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Jersey to London - more catchup
May. 21st, 2006 05:18 amJersey is a great deal larger than neighbouring Guernsey, and has far more open land. Dairy cattle and glasshouses spread out across the island, but my Jersey experience was entirely limited to what I could see from the air, as I wasn't leaving transit at the airport.
We unwedged ourselves from our cramped seats and walked across the tarmac to baggage claim. I hunted down my thick wodge of airline tickets while I waited for the carousel to begin moving. It had been the best part of a week since I'd needed a ticket and I'd tucked them away in one of my document holders. As usual, my bright yellow bags were easily spotted, and I once again assumed my rolling role as baggage handler.
I went around to the check in counters, but they weren't quite ready to accept passengers for my flight and asked me to come back in half an hour. So I found a seat by a window where I could take photographs of the many exotic aircraft using the airport.
Jersey looks to be a destination for all manner of micro-airlines, and it often seems that the smaller the airline, the more garish the livery. If only I could find my camera...
After a few minutes, it dawned on me that it wasn't with me. Bugger. Eight hundred dollars worth of camera and memory card. Where could it be? I'd certainly had it on the flight over, because I'd been aiming it through my tiny sliver of window at anything remotely interesting.
I remembered having it while I hunted out my tickets, which meant it was probably still sitting on the seat in the baggage claim area. If someone hadn't walked off with it, a very likely possibility.
I hauled my bundles back to baggage claim, but they wouldn't let me in. Not without an escort, go see the help counter. Off I went there, and luckily they were able to tell me that yes a camera had been found, and it was being brought around.
A chap who looked like a cleaner walked up and handed over my camera. No check as to who I was and whether I could describe the camera inside the bag, but I was so glad to have it back I didn't quibble.
Check in was now open and I gratefully relieved myself of my big yellow bags and sought out the British Airways lounge. This turned out to be totally unstaffed, entry via a code given to me with my boarding pass. However, it had juice, coffee, snacks and wireless internet, so I was happy to pass an hour or so there.
Club Class on the 737 to Gatwick wasn't much chop. Three-abreast seating, a barely adequate seat pitch and a snack served during the brief flight across the overcast Channel.
A BookCrosser was waiting for me at Gatwick. Probably interested to see what sort of nut would spend a fortune to go around the world meeting other BookCrossers. We'd never seen each other before, but we worked out who was who after a bit.
I found a coffee shop, where they took forever to prepare a couple of bathtub-sized cappucinos, and we settled down to become friends. BookCrossing is like that - you can fly to some remote and exotic part of the world (like Gatwick) and get a warm welcome and a hug from a stranger.
I gave her a packet of Tim Tams and showed her how to use these chocolate-coated cookies as a straw to drink hot coffee through. She refused to follow my example - a pity, as there are few more yummy experiences. Timing is critical, lest it all dissolve into a gooey mess!
And then it was time to go. Goodbye, a bit of a search for the right line and right ticket, down to the platform and onto the train for Blackfriars. Fields at first, gradually thickening suburbia, light industrial wastelands and landmarks growing visible in the distance, to mounting excitement from me.
When we slid onto the bridge over the Thames and St Pauls loomed above the clutter, Millenium footbridge a silver thread over the grey and the unmistakable shape of Tower Bridge foursquare in the distance, I was almost singing out loud.
So very happy to be back in London!
I staid in the London City youth hostel last April and had a great time. Very well designed hostel in the old St Pauls choir school. Literally a stone's throw from the cathedral it's on the fringes of the financial district and very quiet at night. Apart from the bells every quarter hour, of course.
I checked in, dumped my kit on my bunk bed and hauled out all the laundry I'd been saving up since Paris. Only five day's worth, but when you have a limited amount of clothing, you soon reach the stage where you run out of options, and I wanted to keep mine open.
So I settled down in the basement laundry, balancing my laptop on the ironing board to take advantage of a wireless internet connection.
All my travel clothes are reasonably rugged. I don't have time to separate out whites from the colours, delicates from the normals. Everything goes in one load and then gets chucked into the drier. No ironing. If an item can't hack that, I don't bring it.
And then I put a few books into my big yellow tote bag, added a couple of packets of Tim Tams, and headed across the Thames to the Stamford Arms, where the London BookCrossers were having their monthly get-together.
They've got exactly the right idea. My Canberra group meets in a coffee house, and we sit around all genteel and discuss our books. Not so the Londoners. They arrive, drop their books off onto a table in the pub, sit down at one nearby and get through an amazing pintage (as opposed to tonnage) of beer and cider.
London gatherings are a lot of fun, and there exist any number of photographs of the night showing me with a big smile on my face with my arms wrapped around a gorgeous girl or two.
"Don't you send that to my wife!" I'd say, too late, and they'd smile and nod, but in the morning there'd be an email from my wife asking how the party went...
She's an angel really, and she knows there's nothing in it. Nothing physical, anyway - she also knows how much I enjoy the company of other BookCrossers.
