch it flow into the channels it had already made and watch it move through the field.  What an opportunity that finally I have been able to see an eruption AND it was one where no one was hurt and no property damaged.  Even better than  my childhood dream!

Finally it was time to continue back to Reykjavik.  Our guide came around to show us the various facts regarding this volcano and how it compared to past ones, whether it will keep going or not and such.  She also had a piece of lava from the field below us.  Mighty sharp with crystals embedded in it.  It was so sharp it was hard to find a place to hold it plus it was heavy.  Don't think they get much pumice here.  This eruption caused the biggest earthquake swarm they have ever had and the amount of lava in the first three months of the eruption was equal to the amount of lava that produced the island of Surtsey back in the 70's which took 3 1/2 years!

Like most people, I am never satisfied with one dream being realized.  Now I have a larger and more fervent desire to see more eruptions AND from the side views where I can see how high the lava is shooting.  We were under 2000' above the eruption but my next adventure has got to be a helicopter so I can get closer - much, much closer.

 

 

Frikkin Fire Drills and False Alarms

I am probably doomed to perish in a fire.  Gosh I certainly hope not but it definitely could be a possibility.  I have no idea how fast a fire moves or how long you can manage before the smoke overcomes you.  AND unfortunately, I have been in SOOOO Many dang frikkin fire drills and alarms that I have become inured to their importance.   

Maybe 10 years ago or so, twice, (different hotels, different states, different cats, different times), I was in a hotel with my daughter's cat and with my two cats..  Someone pulled the fire alarm when I was with my daughters cat and it was during the day so I was able to quickly grab him and stuff him in a carrier.  BUT on my way out the door, I also grabbed my computer and my purse.  Went outside and sat on the bench in front of the door until the fire department came and cleared the alarm.  The second time with cats, I was on the fourth floor and it was the middle of the night.  The cats were sleeping on the bed with me when someone pulled the alarm.  The noise is so loud and tumultuous and ear splitting plus a bright red light whirling in the room that the cats immediate dove for cover under the KING SIZED BED.   I was not leaving without my cats (although I know that one is supposed to do so but my cats are family!).  Took me probably 5 minutes to corral them and get them stuffed into a carrier and that involved throwing the mattress and springs onto the floor so I could reach them under the bed.  This alarm truly terrified me at the time because it was the middle of the night.  I do remember I called the front desk and they assured me they were looking into the matter but I had best vacate my room.  Again, I grabbed my computer and purse and trotted down the flights of stairs and shivered in the cold morning air because I had forgotten to put on a jacket.  At least I was sleeping in pajamas at the time.

Of course both of these were alarms and not drills but still, I didn't get out as fast as I could, I took my time to get my cats and my most important possessions.  My bad.  One other fire alarm was in Singapore.  No cats at the time but we lived on the 33rd floor.  That is a LONG way down the stairs.  Probably took us 15 minutes or more as people were coming out on each floor to join the procession plus some flats had stored their bicycles and grills and such on the stairs.  They bad!   Plus my hubby wanted to stop on the floors where we had friends and made sure they were not in their apartments but we figured they were ahead of us on the stairs.  This is the ONLY time there was actually a reason for the alarm being pulled and it was some of our friends where the wife had caught a skillet on fire and there was a lot of smoke in their apartment but her husband had put out the small stove fire before the alarm was pulled.  She ran and pulled the alarm because she was a nutter.


And one time in the Science Museum in London.  We're on the top floor when there is a fire alarm.  This was mid winter when it was actually quite cold.  By the time we reached the ground floor, personnel was stationed at all stairs and they would not let anyone retrieve their coats so I'm outside in 2 degree C weather, with a wind, and no coat.  AND they had to wait for the fire brigade to come and clear the alarm before we could go back inside to get our coats.   I no longer check my coat when I go somewhere unless it is just a jacket that I could do without for an hour or so.


