I had about a 12-minute wait at Cambridge Rail Station for the first train in my desperation connection to Stansted Airport. As I caught my breath on the crowded platform after speeding back from the center of town in the rain on the bulky mountain bike (with the not-so-aerodynamic metal basket mounted on front), I realized I still had more frantic scrambling ahead of me. I thought about using the payphone to call information and then Ryanair to let them know I was on my way, but figured I'd probably get routed to some call center in India and I'd just be wasting my time. Instead, I focused on finding some water to quench my nagging thirst.
I didn't see any drinking fountains around, so I got in line at a platform sandwich stand to buy a bottle of water. The line moved quickly, but service ground to a halt when a batty, middle-aged woman (probably a rocket scientist from the University) immediately in front of me got up to order. She stared at the various options in the display case as if she had just thawed after a millennium trapped in ice and baguettes were a completely novel innovation. After a couple minutes of utter indecision, she finally picked something and the clerk started to wrap it up. At this point, I glanced at the platform clock and noted my train was due in three minutes. Pushy American, I am.
As the clerk handed the sandwich over, the woman then decided to open her purse and dump out a handful of coins on the counter. She seem incapable of deciding whether she should use some silver 5p coins or copper 1p coins. I really wanted to just holler out, "One bottled water!" and toss over the 1£ coin. After the woman separated what appeared to be the appropriate payment, the clerk shook his head as if she was missing a coin or two. One minute until my train.
The lady fished around and handed over another coin, the clerk smiled, and she was finally on her way. As I stepped up to the counter, the clerk attempted to open the cash register to deposit the woman's coins, but the machine wouldn't open. He pushed a couple buttons - still no luck. As I started to verbalize my well-practiced phrase, "one bottled water," the clerk suddenly bolted from the register and disappeared out a back door. He suddenly reappeared next to me in front of the order counter and mumbled, "I have a problem," as he abruptly reached over me and pulled down the coiled metal grille over the front of his shop. Nice communicator. Store closed.
At that moment, my train pulled up to the platform next to me and quite likely saved me the disgrace of a fully-public and amateurish karate demonstration on the closed metal door of the sandwich stand, with the accompanying barrage of vulgar American English never before heard by these high-brow English folk.
The timing of the train connections was as scheduled; I arrived at Stansted Airport 30 minutes prior to my flight. Unfortunately, check-in for the flight closed a few minutes earlier. They wouldn't budge and let me check-in late. Instead, they routed me over to a separate ticket counter to pay the missed flight idiot penalty and get a reservation for the next outgoing flight. I seemed to remember flight options from Stansted to Sevilla being very limited - like once a day in the evening. I wasn't inclined to hang out at Stansted overnight and all day Saturday, so when they offered to put me on a flight to Granada, Spain, that would be closing in 10 minutes, I quickly asked for a map of the country and made a snap decision that Granada and Sevilla looked relatively close to each other. A quick bus or train ride, I figured. Although I'd be arriving around 11:30 PM, I rationalized that if there weren't transport options that late, I could always wait/sleep out the night at the airport.
They told me I had to hustle to the gate if I wanted to catch the plane. The security line was slow, and I happened to get in the line of some touchy-feely screener who seemed overly focused that my family jewels were securely packed away for the flight. I got past that clown and sprinted down the terminal, weaving through crowds of people with my suitcase. As I got near the gate, I could tell from the mass of people standing around that boarding was delayed a few minutes. I took the opportunity to locate a nearby internet kiosk, dropped in a couple of 1£ coins (rip-off!) and logged into my e-mail as the PA announced initial boarding would begin. I fired off a shot-in-the-dark message to Mom, asking her to attempt to notify Kelly that I wouldn't be meeting her at Sevilla airport as we had previously arranged. Sending the e-mail was frustrating and nerve-wracking, since the screen would turn black for a moment after every keystroke (I won't hesitate to say that the machine performed like a typical Dell). After I hit "send," I remembered that I had Kelly's cell number in an old e-mail. I frantically searched and eventually found the contact number, but didn't have anything to write with. I quickly pulled out a coin and started etching the number into my boarding pass, but mid-way through the number, the computer completely crashed (with several minutes of paid internet time remaining). Again, I wanted to drop-kick the machine, but the final boarding call lured me away.
I scrambled to the gate and onto the plane, wondering if I just made a difficult situation worse. Where the heck was Granada anyway?
Several hours later my plane landed at tiny Fredrico Garcia Lorca Granada-Jaen airport, about 40 minutes from the city of Granada. Although the airport was clean and bright, I quickly learned it had no internet access, and that it didn't stay open all night. The final bus of the night to Granada would be leaving in 15 minutes. I ran and located a payphone and made contact with Mom, who had located Kelly's home telephone number in Sevilla. I dialed Kelly's apartment, and apparently just caught them after they returned from...I'm ashamed to say...waiting for me at Sevilla Airport. Me missing my original flight already fouled up the plans, but losing my hosts' contact cell numbers really compounded the inconvenience for everybody. (Mom had sent an e-mail warning to Kelly, but Kelly didn't have access to the message prior to needing to leave for the airport. Obviously, e-mail is not the ideal mode of communication for emergencies).
Bewildered Kelly asked where I was, and proceeded to notify me that Granada was a minimum 3.5-4 hours from Sevilla by train (oops). She and Sebastian quickly switched to "crisis-management" mode and raced to provide me with times of the next available trains and buses leaving Granada for Sevilla. At that hour of the night, there were no options until the next morning.
As I dashed off to buy a ticket for the last bus into Granada, I stopped by the Hertz car rental desk and asked what it would cost for me to rent a car for a few hours and drop it off at Sevilla Airport. About $300 bucks. That's about what my truck back home is worth.