Afterwards, I rolled back to my hostel and slept a happy, cheerful, noisy type of sleep. That's the best thing about my snoring, I don't have to listen to it.
We unwedged ourselves from our cramped seats and walked across the tarmac to baggage claim. I hunted down my thick wodge of airline tickets while I waited for the carousel to begin moving. It had been the best part of a week since I'd needed a ticket and I'd tucked them away in one of my document holders. As usual, my bright yellow bags were easily spotted, and I once again assumed my rolling role as baggage handler.
I went around to the check in counters, but they weren't quite ready to accept passengers for my flight and asked me to come back in half an hour. So I found a seat by a window where I could take photographs of the many exotic aircraft using the airport.
Jersey looks to be a destination for all manner of micro-airlines, and it often seems that the smaller the airline, the more garish the livery. If only I could find my camera...
After a few minutes, it dawned on me that it wasn't with me. Bugger. Eight hundred dollars worth of camera and memory card. Where could it be? I'd certainly had it on the flight over, because I'd been aiming it through my tiny sliver of window at anything remotely interesting.
I remembered having it while I hunted out my tickets, which meant it was probably still sitting on the seat in the baggage claim area. If someone hadn't walked off with it, a very likely possibility.
I hauled my bundles back to baggage claim, but they wouldn't let me in. Not without an escort, go see the help counter. Off I went there, and luckily they were able to tell me that yes a camera had been found, and it was being brought around.
A chap who looked like a cleaner walked up and handed over my camera. No check as to who I was and whether I could describe the camera inside the bag, but I was so glad to have it back I didn't quibble.
Check in was now open and I gratefully relieved myself of my big yellow bags and sought out the British Airways lounge. This turned out to be totally unstaffed, entry via a code given to me with my boarding pass. However, it had juice, coffee, snacks and wireless internet, so I was happy to pass an hour or so there.
Club Class on the 737 to Gatwick wasn't much chop. Three-abreast seating, a barely adequate seat pitch and a snack served during the brief flight across the overcast Channel.
A BookCrosser was waiting for me at Gatwick. Probably interested to see what sort of nut would spend a fortune to go around the world meeting other BookCrossers. We'd never seen each other before, but we worked out who was who after a bit.
I found a coffee shop, where they took forever to prepare a couple of bathtub-sized cappucinos, and we settled down to become friends. BookCrossing is like that - you can fly to some remote and exotic part of the world (like Gatwick) and get a warm welcome and a hug from a stranger.
I gave her a packet of Tim Tams and showed her how to use these chocolate-coated cookies as a straw to drink hot coffee through. She refused to follow my example - a pity, as there are few more yummy experiences. Timing is critical, lest it all dissolve into a gooey mess!
And then it was time to go. Goodbye, a bit of a search for the right line and right ticket, down to the platform and onto the train for Blackfriars. Fields at first, gradually thickening suburbia, light industrial wastelands and landmarks growing visible in the distance, to mounting excitement from me.
When we slid onto the bridge over the Thames and St Pauls loomed above the clutter, Millenium footbridge a silver thread over the grey and the unmistakable shape of Tower Bridge foursquare in the distance, I was almost singing out loud.
So very happy to be back in London!
I staid in the London City youth hostel last April and had a great time. Very well designed hostel in the old St Pauls choir school. Literally a stone's throw from the cathedral it's on the fringes of the financial district and very quiet at night. Apart from the bells every quarter hour, of course.
I checked in, dumped my kit on my bunk bed and hauled out all the laundry I'd been saving up since Paris. Only five day's worth, but when you have a limited amount of clothing, you soon reach the stage where you run out of options, and I wanted to keep mine open.
So I settled down in the basement laundry, balancing my laptop on the ironing board to take advantage of a wireless internet connection.
All my travel clothes are reasonably rugged. I don't have time to separate out whites from the colours, delicates from the normals. Everything goes in one load and then gets chucked into the drier. No ironing. If an item can't hack that, I don't bring it.
And then I put a few books into my big yellow tote bag, added a couple of packets of Tim Tams, and headed across the Thames to the Stamford Arms, where the London BookCrossers were having their monthly get-together.
They've got exactly the right idea. My Canberra group meets in a coffee house, and we sit around all genteel and discuss our books. Not so the Londoners. They arrive, drop their books off onto a table in the pub, sit down at one nearby and get through an amazing pintage (as opposed to tonnage) of beer and cider.
London gatherings are a lot of fun, and there exist any number of photographs of the night showing me with a big smile on my face with my arms wrapped around a gorgeous girl or two.
"Don't you send that to my wife!" I'd say, too late, and they'd smile and nod, but in the morning there'd be an email from my wife asking how the party went...
She's an angel really, and she knows there's nothing in it. Nothing physical, anyway - she also knows how much I enjoy the company of other BookCrossers.
Afterwards, I rolled back to my hostel and slept a happy, cheerful, noisy type of sleep. That's the best thing about my snoring, I don't have to listen to it.