In a very crowded theatre watching We Will Rock You.  In the middle of a song, the performers stopped singing and left the stage.  OMG.  Then the "Safety Curtain" descends and we had never seen that happen before.  No one in the audience knew what was happening so everyone just sat there for maybe 2 or 3 minutes.  There was no smoke or heat or alarms.  Finally staff opened all the exit doors and started shouting for people to leave the theatre.  A disgruntled employee had pulled an alarm backstage but we never heard it at all.  So out into the cold (with my coat this time) and wait for the fire brigade again to come and clear the theatre and 45 minutes later, we get back in to see the rest of the show.  


There have been a couple of other hotels where the alarms have been pulled and I have exited at my leisure, making sure I have my important stuff.  And there have been drills, so many drills.  Work place drills, hotel drills, restaurant drills, gym drills, store drills and others.  Usually there is a sign or an employee will mention that a drill is being held at such and such a time and please cooperate and exit as quickly as possible.   Never any smoke, never any heat, never any problem with calmly getting up and walking out with my stuff.  apparently my stuff is quite important to me!


Yesterday I was in an unannounced drill and it was only a partial drill at that!  I was at the gym and you might recall that I hate going to the gym.  Any excuse not to go.  But I was there and walking fast on the treadmill and watching Chuck on my iPod.  I think I heard something going off but I wasn't paying any attention as I was focused on Chuck and his cornucopia of problems with being a secret computer nerd spy.   Suddenly a lady jumps up on the treadmill next to me and taps me which was quite startling but she shouts "Fire Alarm".  I took out my earplugs and yep, it was going off quite loudly.  I think I didn't pay any attention to it because the music is usually way too loud so I must turn up my iPod as well.  I "emergency stopped" the treadmill, gathered my iPod and walked out.  People are leaving the gym and walking down the stairs but I detoured into the ladies locker room and got my purse and my coat and my keys.  Yep, stuff is definitely important to me.  But no smoke, no fire, no shouting, no running.  Some poor ladies are in the shower, some are half dressed, some are totally nude, and they are not really hurrying so I meandered out as well and when I got to the front of the hotel where my gym is located, it appeared that the only people involved in the drill were the people at the gym and the people at Starbucks and the pub.  There wasn't a single person out there who I would have counted as a hotel guest or hotel staff.  No housekeepers, who have a distinctive uniform or front desk staff who also have a distinctive uniform.   Everyone was dressed in gym attire or swimsuits and surely, at the time of day that this happened, one would have expected to get some executives over for lunch in their suits, or at least one or two hotels guests dressed nicer than sweaty T-shirts and trainers.   And it was a drill because no fire brigade showed up to check the alarm.  Once outside, it was less than 3 minutes before we were allowed back inside.  The Starbucks staff appeared to be the only employees outside with the gym attendees.    The end run of this drill was that I went back in to get my gym bag and then went home to do my errands. Didn't even want to take a shower there in case they figured we hadn't responded quickly enough and wanted to do it again.  


So I have become lackadaisical with fire alarms and fire drills.  No experience with the real thing - thank goodness - but then that gives me no frame of reference for how much time I really do have to get out.   I am probably doomed.


 

Still No Endorphins or Core Muscles!

Truly, truly do hate to exercise.  Started when I was but a tadpole, the hating to exercise bit, and don't think I have ever changed my mind.  There have been brief portions of my life when I could actually say I was sort of in a good shape and did regular things that were exercise related or actual exercise, e.g. volleyball for awhile, fencing for awhile, bicycling, walking, horseback riding,  but that's about it.  Short periods of intense craziness and then back to a sedentary lifestyle and creaking in the knees and aches and pains doing just about anything.

BUT I know I should exercise and I have plans to do it regularly and I try hard to incorporate it into my life and have dropped doing other things so that my exercise plans are not shunted to the side and buried like they usually are.  Oh, and the fact that my age and arthritis were making daily life much harder than it should have been so I have started exercising.

