Posts Tagged "Tough Guy 2010"
In the UK Day 5 – Train Day (The choo choo kind)
I was excited about my “train day” through Wales. Getting up early after a good night’s sleep, I headed out to catch my 6:30am to Crewe.
Turns out, it was a 5:50am to Crewe. Undaunted, I waited patiently for the 8am train in the cold, listening to Hanz Zimmer’s score for the boxing show “The Contender” and visualizing myself finishing Sunday’s race.
The train arrives, and what do you know? It’s a Virgin train. Swanky, roomy and with free wifi at a respectable speed! I am spoiled forever. I’m sending out tweets, catching up with the wife, working on the previous day’s video, enjoying the stunning midlands scenery, seemingly plucked from the minds of virtually all of my favorite fantasy novelists, life is good.
All of a sudden, it’s my stop! I say a hasty goodbye, grab up all my belongings, not thinking there was time to put them away before the train pulled out. A few minutes later I was boarding my next train. One that was hilariously opposite to the Virgin train in every way. No wifi, but that was expected. Oh, and no outlet to plug into. This was also not a deal breaking problem by any means. But the windows, they were quite dirty. And I am not sure how well I can enjoy the countryside in Wales through a layer of grime.
I get out at Shrewsbury and head to the information office to ask what platform I need for Swansea. The agent pointed at the train I had just left. “That one there. Err, the next one is in an hour.”
Awesome. Well, maybe the next train will be cleaner. Where the hell am I? Shrewsbury? I took a walk around, but it was rainy and there wasn’t much to do unless you are shopping. It is a pretty town though, great Tudors architecture along much of the downtown streets, and is apparently the birthplace of Charles Darwin. So that was interesting.
Back on the next train, and thankfully it is much more clean, but after a long ride, nearly to Swansea, I realize this isn’t doing it for me. I am nodding off, don’t have anything else productive to do, and I just feel like heading to Bath, where I had been considering spending a couple of hours at a spa. A “Bath in Bath” I thought would be great fun. So at Cardiff, I hop out and turn around for Bath, which, as many of these places have been so far, is far more striking than I expected. I have a lazy day tomorrow and have to make it into London in the late afternoon, so I think I will do the spa tomorrow in the AM.
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After this was taken, the camera stopped working for the rest of the day. It was a banner day all around.
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In the UK Day 4 – Inverness/Glasgow
Ok I promise there is no whisky in today’s update (Though there were Whisky Shops in both Inverness and Glasgow. I can’t get away from it) but there is beer.
I was happy to leave party hostel early this morning for what would be a very long travel day. I didn’t particularly mind making enough noise to make the couple awkwardly trying to have drunk-yet-silent sex (hint: that’s impossible kids) even more awkward.
I was really looking forward to snow in Inverness, but it seems that area is too temperate to keep snow the way the rest of the highlands seemed to. Inverness is an incredibly charming mix of old architecture with well integrated shops. I shamefully admit I was expecting, and somewhat hoping for, some sort of barren tundra with hardened rural people (Siberia, I guess), but what I got seemed just a modest sized, incredibly charming town. I do very much want to come back here and stay for more than the two hours I was there.
Then it was back to Perth to a connecting train to Glasgow.
No one I have talked to bad mouthed Glasgow, nor were they very kind to the place, most politely saying something to the effect that it is “rough”, which brings to mind my memory of Naples, Italy. If it was comparable to Naples, in this regard, I knew the impolite description of the place might sound like “It scared the crap out of me.”
What I actually experienced on arrival was more of a sooty Madrid, a massive city that I happened to be coming into right at the beginning of rush hour, which meant that as soon as I stepped out of the station and into the merchant’s area, there were more and more people by the second coming through.
That’s when I had a bit of a meltdown, it seems.
I am not used to this sort of travel, but my wife has done it quite a bit, and told me before I left that it can be a beating, and she is right. Different beds every night in varying quality establishments, carrying 30-40 pounds on my back while wearing very new, very unforgiving military boots have been wearing me down some this week. It’s great for my waistline, and my body can take it, but when I discovered there was, in fact, no sleeper to Cardiff (A miscommunication, I should have gone to London then taken an AM train to Cardiff). The prospect of staying in Glasgow (something I had not planned on doing and had no contingency plan for) seemed terrible to me. I walked around for more than an hour just trying to find a place with internet, ordered a beer at Europa Bar because they claimed to have internet.
They did not.
Ordered another beer at ANOTHER bar after the girl at Cafe Nero said it had internet, and for the first ten minutes there was no internet until it magically started working. At this point, mind you, I am two beers in, and after not drinking at all in the month of January and most of December, I apparently became quite a lightweight. I digress…
Talked to my wife online, where I told her I was taking a sleeper to London, then the next day up to Birmingham and was just going to relax there and get ready for Sunday’s Race. I was in full-on pout mode, throwing up my hands at a couple of roadblocks. Christine calmed me down though, thankfully. Encouraged me to pay the extra for a private room at a hostel near Central Station.
I am smart enough at this point to take the wife’s advice. I don’t love spending extra money (I’m a cheapskate) but it was absolutely what I needed. Just a nice, quiet place to myself.
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I did not do justice to Glasgow, which I think could have been quite an awesome little trip if I had more time and wasn’t complaining like a toddler through half of it. It’s a truly beautiful place from the little I saw, and I would love to make it back there sometime.
Somebody in Glasgow is quite the little prankster.
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In the UK Day 3 – Edinburgh
I have to guiltily say that I barely scratched the surface of Edinburgh.
