They say it doesn’t snow a lot in England. Well, my canceled trip, my stress acne, and my brother’s sadness will tell you otherwise. This is what was supposed to be the story of the second time I went to Scotland.
When my brother came to visit me, he stayed for two weekends—one of those, as you know, was spent exploring London and Isle of Man. While I was back at Harlaxton during the week, he went to Germany to visit our old German exchange student Livia. He had a large bag that he didn’t want to bring to Germany, so I helped him out by bringing it back to Harlaxton after Isle of Man. This seemed like a great idea until the snow came.
On Wednesday, I prepared Kyle for the worst: our trip was probably going to be canceled, and he wasn’t going to get to see Scotland. On Thursday, I woke up to a message that our flight had in fact been canceled, and there was a red alert telling no one to travel in or out of Scotland. By 10:30am, the train I’d booked to London had been canceled. An hour later, the second train I’d booked was also canceled. By the third canceled train, I had learned my lesson. Stop buying train tickets, Mariya, because you’re not going to London today. And with more snow in the forecast, it was a likely possibility that I would not being going to London at all.
There are two issues with this. 1) I obviously want to see my brother before he leaves England, and 2) I have his giant checked bag that I need to return to him before he leaves England.
Luckily, the National Rail Service lifted travel restrictions, which meant you could get on any train that was still running as long as you had a ticket. Good news! I had three tickets. I was able to hang out with friends and watch Pitch Perfect 3 Thursday night, and then on Friday morning I went to the train station and sat in Starbucks until there was a train leaving for London. When there was one that wasn’t canceled, I hopped (or hobbled—Kyle’s bag was huge) on and began my journey to Kingston.
When I got to Kingston, Kyle and I got a late lunch at a place called The Boaters Inn. I got fish and chips, which was a meal I needed to stop ordering long before I did. After lunch, we went to the mall. I got the most beautiful new journal (journal snob) and Kyle got a Superdry jacket with a fur hood so he wouldn’t be cold anymore. We decided to turn in early that day and drink tea/Kyle’s free drinks at the bar and eat more DoubleTree cookies. Unfortunately the only movie on was 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was a major downgrade from the last week’s options on the Horror Channel.
The next morning, we got up and went to Windsor. We had lunch and toured Windsor Castle (where Harry and Meghan got married!), which had the coolest dollhouse-sized replica of Buckingham Palace and what I assumed would be beautiful gardens if it wasn’t freezing outside. We stayed until they closed and then walked around the shops in Windsor. I found a place called T2 that sells delicious teas and I made my first purchase! I did not buy a tin for my tea, which ended up becoming a month-long ordeal filled with self-loathing, but that’s a story for another time.
We took the train back to Kingston to get dinner at Nando’s—my favorite restaurant, and the place I’d been dying to bring Kyle to since day one. We ate it, I loved it, he liked it (heart broken), and we went back to the room for more tea and cookies. This time I tried my new black rose tea from T2 instead of Earl Grey, but I still ate mine and Kyle’s cookies. Kyle went to an ATM in the show wearing shorts and his new heavy-duty winter coat to get a tip for his bartender. This time, nothing was on except for Good Will Hunting. A great movie, of course, but nowhere near anything we’d been watching on the Horror Channel.
On Sunday morning, Kyle had to pack up and leave for Heathrow Airport to fly home. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways 🙁
On my way back to Kings Cross, I decided to stop at Wimbledon. I’ve been a tennis fan for as long as I can remember. I watched a Federer vs. Nadal match at my cousin’s house when I was really little, and I’ve been a Federer fan ever since! I walked from the train station to the Wimbledon tennis courts and learned halfway through that I could have probably taken the bus. I made it, though, and my dreams came ¼ true (the rest of my dreams being actually watching a tennis match being played, and watching Federer play on Centre Court). I didn’t have time to wait for a tour of Centre Court before I had to leave to catch my train back to Harlaxton, but I was able to walk around for a little while and see the leaderboard with the results from last year’s tournament with pictures of the men’s and women’s singles champions (including my favorite, Roger Federer). I bought a hat and walked back to the train station.
When I got back to Kings Cross, I found out my train had been canceled. I was pretty frustrated considering there was no snow on the ground, but I got over it, got on an earlier train, and got home.
Sorry we didn’t get to go to Scotland 🙁