As the bus into town entered Granada City, I struggled to read the Spanish roadsigns. At one point I saw an arrow and the word,"Ferrocarrille," which sounded familiar. I pulled the cord and got off after the bus pulled off to the side of a busy urban boulevard. This wasn't the first time I had arrived in an unfamiliar foreign city at night, but this time I didn't have anywhere in particular to go.
I pulled my suitcase across pavement cobbles about a half-mile to the train station, which I wasn't surprised to see was closed for the night. I found a city map display on a street corner and located a hostel about a mile across town. I navigated through some sketchy streets over to the hostel entrance, only to be told the place was fully-booked for the next several weeks. By then it was about 1:15 AM, and I decided to head back to the train station and find a place to wait out the night.
Granada seemed to have a booming night-life with people out at all hours, so I felt reasonably safe parking myself on a public bench and reading my book under a streetlamp. I figured I would be safer moving around, so I alternated every few hours between two benches a couple of blocks apart. I even dozed off for short periods of time, although I sat upright and my rest was the "sleep-with-one-eye-open" kind.
By 6:00 AM, the sky was light and I strolled around the city a bit, noting the contrast between the city at night and in daylight. I made my way over to the train station and bought a one-way morning ticket to Sevilla along with a big croissant for breakfast. From then on, my trip was smooth-sailing, and I could once again start to enjoy it as a mini-vacation, as it was intended.
Open-air urban camping in Spain! I sat most of the night on this bench, situated between two apartment buildings.
This bench was about a block away from the train station, and obviously outside a bar that had closed down for the night. That didn't stop some locals from setting up a table nearby do play cards, smoke and drink beer until around 3:00 AM.
In the morning I was able to see some of the nice streetscapes of the city. Lots of flowers and citrus trees. At night, graffiti seemed to be the public artwork of choice.
I didn't realize until I was leaving that the world famous palace and fortress of Alhambra is located in Granada. I'd like to go back to the city someday to spend more "quality" time - maybe even sleeping indoors.
I woke up a bit delirious after a snooze on the train and wondered for a second how I ended up in San Francisco.
Farmhouse ruins amid thousands of sunflowers en route to Sevilla. On the far left there's a peek of some olive trees which covered many of the hillsides in the region.
Looking east up Dumbarton Road in Partick toward the Gothic tower of the University of Glasgow. Most intersections are controlled by round-abouts, but there are traffic lights on some of the major arterials. I caught this light on a green, but there is a phase where the light turns yellow immediately before the green, indicating that the "go" is impending. And I thought Americans were impatient drivers.
Looking west up Dumbarton Road toward Whiteinch and Yoker. The train crossing the bridge in the background is either just arriving at or leaving Partick Station.
Partick Station - the hub of my transportation connections into Downtown Glasgow. The station has been under renovation since before I arrived, but the canopy framework went up in the last month. Inside the station entrance, commuters have the option of taking the subway (downstairs) or a connecting train (upstairs). There's also a bus stop right outside the station tunnel.
The intersection of Byres Road and Dumbarton. Byres Road is considered the main drag through the popular West End of Glasgow. The cones in the foreground line Dumbarton where utility crews have spent months replacing a major gas line.
I used a bus pass in June to commute between Partick and work. When I was a kid I always wanted to sit on the upper level of a double-decker bus above the driver's seat. With this opportunity to live and work in Glasgow, my impossible dream has come true!
The Partick Burgh Halls - site of my Tuesday night yoga classes. I signed up for the classes to help me re-find direction in life after I fulfilled my lifelong ambition of riding on the upper level of a double-decker bus.
Just in view of the Partick Burgh Halls is the Hamilton Crescent, home of the West of Scotland Cricket Club and site of the world's first international football (soccer) match in 1872. Scotland and England played to a 0-0 tie in front of 4000+ fans.
The famous Waverley Steamer glides up the Clyde at dusk in front of my living room window en route to Downtown Glasgow. The ship's website claims the 1947 vessel is the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world, and possibly "the most photographed ship in the world." I'll buy the first claim, but I'm doubtful of the second.
A contrast of Clyde-built ships. Same location as the previous picture, but the Waverley is leaving Glasgow during a rainy dawn and heading toward the Firth of Clyde and perhaps one of the nearby lochs or the Western Isles. In the background, BAE Systems continues building HMS Diamond, the third ship of the Type 45 Daring class of anti-air warfare destroyer purported to be the most advanced air defense warship in the world. Launch of the ship - diagonally into the Clyde per custom, is scheduled for November 2007...after I'm back in the states, unfortunately..jpg)
Looking westward down the Clyde from my living room just after sunset in late June 2007. The time? Just before 11:00 PM. The extra long days in the summer this far north make up for the particularly short and dark days in the winter.
A not-so-pleasant landmark in the Partick-Whiteinch area of Glasgow: The Clyde pedestrian/cycle tunnel running beneath the traffic lanes of the A739 carriageway to Govan.
I experienced the Clyde pedestrian tunnel while on a recent weekend jog to the LIDL store on the other side of the river. The poorly-lit, graffiti-lined concrete shaft runs for a half-mile under the river with a handful of locked gate cross-passages and several nearly-blind curves. I crossed the tunnel in record time, spurred on by the fact that I didn't see a single un-smashed CCTV camera. I also didn't see or hear any unsavory characters, which would have prompted me to dash back out the way I came in a hurry.
The possible inspiration for Sesame Street's Mr. Snuffleupagus lives up the road in Mugdock Park.
Just a local eating establishment where I definitely won't be dining.