My daughter is a physically fit person and exercises almost every day.  I don't know how she became such an athlete other than I did put her in gymnastics as a child and she stayed with it into high school and then went into track and field.  Now she does it because it makes her feel better and without doing any exercise, she claims her whole day is crappy.  wow.  I have never, ever felt like that.  Wow again.  Never have I felt so much better after exercise that I am just so happy to have done it and so ready to do it again the next day!   Usually I felt like crap when I am exercising and am just really, really glad to be done.  Then the next day comes and I have to go through a whole new ramp up of cheer-leading myself into doing it again!  Where are my endorphins?  Why don't I have any?  I have jokingly told my daughter that once or twice I've gotten maybe 1/2 or 1 (at the most) endorphins from the exercise but to find some everyday?  Where is that "wall" I hear athletes talk about that they push past to get such wondrous feelings from the work out?  For me, it's a brick wall and I just run smack into it.  There is no pushing past it for a better feeling.  There is just "OMG - I ran into a brick wall!"

Every once in awhile I do stupid things because it is expected of everyone - this is the "join the gym and never go".  Yep, been there, done that.  Especially when my daughter is not around.  She is able to let the guilt flow up to me and "guilts" me into going to the gym with her.  When she's not here, forget it.  

I've done other things to try and get exercise into my life.  When we were living in Canada, we had a young man come to the house as our personal trainer.  He was quite good in helping us once a week work out and I enjoyed those sessions.  We had a great place set up in the basement for exercise in that we had mats, a hanging punching bag, a treadmill, and a chin up stand plus TRX ropes.  He didn't have a whole lot of experience but he was enthusiastic and able to get us going.  still don't feel like I got many endorphins and finding my core muscles seems rather elusive.


Leaving that location and moving on left me with no place to exercise on a regular basis and no motivation to do it on my own so I sunk back into my lethargy.  Then we move to England and I really have to do something physical or sink into being a couch potato blob so my daughter and I join a gym again.  As she is not here all the time, I do the guilt workouts when she's here and pretty much skip it when she's gone.  I get a trainer but he's pretty much useless and doesn't really know what he is doing as far as adapting a program to a person and their body type and such so most of my time with him is spent in pain and hating every minute of it.  No endorphins, no core muscles.  So I quit going to the gym again.  

Once again, my daughter comes to my rescue and finds me a better trainer, a superb trainer, and an experienced one.  Wow, he's good.  We start working out together at the gym but then the gym closes so he starts coming to the house.  He says that he  has all these exercises and things to do just floating around in the ether about him and he pulls them out of the air as needed depending on how I am feeling and working out that particular day.  It is amazing that I actually enjoy working out with him and feel, for the first time, that maybe there are some endorphins there - at least some of the time.  Still, some days it's just all crap and garbage to do anything but I am persisting and trying and possibly I might have seen a glimpse of some core muscles a couple of weeks ago.  


I still hate to go to the gym.  Part of it is because we belong to a really crappy gym.  We joined a gym where my hubby could swim during his lunch hour.  The deal was I would go and swim with him.  As he gets very little exercise in his job and spends hours in meetings and in front of the computer, I thought this would be good for all of us.  Plus I am not a very good swimmer but I love to scuba dive so thought I could get better at swimming going to the pool with him (a whole different story and kettle of worms there!)  But I hate the gym where we go.  It is a crappy, crappy gym and caters to families so some days there are young boys in the dressing room at a much more advanced age that I would have ever let my son into a women's dressing room -  had I ever had a son.  Other days there are just screaming girls in there with mothers paying little, if any, attention to them.  But even without the kids, it's still a crappy gym and I hate going and I do come up with all manner of excuses not to go.  The only reason we go there is so my hubby can walk over on his lunch hour.  Today I was actually there when they had a fire drill!  Of course I used this as a reason to quit and go home and do my errands.  But my daughter returns to visit us later this week and that means she will guilt me into going most days again.  Maybe I'll find an endorphin or two or maybe a core muscle or two.  They must be there somewhere.

