Bug Unit

We finally managed to get to Milton Keynes last night, to visit Tam (Ramp Ramp). It wasn’t the easiest of journeys, and it was heavily delayed by the days activities. Some of which included:
Organising variations of the documentation that Nexus had asked for the day before.
Taking even more documentation to Nexus to organise the Schengen Visa.
Riding on the trains for HOURS.
Buying a big-ass Pizza Hut special, and mapping it in about 10 minutes.
Strawberries.

So yeah, Nexus wanted another document, so we spent the morning organising it and then going to collect it. The places that we have to go are more than a couple stops along the District line of the tubes, so when you need to get there, you have to be content with at least 45 minutes on the train. Then, you hit your change-over, and move on to the same line but going in a different direction, which then takes a further 20 minutes to get to the correct stop. And thad having all these weirdo Londoners around us. The door right next to us kept on half opening and banging around, as well, as we flew through the outskirts of London, and into “the wilderness”

Finally, we made it to Milton Keynes, and found ourselves trapped on the wrong side of a ticket-taking-gate. We moved off to the one side and found the ticket-master type dude who could sell you tickets if you didn’t have any. Before we left, we had found out that it would be £13 return for the train. But, as we soon found out, if you don’t have tickets when you get there, you pay penalty fares and last-minute type prices, resulting in us having to fork out £22.50 each for the return journey. He was supposed to charge us £20 for EACH LEG, but he said he’d let us off this time. Nice Britain. Friendly Britain.

Eventually we got past the ticket gates and found a very excited and happy Tamsyn waiting for us. We headed off to our dinner reservation at the sister pub to the one that she manages at, and started getting down to some really crazy deli foods and lots and lots of wine. We spent an hour there and then headed off to the pub she was working at because she had a shift at 8pm till 10pm. She sat us down at another table, and just kept dumping bottle after bottle of wine into our never-empty glasses. We ended up meeting this couple who had been working on ships and travelling for about 10 years! Zoe, the wife, was pretty drunk once we started talking to her, which resulted in a pretty repetitive discussion about travelling and places to go. At the end of it, we walked away with his business card, her cell number, and an offer that went something like this (over and over again): “You guys, you know, we know… what itcsh laaik to travel.. and we know what itcsh laaik to need a home base. You just, anytime, you just say, Zoe…. we need a plaaise to staye… and we’ll have you. Anyfing from the fridge, anyfing to eat, go out for dinna, anyfing. You just haves to call.” – Shame, she was really sweet, and she basically offered us a place to stay anytime we’re in England, so it was pretty rad of her.

Much wine was consumed, and sometime after 11pm I headed back to Tam’s house to get in some shuteye. Jenbug and Tam went back to the pub after tucking me in, and stayed out for a littlts just to fetch the damn document… then it’s back on the train, and back all the way along to 3 stops before where you started, and a bit of a walk to the building where we have to keep taking all of this. Putney bridge is where they’re located, for all the London peeps who read this blog. Putney is a really strange word… and it’s ironic because since we arrived here, Jenbug and I have joked about how incredibly siff (manky, disgusting) the word sounds, and how it would really suck to live there. We travel past it almost every day on the district line from Wimbledon, so it’s been quite hilarious now actually having to get off the tube at the Putney station and mission through Putney village, full of all the Putneyers. Putney folk. Cheap folk. Manky Putney.

So once we had ridden the tubes all morning and afternoon, we decided to split up for the last assault on Putney. I would go back into the manky place and drop off the desired booking letter, and Jenbug would head back to Wimbledon, stop off at Pizza Hut, cash in on one of the coupons we got the other day, and claim a large (large is MASSIVE at Pizza Hut) pizza for £8, which would be the first meal of the day for us! You’re able to select any 5 toppings for the pizza, as well as the fact that you can just split it into halves, and have completely different stuff on each side. Although, do be warned, if you are concerned about tasting some of the other sides toppings, then you’re going to have to deal with it because they aren’t very accurate when spreading the toppings over. All I could think of whilst devouring the pizza yesterday, was a vegetarian and a meat-eater trying to share a pizza, and the shear amount of chicken that said vegetarian would enevitably munch on. Chicken is strange in the EU. Chicken chicken… the other white meat.

After we ate, we threw all of our desired clothes into one of our backpacks, and we headed for Euston station (about 15 stops away from us, with 1 change-over at a really busy station) to catch the earliest train we could get to Milton Keynes. After about an hour and a bit on the tubes, we arrived at Euston station and made a run for the national rail lines upstairs. We spotted two platforms that had trains going to Milton Keynes, and started bolting for the one that seemed to only have 2 stops before it got there. As we were running down the platform, we were both wondering how we in fact were supposed to purchase tickets for the train, considering that you could just walk straight onto it. As we arrived at the now closing doors, we asked the guy standing in the doorway if we could buy tickets on the other side, to which he replied, “Yeah, theres a thingy on the other side”.

We got onto the most stuffy and hot train you’ve ever been on, with all the Londoners standing around you in their massive jackets. Jenbug and I started just pealing off clothing left right and center, and were finally a little bit cooler about 3 layers down. There were no seats. There were just business men. Unluckily, by the time we got to the train, it was already after 5pm so it was peak time and there were just tons of business men and women all commuting home. It made the train ride quite uncomfortable, having to stand for about an hour on this high-speed train, feeling incredibly hot and stuffy, and having all these weirdo Londoners around us. The door right next to us kept on half opening and banging around, as well, as we flew through the outskirts of London, and into “the wilderness”

Finally, we made it to Milton Keynes, and found ourselves trapped on the wrong side of a ticket-taking-gate. We moved off to the one side and found the ticket-master type dude who could sell you tickets if you didn’t have any. Before we left, we had found out that it would be £13 return for the train. But, as we soon found out, if you don’t have tickets when you get there, you pay penalty fares and last-minute type prices, resulting in us having to fork out £22.50 each for the return journey. He was supposed to charge us £20 for EACH LEG, but he said he’d let us off this time. Nice Britain. Friendly Britain.

Eventually we got past the ticket gates and found a very excited and happy Tamsyn waiting for us. We headed off to our dinner reservation at the sister pub to the one that she manages at, and started getting down to some really crazy deli foods and lots and lots of wine. We spent an hour there and then headed off to the pub she was working at because she had a shift at 8pm till 10pm. She sat us down at another table, and just kept dumping bottle after bottle of wine into our never-empty glasses. We ended up meeting this couple who had been working on ships and travelling for about 10 years! Zoe, the wife, was pretty drunk once we started talking to her, which resulted in a pretty repetitive discussion about travelling and places to go. At the end of it, we walked away with his business card, her cell number, and an offer that went something like this (over and over again): “You guys, you know, we know… what itcsh laaik to travel.. and we know what itcsh laaik to need a home base. You just, anytime, you just say, Zoe…. we need a plaaise to staye… and we’ll have you. Anyfing from the fridge, anyfing to eat, go out for dinna, anyfing. You just haves to call.” – Shame, she was really sweet, and she basically offered us a place to stay anytime we’re in England, so it was pretty rad of her.

Much wine was consumed, and sometime after 11pm I headed back to Tam’s house to get in some shuteye. Jenbug and Tam went back to the pub after tucking me in, and stayed out for a little while longer.

All in all it was a really long day. We’re in Milton Keynes till Sunday night and then on Monday, Nexus will be taking my application to the French Embassy and we will be finding out for sure if our trip to France is going to happen or not. So far, there is £200 riding on it, should it get declined. I really really really hope it comes through. It’s -10′C at Jen’s aunt and uncles place in France, at the moment, and snowing like a champion. Champion snow, Snow champion.