Surprise!

It was a quite Sunday afternoon and we'd just gotten back from traveling "the island" (aka England) during our two week break, and were settling back to the reality that it would be back off to work tomorrow when I got a Skype call.  It was from my Mom--not too surprising, yet; we talk at least a few times a week on Skype anyway.  She asked me how I was, and what my plans were for the week.  I told her I didn't really have anything too exciting planned.  "Good, " she said, "because I just found a great deal on flights to London, and I'm leaving Tuesday!"

Oh.  Ok.  That definitely was a surprise that I wasn't expecting in about a million and a half years!  At first I was a little concerned about how to prepare on such sort notice (imagine how Mom felt, having to prepare to go overseas for two weeks in such a sort amount of time)!  Since she would be here over two weekends, I first tried to find a short trip that Scott could also do, but unfortunately on such sort notice, the prices were sky-high.  Instead, I started to look for a mid-week break that Mom and I could take together, and give Scott some alone time to catch up on schoolwork.  As it turns out, all of those were pretty expensive too.  I put those plans on the back burner and set about figuring out how I was going to go pick Mom up in London on Wednesday morning.

In the morning from our house to central London, it usually takes about 3 hours (first the bus, then the train).  But to collect Mom, I also had to factor in the almost hour-long ride on the underground from King's Cross to Heathrow.  The meeting was also complicated by the fact that she would have no usable phone, and that her plane was schedule to arrive before 8:00 a.m.  We decided that she would just have to wait near the meeting area until I got there, because the rural buses that come to my house aren't the most reliable.

myfavehotel.com

I got up at 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, hoping to catch the first commuter bus.  I was starting to get pretty nervous, because this was my first time to London by myself.  This meant I would actually have to figure out where things were instead of just following Scott everywhere!  I'm happy to announce that I caught the first bus (which was only about 2 minutes late), and managed to get on the express train into King's Cross.  I even found the correct underground train on the first try!  All in all, I'd say it was a success, and I arrived around 10:30 a.m.  While her plane had been delayed slightly, Mom should have arrived by that time.  I didn't see her in the waiting area, so I took a quick bathroom break and figured that maybe the line at customs was long or something.

When I returned, I saw Mom entering the terminal from outside--I guess the weather has been so  horrible in Wisconsin that she couldn't wait another second to get out and enjoy the "nice" English weather (as in it was not raining at that particular moment).  We hugged each other and then set off on the business of getting back to Cambridge.  I only got lost once trying to find the Underground again.  The ride back into town was uneventful (but full of gossip, of course!).  We stopped at King's Cross for a sandwich, and managed to catch another express train back into Cambridge.

www.hotelscambridge.org

Luckily, once we were in Cambridge, we just had to walk over the railway bridge to get to Mom's hotel.  Not so luckily, the hotel (Travelodge Cambridge Central) was the last one available at such sort notice, and we saw why upon entering the room.  We got to the check-in counter about half an hour before official check-in opened.  Of course, after traveling for more than a day, Mom just wanted to be able to relax, so she asked if the room was ready yet.  The clerk told her that yes, it was ready, but she would have to pay 10 pounds if she wanted to occupy it before check-in.  Shocked but too tired to care, we agreed to pay it.  The room was on the third floor, and we finally managed to reach it after having to use our key card to get through at least three access doors into hallways. 

The room itself was fairly large, but incredibly bare.  It had a large bed and a TV.  The rest was open space that looked like it used to have furniture, but not any more.  One wall was painted bright orange, and the others were a dirty white.  Not "dirty white" as a color of its own, but white that had become dirty by what seemed like a very talented person walking sideways up the wall and onto the ceiling, while simultaneously drawing chalk figures behind them.  The one painted wall was faded in areas that presumably once held pictures, but now just had holes.  At least the shower had running water!

We decided to ignore the displeasing aesthetics, hope for a more pleasant clerk at the desk, and take a rest before heading out to explore Cambridge for a while.