Weekends at the DIY

Had to hit a DIY this weekend and for anyone who is really behind on the times, a DIY is Do It Yourself.  On occasion, it is so much easier to just repair something on your own rather than call a repair person or the landlord or whomever.  This may not be one of those occasions.  So we thought we had a quick repair where the upstairs pipe had broken off under the sink in one of the bedrooms.  This was not an under the sink plumbing that I have ever seen before but it seems to be fairly typical here as when we went into the DIY store, there were plenty of like parts to get and they seem to come in an "all in one" type replacement part.

What was amazing though is the number of people that were shopping the DIY.  OMG.  it was like Christmas sale week at the malls.  The lot was full, people were waiting for cars to move out of the way so they could park (although, it you went far enough out in the lot, there were some spaces).  Once inside, I was so thankful we were not going to the building section or the garden section as it seems like these sections were heaving with people as the Brits have decided that spring is here and they are busy working on their homes and gardens to fix up, spruce up, weather up, and/or maintain.  wow.  A whole lot of gardening and repairing going on across the nation, I'd say.  


Didn't take us too long to get what we needed even though we had a short list.  Took longer standing in the line to check out than it did to find everything we wanted.  But we managed.  

Back home, the repair that looked so easy and uncomplicated for a plumbing repair did not work.  Something is wrong with the picture as the easy part would not screw into the part that is left behind.  My hubby worked and worked and worked on it until he had stripped the threads in the PVC pipe.  Back to the hardware store for another piece of plumbing kit that was exactly what we had previously purchased and lo and behold, hubby could not make it work either!  Dang, two 5.99 pound parts, both stripped now and both not going where they should and my sink still not fixed.  double dang.  How odd.  And how funny.  My hubby can fix things and do a good job sometimes but on occasion, his engineering and computer brain takes over and he keeps trying for a "re-boot" when a re-boot won't do.  such was the case here.  So now we have three sets of plumbing parts that don't work, but we probably can't ever throw them away just in case we can use them elsewhere, a sink that still doesn't work, and a lovely Friday in the DIY along with the rest of England. 

Bumper People and Eerie Stations

Last weekend we had dinner and a play in town and did the pin balling from local map to local map to find where we needed to go.  This weekend it was much worse and not quite so easy.  We had tickets to see The Full Monty and also to have dinner at the Spaghetti House before the show, one of the pre-theatre dinner packages.

Started out badly.  We arrived at the train station and found a parking place without a problem but when we got to the window to purchase our tickets, the train times had been changed from the usual times we were familiar with and counting on.  dang. when did that happen.  Had I purchased the tickets on line like I usually do, might have discovered that, BUT after last weekend when the trains were delayed and we had to find another way home, we were told to go back to our original station to get our refund - hence we were getting today's tickets at the station so that we could also get our refund.  Nope, didn't happen.  So now we are without our refund from the prior week and we are also going to be quite late for our 6 p.m. dinner reservation.  We called the restaurant and told them we would be there at 6:30.  

Our train should have gotten us to Waterloo at 6:20 but it arrived at 6:30.  Still we figured we could make the restaurant in about 10 minutes.  Just not to be this evening.  Not quite sure if it was rugby or football but the Tube was full of fans going to Leicester Square and a good many of them were already well into stages of inebriation plus wildly enthusiastic about their teams and a good deal of shouting and cheering and singing.  Exiting at Leicester Square proved to be an experience in bumper people rather than bumper cars.  It was so crowded that we were bumping everyone next to us as we struggled towards the exit.   It was the kind of crowd that had anyone fallen down, they would have stayed down as people wouldn't have been able to find them underneath the feet.

Finally we burst into the open and there is a drunken crowd of about 50 people clustered around the map.  It is now 7:40 p.m.  We can't even get close to the map and we can't remember which way to go so we just turn and walk down the street to try and get out of the crowd and find another map.  Nope, not to be.  Hubby pulls out his phone and speaks in the address and it points off in a direction so we walk along its path.  Tonight is the night that the phone GPS plays tricks on us.  twice we walked around the block in a circle trying to find the right street.  And finally I realize we have to give up totally on the restaurant because it is now 7 p.m. and our play starts at 7:30.  I tell hubby to put the theatre into the GPS and it takes us in a total different direction.  huh?  the restuarant and theatre were supposedly close together.  Oh well, we head back towards the tube station and again are bumping our way through the crowds that are still there and surging out of the tube and go a couple of blocks and there is the theatre.  Wow, had we just turned the other direction when we came out, we might have made it to the restuarnt in time to eat!   Across the street from the theatre is an Eat so we dash in there to get a sandwich and drink and couple of cookies.  Into the theatre for our seats and we share a sandwich and our cookies before the play begins and that was our dinner!


