I couldn’t have made up a more fitting story to start off our trip to England.
I met the Baumans at the airport and they were just coming from dropping off Hoover at the dog sitter’s. We were each taking one carry-on only to avoid the 22 euro charge to check a bag. On Sunday, I brought a measuring tape and picked up a cheap travel bag at the Rastro. At the airport, we checked in and headed to our gate. Amanda and I grabbed water from a shop because easyJet allows flyers to bring a plastic bag of items purchased at the airport in addition to their carry-on and I needed a temporary purse to hold everything I had in my coat pockets, (you could also hold a coat in addition to your carry-on as well).
They started boarding and we noticed in the line that the easyJet gate attendants were having everyone fit their suitcases in the carry-on size cookie-cutter display next to the gate. Although my bag was within the guidelines unpacked, packed, it was too fat to fit in the display. I told the Baumans this. Erick went first with Mandy’s standard small carry-on size suitcase and the attendant asked him to put it in the display and confirm the size. He dropped it in easily (vertically) and the man said “no the other way” (horizontally). Erick tilted and pushed and the bag was just a smidge too long to fit horizontally. The man standing watch told Erick he needed to check the bag. Erick continued pushing. Another man came over and said it was too big and that he’d need to check it, Erick powered on now pounding the bag into the mental contraption. Erick told the man that this apparatus was smaller than the one out by check-in, the man said no it wasn’t. Erick pounded, pushed, manipulated whatever he could on either side of the suitcase and finally got it in there. It was like the chicken or the egg: the bag or the display; you couldn’t tell if the bag came first and the display maybe grew over it or the display came first and a grown man beat it in there. It was intimately tight, and Erick had to be sweating.
There were six easyJet attendants at the gate and the four not monitoring Erick were still trying to hustle people through boarding. I took that opportunity to give her my ticket and bypass the carry-on checkpoint, to avoid my own “too big bag” disaster. It was one benefit to the scene that was being made, not a proud one, but a plus for me. I stood on the jet way watching Erick negotiate now that the bag did indeed fit in the cookie cutter, but the two men kept repeating with a perfectly flawed pronunciation “it needs to be com-furt-i-blay,” finally Erick argued “there’s not a child in it.” I tried to be sensitive to their troubles, but I was trying not to double over laughing while hiding my bag behind me.
The gentleman told Erick to take the bag out. Erick pulled one side then the other and was taking the display with him as he lifted. He had Mandy step on the back legs of the display as he jaws-of-life'd it out of there. Finally it came out but Erick would tell us later that he was pulling so hard his arms cramped up and he couldn’t open his hands. Erick walked over to me and said “Put that in your blog…did you take a picture?”
While the plane was boarding, Erick told Amanda and me that it was like he got tunnel vision to get the bag in there. The three of us couldn’t help criticizing the other luggage shapes and sizes that were coming on board and there were definitely some questionable ones. Long luggage rubbed Erick wrong in a specific way, though thin, they clearly violated the easyJet length policy. Just prior to take off, the empty space in the overhead compartment above me was also salt on the wound.
A woman asked to sit in the window seat in Erick’s aisle and when it looked like everyone was aboard and there was a vacant seat between the two of them, Erick turned to her and said “looks like we did good,” implying the convenience of the empty seat, the woman said “me?, You!” It felt like a jab against scene-at-the-gate-Erick, but she corrected herself and said Erick was blocking anyone else getting into their row, maybe she backed out of it thinking he might fit her into a carry-on. We hadn’t even left Madrid and I’d already ruined a pair of contacts.
Throughout the trip I thought of so many possible titles for the blog, which is really why there are multiple parts, that, and because it’ll take me a while to write and post all of it. But the close second of Part 2, was “Does this place have WiFi?”
We landed at Luton airport in England and headed to customs. Erick pulled out his life support, I mean iPhone and tried searching for service. His phone wasn’t connecting. He approached a nearby agent and asked her if there was WiFi, I think she said no. His phone still wasn’t connecting. We were moving in the line and he was fired up about the expensive phone contract that we’d all just bought in Madrid and its lack of service in England. Amanda pulled the “people have been living without cell phones…” card, nope, Erick wanted his phone to work.
We went to the bus stop where our rental car shuttle was to pick us up. Amanda and I were talking and was Erick standing away from us, right by another shuttle bus feeding off its WiFi, furiously writing an email to the guy that sold him the phone to get him connected in England.
