The Nice Lady on the Train

What an adventure...

First off, it SNOWED today!!! And when I left for work in the morning (Thurs Feb 8) it was still snow-ING!!! I was ecstatic and was grinning like the Cheshire cat! Got to my tube station -- my entire line was closed due to signal failure and the like, caused by the snow. So I lined up with everyone else to take the bus to the closest station on another line, which so happened to be the line that takes me directly to the office.

At the tube station, I bumped into a friend from my New Testament Greek class. We were chatting, and managed to squeeze ourselves onto the third subway that came by. There were THAT many people trying to get on! I haven't had a chance to talk to him much, but learned that he's from Northern Ireland, went to teach English in China for 3 years, met and married his wife there, and now they are in London, but thinking about moving back to China. And yes he is fluent in Mandarin!!! So might get him to teach me, since he's already teaching another Cantonese guy from his bible study group hahah =) That's be great, an Irish dude teaching two Chinese kids how to speak Mandarin!!! =)

Tube etiquette requires that when the train is packed, you take your backpack off and hold it in front of you. And since I was multi-tasking (had been reviewing an audit committee package), both my hands were now full, and hanging to my sides, holding onto my stuff. Upon entering the carriage, I realised I had no worries about falling over -- cause there was nowhere to fall anyway!!! This was the first time that literally, we were swaying as one carriage, and I was not afraid of falling over one bit!

Finally got to my station, and as I walked to the office, I noticed something really peculiar -- the Brits use an umbrella when it snows!!! I guess it makes sense cause it's wet when it lands on you, but it was the funniest thing to see, a whole ton of umbrellas out when it's snowing!!! Made me think of GKY and her excessive use of umbrellas in strange occasions, but even GKY doesn't use it in the snow!!!

That was the morning's adventure. Over the lunch hour, I headed to my client in Basingstoke, which is a 45 min train ride from Waterloo, and about a 1 to 1.5 hour train ride back to Paddington. Getting there was fine, only slight delays.

Coming home, all seemed fine. Got on the train at Basingstoke which took me to Reading. Got on the train at Reading that would take me to Paddington through Slough. We arrived at Slough's platform, and the announcement came on. Apparently there was a power outage from Slough to Paddington, which means all the rail signals were red. Rightly so, the train conductor would not progress unless the signals were green, since they'd otherwise have no clue whether another train was just ahead of them.

An hour later, we were still at the platform. Having been online since I left the client's office (courtesy of a GPRS card that uses the mobile phone network to get online, much like how a blackberry gets reception anywhere), my laptop battery died. So I gave up and decided to find a cab to get home. I have no clue how far Slough is from home, but the train wasn't going to move in the next while anyway.

Sitting across from me was a boy (uni aged) who was coming into London from Wales for a weekend ski trip that was flying out from London on Friday. Across the aisle were two girls who were heading home for the weekend from uni in Reading. I looked at them and said I'm cabbing back to Paddington, you're welcome to join me, and you wouldn't have to pay. The boy said yes immediately, the girls were a bit hesitant, as girls are taught to fear strange people. But I said again, I live near Paddington, they wouldn't need to pay, if they wanted they could join me, but I didn't know how long it would take to get a cab, and if the train started to move again once we were outside the station, the train would get into London faster than a cab.

The three of them joined me, and we wandered outside to find a cab. Of course, there were none. At least I'm well prepared, and I have on me (and saved on my mobile) the Black Cab taxi number. I called to request a pickup, and they said a cab would be there within an hour. No harm in reserving, I can always cancel, so I did. About 10 mins later, a local taxi pulled up. Perfect, we rolled in and I cancelled the one I booked.

The ride didn't seem to take long, as the kids were chatting with each other, and we were sort of introducing ourselves. We laughed about how it seemed like a scene from a crazy movie, where everything goes wrong and you figure, what else can happen now! The girls talked about entering it as the best blag ever (blag is when you get something for free, as they kindly translated) in some contest at uni.

Along the way, one of the girls, and the boy, had calls from family and friends asking where they were etc. In explaining the situation, they said "and then this nice lady on the train offered to give us a lift back to Paddington in her cab without needing us to pay" which totally cracked me up =) As much as it makes me feel really old, I didn't mind being referred to as the nice lady on the train =) I've been called a lot worse in my lifetime hahah!!!

The kids were cute, and when we arrived at Paddington, they we saying thank you over and over again, and I had to remind them to hurry, else the tube would shut and they'd be stranded again (the tube closes pretty early, between midnight and 12:30, or something ridiculous like that).

Thus ends my 3.5 hr journey home from the client. Considering I'm out there again in the morning, I should have just checked into a hotel hahah!! As for the cab ride -- Uncle Ernie will be seeing £75 being expensed through for tonight's adventure!

Bedtime =) Night!