Tied to tent pegs!

Getting out of London was more of an adventure that we had planned. The non-adventure plan was to take the tube to Paddington station, and then the train to Oxford where we would pick up our narrowboat. I figured about 2 hours. We had to pick up the boat between 2 and 4. If we left London by 11, we would have lots of time, right?

We got on the tube in Brixton at about 10:45 and changed at Victoria for Paddington. We didn't realize that Saturday is tube maintenance day. Things were not as we had planned. We got stuck at Earl's Court because all the lines north from there were down for maintenance. The crowds were unbelievable. We changed trains and backtracked to Piccadilly, then changed again to the Bakerloo line to get to Paddington. 3 train changes and 2 hours later we made it to Paddington.

Everything was easy once we got to the Rail station. Two tickets to Oxford were £42 (second class – off peak hours). We arrived in Oxford an hour later. The next phase was to get to the narrowboat hire company which was 4 miles out of town. I checked with a cab and he wanted £30. We walked over to the bus stop and the fare was £2, but the driver said we would have to walk a bit. No problems! Anything to save a buck! We “alighted” at Eynsham and walked along the road to the boat hire place. It was very dangerous. There was no sidewalk or path and the cars, trucks and buses were screaming by. Scarey! We arrived at the hire place just after 2 o'clock. I love it when a plan comes together.

Our boat, the Silver Swift, is great. Swift it is not, but booting around the Thames at 4 knots is fast enough. A young fellow came with us to the first lock to show us how to do it, and then we were on our own. This is a very comfortable way to see the English countryside. We headed straight back to Oxford (2 hours and 4 locks away) to pick up groceries and store barge. 

 

Interestingly, you can tie the boats up almost anywhere. There are some signs that prohibit mooring, and there are some areas that are not suitable, but most places are accessible. You just pull the barge over to a flat spot on the bank, pound in a couple big tent pegs, tie yourself to them and there you are.

We are now settled in for a steak dinner and a bottle of good red wine, watching the teams of Oxford U rowers go by, safely tied to tent pegs.

Brixton

We spent the last couple days exploring our host London borough Lambeth, location of the notorious Brixton. Brixton has a somewhat sketchy past. It claims the dubious honour of being the home of the largest race riots ever in the UK when, 30 years ago, the largely black population of Brixton rioted while protesting the English law that allowed racial profiling. The profiling had resulted in some 90% of all searches of people on suspicion happening to black people.

Sketchy parts of town are a specialty for naval people. When ships must be berthed in the various ports around the world, they are not normally hosted in the finest parts of town. Typically the port is in the old town and is full of people on the fringes of society. You don't have to look very far from home to see examples; Esquimalt (our home on the other side of the blue bridge) enjoys a somewhat notorious reputation itself. Just think about the other port cities, Vancouver, Halifax, and Montreal. The ports are not exactly the upscale parts of town, although many are undergoing a renaissance. We felt very comfortable in Brixton.

Similarly, Brixton, but is being reborn as an eclectic area with a very unique pulse. Walking the streets reveals a very mixed blend of cultures from around the world, arguably more cosmopolitan than the square mile of London itself.

 Guyanese Roti in the Brixton Market.

A Pennsylvania State police car???

There are many places to eat with a wide variety of choice. Of course there is a great selection of Caribbean and African style foods available in the market, at small stalls, and at local restaurants.

Our favourite pub was the Duke of Edinburgh pub just outside the complex where we rented our flat. The pub had Wifi, good beer, and good food. We used the Duke for a nightly beer while checking our email and uploading our blog notes. One night we played trivia with the locals. It involved the usual trivia questions (heavily English sport and television based) and was broken up with interesting activities between the rounds of trivia. During one break, the teams had to build a structure out of newspaper and “cello” tape. The team with the tallest structure wins. One team was limited by the ceiling (at 8 feet or so) and won the competition. Another game they played involved picking up an empty cereal box off the floor with your teeth, without kneeling or putting your hands on the floor. Each round a layer was torn off the box so it wasn't as tall, and picking the box up got more challenging. Nancy lasted three rounds, but the local girls were able to pick the bottom of the box up of the floor when all the sides had been ripped off. I was in tears laughing. We came dead last! The winner walked away with 40 pounds sterling!

 Building a newspaper tower at The Duke's.

After the trivia game, the manager introduced himself and asked us what we were doing in Brixton. He told us that we were the first tourists they had ever had in the pub.

We also enjoyed a feast of jerk chicken at the Duke. It is a spicy dish of chicken pieces, that originates in Jamaica, served with the ubiquitous chips (french fries) that seem to accompany everything (in England) from curry to fried eggs.

The Brixton market is a fascinating collection of food and goods, being sold out of carts and off the back of trucks, and is full of colourful characters. It is a gold mine of opportunities for the street photographer. We saw everything imaginable for sale. Huge snails were offered at the bargain price of £3.50 each. Dried barracuda, fish heads, and pigtails (I had to look twice) at bargain prices I'm sure. We would have had a good feed of pigtails and mega snails, but, well, you know... (It's not the sort of thing you just fry up.)

 The Fish Stall (one of many).

DIY Toast and a friendly Brixtoner.

 Giant Snails.

 Dried fish heads.

 Salted pig tails.

We're Here!

Alain de Botton in The Art of Travel makes an interesting observation; “we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate.” Specifically, de Botton writes about how a travel book might tell us about travelling though the afternoon to reach a destination, but the reality is that many more things happened than simply travelling through the afternoon. In keeping with de Botton's thought, I could just say that we flew to London, but there was much more than just that in our epic 30 hours without sleep that eventually saw us falling into bed in Brixton, totally exhausted.