We got to Enterprise and picked up our vehicle, thankfully Lorne and Verity had bummed us their GPS and we entered the first destination: Stratford-on-Avon, the birth place of William Shakespeare. This was Erick’s first time driving on the other side of the road, on the other side of the car. Not even ten miles into the trip, we were mapping out the logistics of our scheduled day:
Car rental – check, but behind
Stratford – walking tour
Cotswold - drive thru
Bath – Thermau Baths
Check into B&B
It was already after 2 pm and we were weighing in on scratching Stratford and Cotswold so we could make it in time to sit in the roman baths in Bath. Traffic wasn’t great and the distance between the locations certainly had us arriving to our Bed and Breakfast late into the evening. Ten miles in the vote was roman baths in Bath. We U-turned. The GPS found a “British food” (chain) called Toby Cauvery on our route. Verity shook her head in disappointment when I told her this. Maybe it was the starvation, but the three of us were thrilled by the buffet selection of meats, vegetables (Spain is a hit or miss with non-potato veggies) and gravies. We concluded the meal with desserts or “puddings” and had to try whatever was traditional English food: Yorkshire pudding and spotted dick. Our plates were like personal Thanksgivings. When we first arrived, “Does this place have WiFi?” and if they had, Erick would have been thankful for it.
Erick rerouted us to Bath taking the GPS shortest route instead of the fastest. It was a great idea because we were able to see so many cute, quaint English towns on the way. It was 7:45 pm and we arrived at the Thermae Bath Spa, Britain’s original and only natural thermal spa. We were “pleasantly” greeted by our host. My cousin Katie had warned me of the English friendliness. Our host might as well have been welcoming her ex-husband and his new smoking hot girlfriend (whom he cheated on her with and in their bed, while the kids were home) to Christmas dinner. At multiple times on the trip I felt like people wouldn’t try to understand me (us). I didn’t feel like we were using complicated or confusing language, for example, I asked a man sitting at a metro ticket booth where if I could buy an all day metro pass from him and he said “I don’t know what you’re asking me.” I found that a lot of people would say something to the extent of ‘I don’t understand you’ instead of asking an exploratory question. I appreciated Katie’s heads up and didn’t take it personally. I feel like there is a bigger picture global lesson in here that I haven’t passed yet.
The three of us signed up for a two hour spa session in their rooftop pool, steam rooms and Minerva baths. By 8 pm we were in the Minerva pool and it was perfectly warm and relaxing. The pool wasn’t crowded and the three of us floated around and made fun of the inappropriate young lovers that were in the pool. I can only imagine if this existed in Spain, with the amount of PDA, the legal amount of chlorine available in a pool would be no match against the cesspool of venereal disease. Gross.
We headed to the glass enclosed rooftop pool and it was the absolutely perfect setting of beautiful historic romantically lit views of Bath as we swam in the warm springs. Go. And go late at night when it’s not crowded.
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We finished in the steam rooms which offered four tanks of different aromas each followed with a waterfall shower. We wrapped it up and headed to the showers and to our bed and breakfast.
We were staying at the Georgian Lodge in nearby Bradford-on-Avon. Bradford-on-Avon was my favorite charming city. We arrived at 9:50 pm and woke up our host. He was less than excited that we were 50 minutes late and I wasn’t going to reveal that we just spent two hours in selfish Bath bliss. We just apologized and begged for suggestions of where to eat. He pessimistically listed off places with an annoyed, disgruntled flair but with some enthusiasm said an Indian place would be our best bet. We collected the key and walked to Erick who was waiting with the car. “Did they have WiFi?” (Crraaaaapppp) We forgot to ask. You can tell our priority was getting into the room and finding a place to eat. We were harassed a little bit for that blunder.
We parked and put our bags away and walked up the road. Night tours are becoming a favorite thing for me. It’s quiet, just enough people are around, it feels safe and things are well lit, so good photos. We found the Indian place and put in our order and headed back to the Georgian Lodge.
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After eating, the three of us headed upstairs to the three twin beds in the loft. I was so tired but was trying so hard not to fall asleep.
Day Two: Thursday, October 28, 2010
The three little bears woke up and the Baumans informed me that I was sleep talking that night. I think that’s how I translated trying to stay awake: I fell asleep and continued participating in the conversation. I vaguely remember the Baumans asking a question and I asked back “Erin Byer?”
A little background story is that at work people would talk over the walls generically and ask coworkers questions. Since I didn’t know if people were talking to me, if it was silent for a little while, I would ask back “Erin Byer?” For example, a coworker says, “Where can I find the WiFi password?” me, “…Erin Byer?” Like are you asking me where you can get the password? I said my full name was Erin seemed to be the most popular name in the 80s and every 6th person in a Habitat office was named Erin. (Yes Erick I was born in the 80’s). I was applying the same logic to the Baumans statement. I don’t even remember the question but the Baumans said it sounded like I said “Aaron Burr.” They went with it and continued talking to me and I keep repeating “Erin Byer.”
