100th Post!

Unfortunately this 100th post isn't going to be anything momentous.

My last day in England was a trial in public transportation. Liz, Amanda, Alex and I left our B&B at an ungodly hour of the morning on Friday, met Patricia, and caught the 6:45 train to London. I was looking forward to a two hour nap on the train, but we were thrown off three stops later for having the wrong tickets. All of us but Alex had bought these two-for-one tickets, and we'd bought them in person at the train station four days in advance and specifically asked the man that sold them to us not one, not two, but THREE times whether the tickets could be used for the 6:45 train. We kept asking because there was no time stamped on the train ticket, but he promised us they would be fine. Well, sure enough, they weren't. The guy that checks the tickets on the train told us we had to get off at the next stop and wait for an hour and a half. Only then could we get on a train to London, since the two-for-one tickets are only good during non-peak hours. We argued a lot with the guy and pointed out that we shouldn't be thrown off the train because it was the guy at the train station that screwed up, not us. But man, those Brits won't budge (and incidentally don't care a whole lot about customer service on the whole). Ultimately Alex (who was the only one of us with an actual valid ticket) gave his ticket to Patricia since she absolutely needed to get to London by 9:00 AM to catch her plane, and the rest of us got off and waited at some random small-town train station for the later train.
The only good thing about that was that Jen, John, the other Alex, and Chris all ended up at the same train station we did an hour later (they were on a later train and had to transfer) so we were able to spend the rest of the day together.
And the day itself was pretty good. We went to Covent Garden and I somehow managed to find Wagamama despite the fact that I'd never actually eaten at the Covent Garden Wagamama and had only walked past it a couple of times two whole years ago. We got off the tube and I just walked in the general direction that I remembered it being and I warned everybody that I had absolutely no real idea of where I was going and if they wanted to eat lunch any time in the next two hours they probably shouldn't follow me, but then I turned a corner and there it was! I was so proud of myself. And getting to have Wagamama for lunch just made my trip to England complete. I love those freakin' noodle bowls.
We got back on the tube after that and went to the Westminster stop and did all the touristy stuff: walked across the bridge and took pictures at the London Eye, took more pictures at Westminster and the House of Parliament, and walked over to Buckingham Palace. At Buckingham Palace we had Transportation Debacle Part II, when Liz got hit by a bicycle! Liz and I had been taking pictures at the fountain in front of the palace and if you've never been there you should know that there's this traffic circle in front of the palace and there's really no nice, easy way to cross the street to the palace gates so all sorts of idiot tourists (myself included) are darting in and out of traffic. So Liz goes to cross the street and I saw that there was a motorcycle and a bike coming but somehow she missed seeing them-how I don't know-and there was a crash and a shriek and Liz and the guy on the bike both crumpled to the ground in the middle of the traffic circle. And of course cars were still coming. And not being a clear-headed person in emergency situations, rather than attempting to pick Liz up and get her out of the traffic, I just kind of stood in front of her waving my arms and hoping the cars would stop or move over to a different lane. Which of course is a very smart way to handle things. I'm surprised we both weren't hit. Anyway, Liz and the guy on the bike both got up and sorted themselves out pretty quickly and everything was fine and it immediately became something stupid to laugh about, but it was scary there for a second. I'm just glad she was smart enough to choose the bicycle rather than the motorcycle.
After that all we wanted to do was get back to Paddington, where some of us had checked luggage earlier in the day so that we wouldn't have to cart it around all day. Plus Liz, Amanda, Alex and I needed to catch a Heathrow Express out to the airport so we could check into our hotel. It should have been easy. Go to Victoria, hope on the Circle Line, and we're there. Except that the Circle Line stopped running. So we got on the District Line and took that three stops, and then it stopped running too. All told three lines stopped running so we were forced to take a bus, which was just a nightmare because everyone that normally would have been on the tube was trying to cram on the buses. A journey that should have taken twenty minutes or less ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. UGH. It would have been so much faster just to walk except that I don't know that area of London very well and I would have gotten us hopelessly lost just wandering around.
So yeah. It was a hot, sweaty time on public transportation and while I still maintain that I'd rather ride a subway/bus/train than drive any day, when stuff like that happens it's damn frustrating.

My flight home to Texas the next day was uneventful. I slept on most of the 8 hour flight from London to Toronto, cleared Canadian and American customs, and then had an uneventful flight to Houston other than the fact that I was sitting by the most annoying person ever. I really think he must have been mentally challenged because he kept trying to talk to me, even when I was clearly and pointedly reading a book. So then I put my headphones on and pretended to be watching a movie (V for Vendetta...the parts I watched were crap) and he still continued to try to talk to me, pointing to things on his movie screen and trying to get me to watch the same movie he was watching. Finally I pretended to be asleep, but then he started actually poking me to wake me up to get me to talk to him! What the hell?!?! I was really pissed off but it's a plane, it's not like there was anywhere I could go. And he didn't seem dangerous, just stupid.
That night Chelsea picked me up at the airport and we had dinner in Houston with Matthew and his friend John and then I spent the night at Chelsea's house and was reunited with my animals. It was so great to see Cohen and Jose again, you have no idea. They're both even softer and sweeter than I was remembering them!

I'm very worried about Cohen, though. He has some sort of growth in his mouth that Chelsea pointed out to me. It looks like some sort of wart on his inner lip. I'm terrified that it's going to be cancer or something equally horrible. I'm trying to tell myself that it's probably just a viral infection but I'm still really scared and made him a vet appointment right away for as soon as possible. He's supposed to go on Thursday. Then today he woke up limping. He's favoring his left front foot and doesn't want to put any weight on it at all. The bottom of his paw is a little scraped up so I'm hoping that's the entire problem, just a little scratch. But I'm afraid that there is a more serious bone or muscle problem and the scrape is just from him licking at the paw so much because he's in pain. Poor baby. I really want to take him to the vet right now but it's the Fourth of July and I'd have to pay for emergency services and I don't think it's that much of an emergency. I don't think I really have the money to pay for that, either. I'm just going to make him take it easy and hopefully the paw at least will be better tomorrow and he can hold out until Thursday.

Anyway, Chelsea and I are celebrating together today, we're going swimming for a while and grilling burgers and we bought sparklers for later. I may see if anyone else wants to join us.

So yeah. I'm home and everything will be great if only Cohen was feeling better.

Also, I think I'm going to El Paso again next week. More about that later...