To be fair, one day is barely enough to make a dent in this unbelievably pretty town. I had meant to arrive via sleeper car between 6:30 and 7:10AM that morning, but upon discovering the sleeper cars cost 43£, I opted to head back to York the night before and stay at a hostel there instead.
So I arrive in Edinburgh around 10:30 AM. With some recommendations from friends, but no real plan other than to look for The Scotch Whisky Experience and take their tour detailing the history of Whisky (I had always spelled it “whiskey” before now. I am changing that starting now) I headed out.
I found the whisky tour in the first five minutes. Several taste tests later, my body was starting to feel the wear and tear of three days of carrying 30-40 extra pounds on my back all over the country.
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An aside: It’s an interesting sensation, feeling the type of soreness one usually feels after a good workout merely from walking around and carrying this extra weight. It’s probably very good for the race, as I have done no formal training sessions during this time. My shoulders and different areas of my legs have been worked out well, and I am positive all the calories burned have had an effect on my waistline during this time. Physically, even though I am aching and a bit weary, travel is pretty much agreeing with me. Now back to Edinburgh:
Needing some lunch to soak up the early afternoon surprise liquor session, I walked around looking for a decent lunch place. I passed on the Frankenstein Pub, recommended by my friend Krissy, and opted for Favorit, a nice enough place that also had Wifi, where I uploaded yesterday’s video and had a ham and cheddar panini with french fries. When I stood up, I knew I was done for the day and guiltily headed to Belushi’s Bar (I would be staying in the hostel above).
“It’s Australia night. It should get pretty wild.” Said the blonde bartender who checked me in.
Awesome.
When I walked into the dorm room sometime around 4, there were a couple of young guys napping for who knows long. I realized they were getting some rest in before what would surely be a long and heavy night of drinking, and realized how much older and far removed from that I feel. I never really partied the way these guys were, but I felt old as I climbed into my bed for what was my own nap, brought on by my aching legs and too-early-in-the-day drinking. Their evening hadn’t started yet, my night was essentially done.
Better to get one very decent night’s sleep before a long travel day to Inverness, Glasgow and beyond the next day. I felt like between them and me, I was still getting more out of the trip. I, after all, would remember what happened the next morning.
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In the UK Day 2 – York
An Noc
Craggemore
Glennmorangie
These were scrawled in a small notebook piece of paper I was holding in my hand as I attempted to remember specific directions to The Whisky Shop. They were recommendations, written by the cafe owner I had just bought the “Full English Breakfast” from (complete with complimentary coffee) at The Habit Cafe, a small cafe I stumbled into specifically for that breakfast offer. Whisky was the man’s “second passion” he told me. I not only did not find out his first passion, but I did not even get the man’s name.
Bad traveller, BAD!
I woke up as early as I could manage that morning and made for King’s Cross station to York. A lovely and smallish place with a bustling shop area downtown, I was charmed by York, but with next to zero space to hold anything whatsoever, there really wasn’t much shopping to be done. Instead, I made it my mission to find The Whisky Shop, a place I had read about the day before. As mentioned above (And in the video below) I was aided in this by the man who sold me my late breakfast.
Regarding the Full English Breakfast: I like it in theory, but the truth is, in my opinion there are too many disparate flavors on the plate, and I pretty much always leave the experience dissappointed. I think that British food is largely underrated, but at least for me, the standard breakfast is somewhat overrated.
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It’s happening, people! Want to donate? I’ll draw you a portrait for your troubles!
In the UK: Day 1 – London
I seem to have stumbled onto the greatest Sunday afternoon quiz/karaoke session ever on at the Lambeth Walk Pub.
After following my fantastic wife’s directions* to my first London hostel, I found it, only to find no one answering the door. Not a big deal, sometimes check-in doesn’t open until 3 in many places. I decided to wait out the 45 minutes i had remaining at the pub I had walked by on the way. It was quite busy at 2:15 on a Sunday afternoon, an older clientele, who were about to begin what looked to be a weekly ritual of game show quizzing and karaoke! After a note thanking everyone for flowers and condolences sent for someone’s funeral, (obviously someone close to the group) the quiz began. All answers to the quiz had flower names in the answer, it was announced. After the first multiple choice question was asked, the MC let the group know that if they wanted to sing a song (karaoke) hey were welcome to.
The format was one quiz question, one karaoke tune. While I finished my pint of Fosters, I listened to the MC sing songs that were so well done I assumed they were studio recordings, a so/so version of a BG’s song, and a girl who could not have been more then 6 singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. You see, this pub is apparently a family joint.
I thought I had overpaid for my beer at three pounds, but after experiencing this, I think it was money well spent.
As for the trip out, it was a real slog. St Paul to London was an overnighter, and sleep was rough at best. My feet were already started hurting by the time I got to the hostel, which is not a good thing. I made the decision to not bring a second pair of shoes, hoping to break in these boots over the course of the week to get them ready for the race. It might be folly to put them back on after the race, but they are built in such a way that I suspect they will dry out quickly. I have my feet taped up now, and it has helped tremendously, and no blisters yet. Hopefully this will all end well for me and not in some horrific foot catastrophe.
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It’s happening, people! Want to donate? I’ll draw you a portrait for your troubles!
*I don’t think it can be overstated that the only reason I felt at all comfortable traveling for ten days here is because she agreed to plan every step of the trip. Granted, she loves planning, but I HATE planning, to the point where I wanted this to be a three day trip, in and out. Now I’m out in the world adventuring like Carl Fredrickson in UP. Thankfully unlike Carl, I have a wife to come home to, and no indiginous birds following me. So far…
Lifestream
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Shared Taken with instagram.