We had a laugh and got ready for breakfast. I was thrilled to be having breakfast at this B&B. Our host, Brian asked us if we wanted the full English breakfast, of course we did.
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Afterwards, we packed up and walked over to the farmer’s market right outside our lodge’s door before walking around Bradford. In the photos you’ll see why it was my favorite. When we were heading to the car, we noticed Erick was again behind us standing next to a building feeding off its WiFi.
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We drove through Bath again but dropped our self-guided Jane Austen walking tour in the city so we could tour Stonehenge and get to Windsor by 2 pm. On our way to Stonehenge we passed signs of Salisbury, the location of an original Magna Carta and another location in our original travel plans. Only 16 miles from Stonehenge, but on English roads that means 45 minutes. Darn it.
We walked through Stonehenge and listened to their audio tour and snapped a billion photos. You’ll have to excuse me; I was having a Jim Byer photo taking session in Stonehenge. In school when I first learned about the wonder, I had this mental picture they would be these grandiose mountains of rocks on acreages of land. It was a smaller scale than I thought it would be, like a Kindergartner gets to eighth grade and realizes the eighth graders were only as big as him, that’s not exactly apples to apples, but the reality was how I felt about it. I do not mean to take anything away from the impressiveness of Stonehenge. In 3,000 BC I don’t know who is erecting such a marvel and with such simple resources. It was probably more difficult to build it in the tight space that they did. To think of the engineering brains back then is just so unreal.
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On our way out we picked up mulled cider and rock cakes (like scones) and got in the car. Every part of England is reminding me it’s autumn and I love autumn.
We headed to Windsor and we made it there before 2 pm. We pulled around Windsor castle and found a parking lot. A car was pulling out and we pulled in, walked to the pay machine and read the sign. This is the part of the trip where we were hit by our first of a couple tragic blows.
The machine called for a minimum 2.90 pounds for an hour and we only had 2 pounds. The sign said to consult the parking attendants on the lot, there were none. The machine didn’t take credit card, so we walked to another machine, same story. We walked up the street and saw an ATM, Amanda and I both took out money. Immediately next to the cash machine was a woman selling ice cream. Erick asked her for change and she didn’t speak English. Erick asked me if I wanted something, I didn’t want ice cream, but there was a Starbucks around the corner for a hot beverage. We looked into four shops on our way to coffee to see if they looked change-friendly or at least not busy. We got to Starbucks (and we got the internet information too) and sent Amanda to the parking lot to put money in. Erick and I parked it on the couches in front of the windows and he connected to the internet as I just stared at the castle thinking, and I think saying to Erick, this is a favorite. Literally across the street was the castle wall.
I went to the bathroom and when I returned Amanda was sitting on the couch crying and Erick was not there. She said we’d gotten a boot on the car. Erick was down there talking to them. Alright let’s go. I asked Amanda what it would take to get it off and she said 120 pounds. Punch to the gut. She said that’s so much money as we were walking and after she said it I thought, it’ll be a lot more if we have to bail Erick out of jail. We got to the lot and to Erick trying to explain the situation.
We explained what we’d read on the sign, the attendants said we should have asked someone on the lot, we said there was no one on the lot, “Where were you guys?” “We were in our van” they said. They said there was a cash machine on the opposite corner of the lot and pointed to a food stand with 'Change Machine" written in smaller yellow print underneath the cafe name, it wasn’t obvious at all. For at least 30 minutes we tried to negotiate with them, and during this time a woman approached us and asked the guy “excuse me is there a cash machine somewhere?” The humor in that was not lost on me.
All the pieces added up to these guys were there to make money. I was trying to channel Herb Cohen’s “You Can Negotiate Anything” words of wisdom, thank you Kevin Slattery for the book recommendation. Cohen was an advisor to Presidents Reagan and Carter and in 1979 when 52 American diplomats were taken hostage in Iran and President Carter said he was “praying night and day for them,” Cohen told Carter he had it all wrong. You’ve got to care — really care, “but not t-h-a-t much….Have you ever purchased a Persian rug?” How do I demonstrate that I care but I’m willing to walk away from the car? I don’t, I let Erick do his thing. It didn’t appear he’d read this book either, he told me later he read “Negotiate This,” and added “bitch..” for colorful effect. He was pretty entertaining.
