OK. I'm probably going to confuse myself here as everyone else counts the first day of the holiday as the first day in the US, but for me, the first day is when the journey begins.
Our journey began about noon on Saturday and the first step was to meet up with Bob to travel to Manchester on the train. We trundled our suitcases onto the Metro and phoned him to let him know we were in the first car, where he duly joined us as we passed the station nearest him. Bill and I each has a modest sized suitcase (after lots of deliberation about taking a big, largely empty suitcase or just buying -- yet another -- one at WalMart); Bob's was slightly larger. We three with our cases hogged a lot of space -- but seeing the big smiles on our faces people didn't seem to mind.
When we got to Newcastle Central Station, the guys were hungry. I'd had a snack earlier and was more interested in finding something to read on the journey. WH Smith usually gets a wad of my money when I'm on holiday, but strangely enough I couldn't find anything in there that I wanted. It was so unlike me it was almost worrying.
There was no food on the train, as usual, and I tried popping out at York during our 10 minute stop, but two other women beat me and the salesgirl was so lethargic I left my sandwich and coke at the counter, feeling the minutes passing all too fast. Bill came out and interrupted me at the vending machine, fiddling with my coins. He said there was a food trolley on the train after all, but if there was I never got a sniff of it. I should have got something in Newcastle - hope I remember this from now on.
We got the shuttle bus to the TravelLodge at Manchester and gave Simon a ring. Shortly thereafter Simon came around and picked us up. We went down Wilmslow Road to an Indian Restaurant. Bob's not big on spicy foreign food and so I tried to steer him to a safe choice, a Tandoori chicken tikka, which I also got. Unfortunately I found it quite hot, but he didn't complain, so I guess it was OK.
Simon returned us to the TravelLodge and we made plans to meet up at the check-in desk at the airport the next morning!
1 comment:
I have to agree with you abut when a trip starts. Our adventures start when we pull out of the driveway and not when we arrive at our first destination.
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