In the past few days I’ve taken the tube a lot more than normal. On Sunday, I just couldn’t come up with an easy way to get from Ealing to Camden town, and was running out of time to pick up a bicycle stem (for the boyfriend), so ended up just going on the train. Delays, Camden Town tube station closed for 4 hours (on purpose) when I wanted to go home, more delays on going home. It ended up taking me a total of three hours to get there, pick it up, look in five or six shoe stores for a particular pair of Vans, and get home. Partway through the trip, the Picadilly line shut down going west due to signal failure. Thank god I had just transferred from the Northern line, and it would take me to Embankment, where I could pick up the District line. That was almost fubared, though, until I remembered that District is only closed from Embankment east. Weekends are a bitch for taking the tube in London. Central line, partial closure; Circle line, complete closure; District line, partial closure; and others I don’t use so don’t know of.
Then yesterday I took the Central line to Stratford to see Star Trek for the gloriously low price of £3.50 with O, K & H. We giggled about our campy bartender, drank beers & ate smuggled in chocolate and legally purchased caramel corn. The movie was EXCELLENT, I must strongly advise others to go see it. Since the boyfriend won’t be playing polo for a few weeks (yet again, he fell playing yesterday and has injured himself), maybe we’ll go next week to see it again.
On the way home, delays, delays, then complete closure of the Central line going west from White City. No indication of how to get to points further west that did not include going to West Ruislip (the tube line often splits, you have to know the end point before you get on in case you get sent somewhere you didn’t plan on going). I asked someone and was told to take a bus, outside, to the left, numbers that did not call at the stop I found when I went where directed. Called the boyfriend, freaked out mildly, then got some cash and hailed a cab. It went past me and a dude almost took it. I yelled at him, kinda under my breath, calling him a f-head for stealing my cab.
But then I heard he was going to Ealing Broadway and asked if we could share. This is just not done in England! But in NYC, no one bats an eyelash if you want to cabshare. Anyway, we had a nice chat and he told me I didn’t have to kick in, it turns out that in cases like this you can retain the receipt and claim the expense with TfL. Sweet! So all in all, I got home faster and was dropped off right outside of Ealing Common, thus saving me a 10-15 minute walk. Whee!
I really hate public transport here in London.
Edit: Just bought the shoes through UK Amazon for £5 less than Office. Now I just have to sell the gift card from Office (their form of in-store credit).
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