E: “Sir, do you have kids?”
B: “What does that have to do with anything?”
E: “I just want to know my money is going to some good out there.”
E: “I’m going to get your money and I’m going to come back here. I’ll buy you a watch while I’m up there.”
They took 120 pounds and an hour more of the time we could have been seeing Windsor.
We cut our losses and walked to the castle, got our tickets and audio tours, I got my audio player in Castilian Spanish and we met a guard named Phil Jarrett, he was the first really friendly face we’d seen that day. We talked to him for a little while. He was a retired Director of the Ministry of Health for England and said after he retired he was bored so he took a post at Windsor, (it’s not a military post). He also told us about the queen, and that the queen was still in the Castle from an event the day before. Well yippee.
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We started our tour of the castle and I was not understanding most of the Spanish audio tour. I understood that the castle had 270 or some ridiculous number of tennis courts, Erick said no, the size of the castle is equivalent to ### tennis courts, after that the next guard I saw I asked if she could change my language, A for effort, but I wanted to understand the history!
We toured the castle and St. George’s Chapel, a beautiful church with so much history inside. King Henry VIII is buried there along with so many other English royals. The weddings, the memorials, the architecture. On our way out we saw the English boys choir getting ready for service and though we were being ushered out for church, Amanda and I held back just a little to listen to the boys sing.
We finished touring the rest of the castle and took the traditional pose with an English guard; Erick noted that while their uniform may not have changed, their artillery sure has.
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We got to Oxford by 7 pm and I checked us into Jesus College, which I pronounced like a Californian when I asked some locals where it was. They looked at me funny and laughed and said “you mean (“Gee sus”) College?” They pointed me in the direction and I headed over. I had booked a two room Oxford dorm suite for the night. Since it was going to cost us more than half more if I booked another single, I figured I’d sleep on the couch. The college front desk was explicitly vocal about there being no parking available at this hour, we might even have to shuttle in from another part of town 20 minutes away, he said. We got in the car and started looking. Two blocks away we found a spot. We were on the wrong side of the street from the car pulling out but Erick didn’t move into the closer lane to block oncoming traffic. We didn’t know if we were doing this right but so far so good. The car pulled out and Erick moved into the other lane to parallel park. The car, two cars behind us pulled in and blocked the spot. He maneuvered forward and back to fit in and the three of us were baffled. Erick pulled into the loading zone and I said I’d get out and just ask him or let him know we were waiting for that spot. Maybe he didn’t know or see us. I walked back and as the guy was getting out of his car said “excuse me, we were waiting for that spot.” Well it was quickly obvious this wasn’t a case of the ‘oops I accidently took your spot’ drama but intentional rudeness. The woman in the car behind us and in front of him started yelling at him, calling him a jerk, a prick, an asshole and my favorite, ugly. He was predator offensive looking. The guy shouted he’d been looking for a spot for an hour. He gave her the finger and started jogging across and down the street and now Erick was behind me telling him “hey man that was our spot.” No response. Erick took the opportunity to pull the guy’s license plate back which clapped the car and made a loud noise. The woman started shouting “he’s coming after you! he’s chasing you!” With complete sarcasm - thank god I was wearing my “run for your life shoes, Carolyn.” Is this real?? I bolted into my side of the car and a second later the guy took out my passenger side mirror. Was he going to hit me if I hadn’t shut my door???? I still can’t even believe this, it makes me so mad. Erick shouted “What are you doing?” and he ran to Erick’s side of the door. He kept repeating “you kicked my car,” and Erick kept repeating “nobody kicked your car.” He told Erick to get out of the car, Erick said “no, do you really want to do this, nobody kicked your car.” I suppose he left to check the damage on his car and Erick pulled off and the guy was writing down our plate number. What a ridiculous mess.
We found a parking spot, got our bags and headed to the dorm rooms. Once there Erick called into the insurance company to put in a report of the incident. Unfortunately it felt like we were fugitives, the guy on the street looking for us or calling the police on us, Erick staying with us in the dorms. It was just a combination of events that made it feel like we needed to hide out.
When the insurance phone call was finished, an hour later, we decided to head to dinner. Amanda and I were less than thrilled to be leaving the room. We walked to Brown’s and they told us that unfortunately there was a 45 minute wait for food but that we could sit at a table. We took it, put in an order for three ciders and sat. Erick said “this has been a trip of bad decision.”
It was 10 pm on the nose when the ciders came and Erick started off our toast “to boots and broken mirrors,” then I said “and to it only going up from here.”
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