We woke up long before dawn to meet the requirement for checking in an hour and a half ahead of our scheduled flight to Calgary, where we caught our KLM flight to Amsterdam, where we caught our connector to London. Why such a convoluted flight path you may be wondering. That route is the result of searching out the cheapest flights we could find, on our own, on the internet. We wanted to avoid the boat people/refugee seat configuration of Air Transat because of the myriad stories we had heard about the lack of legroom. I bought great seats on a KLM flight; even paid for extra legroom (for both of us). So that decision, so easy at the time, resulted in a six hour (yes 6) layover in Calgary. Not so bad unless you miss your connecting flight..., but we didn't. We landed in Calgary and went to have breakfast and then spent the next several hours hanging around the departure lounge. What we failed to realize, is that Calgary is one hour ahead of Vancouver. I blame the aircrew. (Nancy blames me.) Normally the pilot comes on the blower just before landing anywhere, and he gives the passengers (now called “guests” on Westjet) the local weather and time and some flight info for those connecting on to somewhere else. Not this time. He landed, we got off (alighted as the say here in Kips). No mention of time! So, six hours later as we are strolling through the terminal, we hear the dreaded “this is the last call for KLM flight 678 to Amsterdam. All people who are not checked in will have their baggage offloaded and their seats cancelled.” We had a WTF moment, and then bolted through the airport to the gate, and we were the last people on the plane. Note to self, check the time on the clocks in the airport when you arrive.

After a severe brow beating by Nancy, we left Calgary. As we took our special seats with extra legroom (at some expense) the very nice air hostess apologized profusely when she announced that the entertainment gizmos in our seats were not functioning and then offered us new seats in the “comfort” section with working entertainment equipment. Of course we took her offer. After moving to the new seats we realized they didn't have the coveted (and expensive) extra legroom. By the time we got the nerve to complain, there was already someone else stretched out in our old seats, with her feet up on her carry-on suitcase, sound asleep. Of course we didn't want to be complete assholes, so we endured the next nine hours without the legroom I had so meticulously organized.

To top it all off, the newspaper they gave me, as we boarded, had a lengthy article about the recovery of the black box from the Air France airbus that crashed in the mid Atlantic enroute from Brazil to France. Of course I read the article with some interest since we were on an airbus. I learned that Air France and KLM are actually the same company, and that the company was particularly happy because they had never figured out why the airbus went down. Recovering the black box would enable the company to resolve the mystery of the crash and make the airbus safer in the future. It was another WTF moment! I sweated all the way to Amsterdam.

When we landed in Amsterdam, I checked the time; we went directly to the departure lounge for the connector and sat there. No problems! We got the right seats, on time, and had a relaxing flight to Heathrow, on something other than an airbus.

So, you can see how blogging that “we flew to London,” just does not tell the whole story.

An interesting start.

Here we are in Calgary. The etickets worked. We have left the Island! Two points to amuse you: first of all Nancy was complaining that her almost new shoes were suddenly feeling uncomfortable. So once we got on the plane she took it off (we must have reminded everyone of the shoe bomber), and I discovered that the inside has come apart and is creating big folds over her toes. Bummer! |Almost new shoes, an hour after we leave home! Go figure. I guess we won't be buying Keen shoes any more. There are no shoe stores in Calgary airport.

The second amusing thing, still on the topic of shoes, was that Nancy noticed that the guy sitting beside us had two different colour shoes on. Same shoes, same amount of wear, just different colours. Is this a fashion thing we are not aware of, or was he a traveling clown?

Jet lag thoughts.

When traveling east, do you stay up late and sleep in, or do you go to bed early and get up early? Nine time zones is gonna mess me up! Jet lag blues comin' up! One day of recovery per hour of time zone change.

There seems to be lots of jet lag "cures" available on Google. 1,440,000  hits when I googled "jet lag cures."
Pilot Paul seems to have a good grip on dealing with jet lag, I guess experience counts.

How about this weird jet lag cure.  "By now my limbs were completely beyond my control, hands and feet fluttering about like butterflies as I looked on, bemused and powerless, at my own convulsing body."  Sounds like fun!

I am not looking forward to this aspect of the Eurodash.  Jet lag sucks!

Brief safe update.

Nancy has been trying out the brief safe but finds they chafe her legs quite a bit.

Kidding!

Into the short strokes now.

We don't leave for another two days, but we've packed everything in our packs, as a trial run, to make sure it all fits. I bought a new bag to use. The MEC Walkabout fit me, and it held all the stuff I need to bring at a total weight of merely 25 pounds. (I wonder what I will forget) Hopefully it will survive the trip. Just to follow up on the shoes thing, I'm ditching the sandals. Simply no room.

I am even more excited about our leisurely cruise on the canals of Oxford now. Here is Silver Swift , the boat we have chartered for a week. We pick it up at the Oxford base and wander from there. Several routes available to us in the area. Hopefully the sides of the canals are littered with olde English public houses and other interesting places to visit.

The other wet aspect of our Eurodash is cruising out of the British Kiel Yacht Club in Kiel Germany.  We (along with 2 other couples) have chartered a Comfortina 42 named Osprey for 10 days from the BKYC. Access to this boat was made possible by our new friends (and soon to be in-laws) who work with the British Forces in Germany. Nice work!  I have brought pennants from the clubs we are  members of (CFSA and RVYC) to leave at the BKYC.

Because I am not familiar with the area, I am not sure where we'll be going or how far away anything is, but it looks to me like Copenhagen and the coast of Denmark are certainly doable. Funny how the ticket requirement for the master of the boat is a non-tidal license. I have heard that tides are almost non-existent in the Baltic. That will be a nice change from here. A five knot boat in a four knot tide sucks 50% of the time.