Lovely play, enjoyed it immensely and then when it is over, we struggle through the crowds back to Leicester Square Station.  There are even more people in the streets now. We've never seen it this crowded.  There are police stationed at each exit/entrance to Leicester Square Tube Station and they are blocking the entrances and telling people to go around the corner.  We do but the queue to go into the station is so thick that we decide we will just walk until we find another station or a cab, whichever comes first.

Unfortunately, we have to "swim upstream" against a very solid mass of shouting fans and drunken fans and theatre buffs.  A policeman at one of the entrances tells us to walk up the street to find Tottenham Court Tube Station and we can get back to Waterloo from there.  One would think that as we got a block or two away from this tube station that the crowds might lessen but there were too many like minded people heading for Tottenham Court tube station so we strolled up the street as it was impossible to get around the people and stride out.  Finally we get to the Tottenham Court Tube Station and the first entrance is closed.  We're thinking it still might be a taxi then but when we walk around the corner, there are people going into the station so we do also but at the bottom of the stairs just around the corner, the crowd grows into a large lump of humanity that is shuffling towards the entrance gates and now we are stuck as there are too many people behind us to turn around and make an escape.


Amazingly enough, when we finally go through the turnstiles, it opens up and there is still a crowd but not so bad as some people peel off to go on the Bakerloo line and we go towards the Northern line.  We walk down to the platform and it is heaving at the beginning as the fans who are still drunk and cheering are getting to the platform and just standing there waiting for the subway.  We push and shove and bumper our way through this knot of people and walk to the far end of the platform where there are only a few people and WHEW at last we are out of the crowds.


The train comes and there are very few people in our car so we have seats.  An announcement is made that the train will NOT be stopping at Leicester Square due to the station being closed due to overcrowding.  Wow.  have never heard of this happening before.  Glad we left that station.  As we roll through that station though, they have totally cleared it out and not a single person is on the platform at all, not even a tube worker.  rather eerie.  Charing Cross might have taken up some of the slack but it was surprisingly sparse as well.  Embankment is closed for their escalator repair anyway so another eerie station as we pass the empty platform.  

Finally Waterloo and as we are riding the escalator up to the train station, we hear an announcement that says "Victoria Line is currently running slow due to a person under the train, No other lines are experiencing delays".  Say WHAT???  I turned to my hubby and he heard the same thing so I didn't "mis-hear" it.  Wow.  Entirely too many people on the tracks these weeks.  


Unfortunately, we have about 1/2 hour to wait for our train and it isn't a fast train either, stopping numerous times before reaching our destination.  So we stand and watch the board so we can make a dash for the correct platform when it is listed and also we are watching to make sure there aren't any delays like last week that turned into an all night stoppage.  We know from experience that the trains leaving from about 11 p.m. to a bit past midnight are almost always full as people are going home from a night in the city.  And tonight there are all these football or rugby fans who are roaming the station, now very drunk and either maudlin-ly sad or ridiculously happy but either side is still shouting and cheering and singing.  


Finally we get a track number and we rapidly walk to the gates.  We skip the first couple of cars and get on where the first class car is located.  It is next to the toilet but experience has taught us that usually, USUALLY,  these seats are left to the end before they fill, if at all but other cars without the first class section, are usually quite full and people are standing until they get as far out as Farnborough or Fleet.   Well, tonight was an exception to that rule as has been most of the travel evening.  By the time the train left, our coach was quite full with a queue for the toilet.   In the group of people left standing without seats was a group of football fans who were fairly well lit with liquor including one friend who couldn't really stand, being that intoxicated.  Luckily his friends got him into the toilet by requesting to jump the queue and everyone agreed because we all thought he was going to hurl on someone otherwise.  Then his friends took him off to the end and sat him on the floor.  Some nights, my hubby can sleep on the train going home but not tonight.  Rowdy and loud but polite in that the fans stayed within their group and didn't bother anyone else on the train, other than falling over on occasion when the train hit a curve.  

