Newcastle was a great time – it is most famous for being a shopping district, but had enough historic sites, cool architecture, and scenery to keep me happy. Friday was a day off work, so Martin and I hopped a train from Bury St Edmunds in the morning and arrived in Newcastle by early afternoon. Our hotel was co-located with the train station, which was super-convenient and within walking distance of everything. That afternoon and evening, we walked around, did some shopping, and found an awesome Italian place for dinner where I had the best lasagna I think I have ever eaten in my life.
Saturday dawned clear, sunny, and warm, so we enjoyed breakfast in the sun at a pub with outdoor seating. Then we went to an interactive life science museum, which hopefully you have been to something similar so you will understand how much fun it was. Instead of staring at stuff on a wall like a normal museum, this one was full of hands-on exhibits like physics demonstrations, city-building, and even an amusement park-like spaceship ride through the planets! We had a blast and spent several hours “playing” with all of the exhibits. Here is a funny picture of me in an igloo:
That afternoon we did some more shopping (the mall was probably the closest thing to a US mall I have seen here), walked along the Tyne river and a couple of the bridges, and watched the famous Millenium Bridge lift up for a boat to pass under it. Exploring the town at night was also fairly interesting – Martin dubbed it the “Vegas of England” because we saw so many people wearing weird costumes (like a Storm Trooper in a tutu) walking around. Sunday morning, we ran 7 miles along the river (I LOVE places with great running routes!), visited the “New Castle” (city’s namesake), climbed all the way to the roof for some great views, and browsed a riverside market before catching the train back home. Here is the link to the Newcastle photo album for many more fun pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=418566&id=701905001&l=5d57006b9b
After getting back to my house Sunday night, I basically just switched out dirty clothes for clean ones in the suitcase and got ready to fly to Italy to meet Carrie! I worked a half day on Monday, then drove to Stansted airport for my evening flight to Trieste, where Carrie (my college roommate, who is also a USAF Lt and works as a developmental engineer at Eglin AFB, FL) was lecturing at an international physics center. Trieste is in the northeast corner of Italy, on the coast about 2 hours east of Venice. I arrived at the conference center on Monday night and met a few of Carrie’s team members before we went back to her hotel room to catch up on “girl talk”. :)
The next day, we went with several of her team members on a day trip to Venice. We took the train into the city and spent all day walking around, sightseeing, and shopping. There are no cars in Venice, so the "streets" are either pedestrian walkways or waterways. We saw plenty of the famous gondolas, but did not ride in one since they are super-expensive (80 Euros, about equivalent to $150). We saw the famous San Marco square, with the beautiful cathedral which unfortunately had scaffolding obstructing half of its face. Here is a picture of Carrie and me on a bridge in Venice:
That night, we had dinner back in Trieste with a bunch of people from the physics center at a really good pizza place. On Wednesday, Carrie and I did a walking tour of Trieste with audio guides (yeah, we looked like tourists). There were plenty of interesting historical sites and beautiful views along the coast. We walked through the gardens of the beautiful Miramare Castle near our hotel, and planned to tour the inside of the castle the next morning before leaving for the airport. Here is the photo album from our adventures in Italy: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=419009&id=701905001&l=4896962e6d
So, Thursday morning... I took the first shower, and turned on my laptop to check my email while Carrie was in the shower. My internet home page is a UK news site, so when my browser opened, I saw the headline "Icelandic Volcano Eruption Affects UK Airspace, Cancels Flights" with a picture of an erupting volcano. I thought, "you have GOT to be kidding me..." I read the story, and it said that most of the flights canceled were to and from Scotland, and that you should check with your airline to find out whether your flight was canceled. I immediately went to the Ryanair home page, and found a looooong list of canceled flights. Ours was NOT on the list. So, Carrie got out of the shower, I told her the funny story about the volcano, we laughed and then checked out of our hotel and had a great time touring the Miramare Castle before heading to the airport.
The travel nightmare began when we got the airport in Trieste and found out our flight was cancelled, along with all flights in UK airspace. We decided that if we could get to Paris, we could get across the Chunnel, so we tried to get train tickets to Paris. The station in Trieste was booked full, but they put us on a train to Venice in hopes that we could get Paris tickets there. When we got to Venice, they were also sold out of Paris tickets, but put us on a train to Milan and gave us a train ticket to Paris out of Milan the next morning. In Milan, there were zero hotels available because of some international furniture show being held in the city, so we spent the night in the Milan train station with approximately 200 other people. It was freezing cold and the floor and benches were cement… definitely not an experience I ever want to have again!
We got on our train to Paris Friday morning, and found out from people sitting near us that Eurostar tickets through the Chunnel were booked through Monday, and ferries out of Calais were booked through Sunday. Not good news… Miraculously, there was a British guy sitting across from us who was on the phone with his wife, and she found ferry tickets out of Cherbourg (in northwest France) to Portsmouth (southern England). He offered to get us tickets too, and we jumped at the chance to just get across the water SOMEHOW. There was an Australian girl named Carley sitting near us who lived in London and also joined our little traveling group, and she ended up being a lifesaver when we got into Paris – she expertly navigated the Paris metro and various bus and train stations to get us on the train to catch our ferry in time.
Carley also offered to let us stay with her in London overnight, since we would be getting into Portsmouth after 11 p.m., too late to get a train. Her boyfriend, who also lived in London, was going to drive down to Portsmouth and pick us up. This little plan somewhat fell apart just as we were boarding the ferry, when her boyfriend called and said he wasn’t getting off work til 3 a.m. (he’s a DJ)... and so we were going to be stuck in Portsmouth with no train and no hotel. Carrie and I did NOT want to spend another night in a train station (we weren't even sure the Portsmouth train station was open 24 hours) and decided it was worth the price of a 3-hour taxi ride, so I called Martin to see if he could Google a phone number for taxis in Portsmouth so we could get one back to the London-Stansted airport (where my car was). When I explained the situation, he instead volunteered to drive down to Portsmouth to get us (an 8-hour round trip), which was absolutely amazing. I definitely owe him big time! After dropping Carley off in London and getting my car at Stansted, we got back to my house at 4 a.m. Saturday morning.
Sooo… just in case you weren’t keeping track (and because I left some of the minor craziness out), what should have been a 2-hour flight on ONE airplane turned into a 40-hour chaotic nightmare on 3 buses, 4 trains, 1 ferry, and 1 car ride. What a mess, huh? And it turns out we were actually some of the lucky ones – there are still people trapped places a week later! Carrie was supposed to fly back to Eglin on Sunday, but she was stuck here with me all week until UK airspace opened back up on Wednesday and she was able to get a flight out on Friday.
Whew, I am exhausted just from telling that story again, as I am sure you are from reading it! I'll stop here for tonight and post again tomorrow with all of the fun stories and pictures from Carrie's time in England.
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