Next week, I’m heading back to the greatest land, land of tea, scones, and marmite crisps… jolly accents, dry humour, and the Queen’s English… consistent rainfall, looming grey clouds, and whipping winds that turn your brolly inside out… fish and chips, chip and eggs, and mushy peas…
Yes you’ve got it, England.
During my week long trip in August, I traveled loads and ended up seeing a lot of the country, mostly in passing whilst in a train or automobile.
Here is a Googly Map of my travels in England:
I got to know British Rail pretty well, and though we had a few disagreements over lack of wifi, comfortable seats, and leg room, I did feel a certain novel fondness for the British train system.
I thought I’d take a look back at the planes, trains, and automobiles I encountered during my travels from Vancouver, BC to London, England and then all over the beautiful land that is England.
Plane: from Vancouver to London (Gatwick). If you have ever flown Air Transat you will know that it is not the most glamourous or comfortable airline in the world. If you take enough gravol and squint long enough, you might find “Shrek the Third” to be quite enjoyable on the tiny, fuzzy pictured tv screens located every 5 rows for your viewing pleasure.
Trains: Gatwick Express to London Underground to Victoria Station to Kings Cross to Cambridge to Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. Phew.
And then I stayed in lovely Bury St. Edmunds for a few days.
And then I was back on the trains heading to Leeds to meet up with the rest of the awesome Alton Towers crew: Bury to Cambridge to Peterborough to York.
Peterborough
Enroute to York as the sun sets.
York
Automobiles: from York to Harrogate (near Leeds)
We then spent a lovely evening in Harrogate and headed off to Staffordshire and Alton Towers early the next morning… I’ll save that adventure for another rainy day.
Thom Shannon
November 7, 2007 at 4:15 AMIt’s egg and chips ;)
Chris
November 7, 2007 at 5:31 AMCant believe you’re not coming to Scotland.
We have castles and kilts and bagpipes and tablet (sweet which is basically made of pure sugar) and great accents (better than England) and awesome shopping and you buy a beer for less than £28.50!
Chocoadicta
November 7, 2007 at 1:48 PMNext time you have to visit the Peak District National Park and Scotland, of course! I love those places :). (and you have to visit us and practice your spanish too ;) )
Mark
November 7, 2007 at 2:07 PMYou know ever since you posted those marmite chrisps on your blog i have been looking for them, but can’t find them. Guess i’m not looking hard enough.
You coming over for work or play?
Come to Wimbledon in South West London and meet a whole bunch of South Africans! We’ve taken over the place.
Chris
November 8, 2007 at 2:17 AM@Mark – Somerfields sell them i think. They were a special edition i think but found them recently. I love marmite but hate marmite crisps. No idea why
Mostly Lisa
November 8, 2007 at 5:11 AM@Thom — cheeky! but yes it would be a bit odd to have egg and a chip, unless it was a very large chip.
@Chris — castles are pretty awesome. i spent my childhood summers in the Isle of Man where there was a town all about castles. oddly enough it was called Castletown. they made the loveliest ice cream there. i used to get my ice cream cone with the flake of course and run up the spiral staircase allll the way to the top and pretend i was a soldier. a soldier who watched for bad guys whilst enjoying a lovely ice cream.
@Chocoadicta — i would love to come to Scotland. apparently there are kilts and bagpipes, something i would be foolish to miss out on. And it would be wonderful to practice my Spanish again. I’m afraid that it is vanishing everyday. What city are you living in?
@Mark — work and play. i’ll be in London for two days. i currently have one plan… visit the biggest Apple store in the world. Beyond that, everything is up for grabs. Wimbledon hmm… sounds like a rowdy place, might be worth a stop!
@Mark & Chris — Walker’s makes THE Marmite crisps. To be honest, I haven’t ever eaten marmite crisps or marmite for that matter.
The reason being is that I had a cat, Romário (named after the Brasilian football legend), with heart problems who had to take heart medication twice a day. As you can imagine, it is hard to force a cat to swallow pills, so my mum would cover the pills in marmite to fool the cat into eating the pill. As he was quite a smart cat, Romário would lick most of the marmite off and leave the sticky pill on the ground. After about a week, Romário said “no way” to the marmite pill cover-up experiment and I was effectively turned off Marmite for good.
Mark
November 8, 2007 at 11:18 AMHaha I like the story behind the Walkers marmite crisps.
The Apple Store in Regent St is great, didn’t know it was the biggest one in the world though! It’s not that huge.
Do drop me a mail if you want to meet up and talk Apple and design over a frosty pint.
Current weather conditions: grey skies and drizzling.
crunchycarpets
November 8, 2007 at 1:22 PMDo you have family there…most of my trips to England have focused around Staffordshire, Darbyshire, etc…the Cotswolds…and Alton Towers YEARS ago when I was wee.
And I love taking the train there.
The best trip was from Glasgow to Inverness..though we had been awake for 24 hours so it was a bit trippy. Dh almost killed me squealing every five minutes about deer and bunnies!
Oh and I had a dream about you last night in which you were a cowgirl!
Mostly Lisa
November 9, 2007 at 2:06 AM@Mark — you should stop by Regent St. today. Quite a hub of apple nerd mania these last few weeks with Leopard, now the iPhone.
current weather conditions in Vancouver: grey and drizzling… bonding through horribly dull weather conditions… there should almost be a smiley for that…
@crunchycarpets — i have family in Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent, but I won’t be traveling that far north this trip.
Lisa as a Cowgirl hmmmmm… the third picture on this post could quite possibly make your dreams come true :wink:
Mark
November 9, 2007 at 2:47 AMHmmm too many Apple nerds in one area me thinks, I might get a bit claustrophobic. I’ll wait a bit before i pick up the iphone i think.
Blue skies today and its the weekend baby! :) :)
McClaud
November 9, 2007 at 8:46 PMAh, I love the UK.
If you ever get an opportunity, visit Bristol Wales or Edinburough Scotland.
Scotland’s the home of my ancestors.
Mostly Lisa
November 11, 2007 at 3:07 AM@McClaud — was planning on visiting Bristol this visit, but there ended up not being enough time… on my next trip fo sho!
Chocoadicta
November 12, 2007 at 7:03 AMNow in Sheffield :).
Dan
February 19, 2008 at 3:18 AMLovely photos Lisa. I’ve been to a lot of those places myself and York, in particular is a place I love to go for weekend breaks. It’s fantastic and I know some people who go to Uni there so the night life is great.
If you’ve never been you should check out Nottingham and also some of the small towns and parks nearby such as Castleton You’d get some face-melting photos there.
As a Canadian living in England, your photos really make me realise what I like about this country.
Thanks
Dan
chris
May 9, 2008 at 12:35 PMI just watched your Platform 9 3/4 video. You do know that in the movies, they actually used platform 2 for that purpose, don’t you? That may be why you ran headlong into a solid object. ;)