So an interesting evening where nothing went as planned from the very start, a very entertaining play, a missed dinner engagement, bumper people game up and down the street and through the tube stations, and drunken train companions all the way home.  Geez, I just LOVE London!!!!

   

Pin balling through London

We had a lovely weekend planned which involved us heading into London both Friday and Saturday.  On Friday we were going to The Shard for the view and lunch.  Boy did we get lucky with the weather as Friday was a beautiful day with hardly a cloud, certainly no rain, and even very little pollution it seemed.  

 Looking at the maps, it appeared we were only about a mile away from the location so we set my hubby's phone to a GPS mode and started following it out of London Waterloo Station.  As we weren't positive where we had to go, every time we saw a sign that offered a map of the surrounding area, we would stop and look to see where we were and how far we had to go.  Mostly it was rather in a straight line so no worries and we ambled towards the Shard without a problem.  Good navigation.  And nice to walk along on top of the streets rather than riding below the streets for once.  After our lunch and view though, we hit the tubes to go back to Waterloo and head home.  

Saturday
 Hubby and I had a nice Sat in London last weekend.  We had tickets for him to attend the Craft Beer Rising Festival which is a yearly gathering of different brewers, mostly from the U.K., and their brews and a good many of them started as home brewers or still do beers in the home brewing fashion.  As my husband has been a home brewer for the last 40 years, this festival interests him a great deal as he gets to talk to the brewers and exchange ideas and gather tips, yada, yada.  Much better than the beer festivals where there is just a wall of kegs and everyone is drinking as fast as they can.

So to the Craft Beer Rising, had a lovely time, talked to some great brewers who are quite proud of their stuff, only tasted a few that were less than stellar, and then out and on for the rest of our evening.   

We had tickets to see Agatha Christie's Mousetrap and a nice dinner before hand with one of the special Pre-theatre dinner restaurants that offer you a two course meal for a reduced rate in the hopes that you will also buy a bunch of drinks and maybe desserts, etc.    As we didn't want to retrace our steps to the metro tube station where we had arrived for the Craft Beer shindig, we set up my hubby's phone to a GPS mode to follow it to our restaurant.  It had been quite easy on Friday to follow it to get to The Shard.  Of course, it helps being able to see your building over all the other buildings too.

    We wandered around the neighborhood first as there were several markets in action but nothing really worth buying that day.  And then we followed the GPS to the tube station.  Oddly enough, his phone told us to exit at Embankment which was at least a mile from where we wanted to be.  It would have made much more sense to exit at Leicester Square which is smack in the middle of the theatre district but for some reason, the GPS/phone was playing tricks on us.

Fairly easy to get to the Strand from Embankment but then we were sure exactly which way it was telling us to go, so we navigated by the combination of GPS-phone instructions and stopping at every map on the street again to ascertain where we were and where was the restaurant and where we wanted to turn.  Felt like we were pin balling from sign to sign.  Hit one and spin off in another direction until you hit the next one and then spin off some more.  What's wonderful about London and a good many large UK towns and even European cities is that these maps are up and about the town and make it quite easy to find places.

So bouncing around and we found our restaurant quite early actually.  There was a comic book store right next to it and I don't think we've been in a comic book store since my teens but we went in to see as we had the time.  My gosh!  Exactly like The Big Bang Theory.  I looked around for Howard and Leonard and Raj and Sheldon.  They could have been there.


And then to dinner and then the show, both which were quite enjoyable.  Heading back to Waterloo, we managed to snag a cab but the trains were delayed.  First time we've been caught out and had to detour to Staines and get a cab home from there.  geez.  not a cheap night.