Wonderland in UK

“Wow, Papa, look at the parking lot!” This was Maxim walking out of the airport hotel on Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. after 4 hours of sleep. Not to be outdone in the aura of wide-eyed fascination, Oskar looked around with a smile that split his face like a ripe watermelon falling off a truck—pure fascination. Nothing puts an experience in a better light than a child with no inhibitions who has it in his mind that things are cool.

The whole weekend was a trip through wonderland—and the kids had fun, too. We began with a four-hour flight from Tirana to London; Oskar had a new coloring book, Maxim, a new joke book. I found three empty seats calling to me. I envy Maura’s ability to sleep at a 5% incline anytime she wants.

6:15 am Saturday, Oct. 15 A Family Rail Pass. This pass would get us greatly reduced fares. Even discounted, however, they were still only marginally less than outrageously expensive. Maura had tried for several nights in a row to buy the thing online, using her substantial online experience, without success. All she managed to obtain was an application form for the Family Rail Pass. Show up at the train station Saturday morning and hope there are windows open so we can buy the stuff we need.

Thinking that people at the ticket window are all about efficiency, I stepped up and, without even saying hello, “We need to buy a family pass.” A woman at the neighboring window called me over. I slid our application through the tiny slit in the glass. When she internalized what we wanted, and our pathetic unpreparedness, she chuffed, “Let’s get you the proper form, shall we?” She made motions for us to see her colleague and sent us back to the same line she called us out of 2 minutes earlier.

This man was…well…chubby, sitting like a lump of marshmallow, eating Cadbury’s chocolates.

“Where are we going today?” says the marshmallow. As I said, we knew exactly what we wanted and I wasn’t in the mood to futz around.

“Well, we are going to Newcastle, but right now we need to get to King’s Cross to meet a friend who has our tickets. We need a Family Rail Pass.”

“So, you want to buy the tickets straight through to Newcastle”

“No, we need to buy tickets to King’s Cross.”

“Well, see if you buy the tickets to Newcastle, the whole trip would be discounted.”

“But we already have tickets to Newcastle. We are meeting a friend at King’s Cross. He has our tickets.”

“So you already have the tickets to Newcastle?”

“Yes.”

Maura was kicking me in the back of the knees now, adding to my budding annoyance. The thing is that the groom (we were on our way to a wedding) bought the tickets, pretending to be in possession of a Family Rail Pass, pretending to need train tickets from London to Newcastle on the October 16, and pretending to be us. Then, without touching the tickets, Groom had them mailed to his friend, also pretending to be us, named Gwyn in London. Then, minutes before the train would depart, we were going to quietly bump into the Gwyn on platform 4 and make the exchange. In this new world of triple checks on passports, removing our shoes for ex-ray at the check-in line, and other hypersensitive security, we were not sure if this bit of skullduggery was allowed.

“Oh, well, that’s a pity,” said Mr. Lump.

“Well, yes, it’s a pity, but that’s what it is, so let’s get on with it!” I was losing patience. After all, we didn’t know how long it would take to get from Gatwick to King’s Cross so we didn’t want to dawdle. The man on the other side of the window did not seem to have any fire in his rump. His words came slowly, like sludge flowing through a hole the size of a pin … the last drops of shampoo eeking out of a bottle on a cold morning…a rattlesnake sloughing off its used scales.

Meanwhile, Maura is throwing daggers at me with her eyes now, because we actually DID get the discount Mr. Marshmallow was talking about. She didn’t want me to let the cat out of the bag. In actual fact, I didn’t understand exactly what it was Groom had done for us, so I could very easily have spilled the beans all over the station and put us into a fantastically over-priced rental car and used the already purchased tickets for our next campfire. My whole life seems to be a series of incidents of talking too much.

Annoyingly, the man seemed to take no notice of my rudeness. A let down. After all, why would I express my frustration if I didn’t want my distaste to register?

Luckily, right about then, before I could open my mouth too wide, I noticed a pastry shop just a few meters away. I took the boys as Maura took over dealings with the marshmallow. About 10 minutes later, I walked back to the window and Maura was just leaving. “How’d it go?”

“That ridiculous man! Just sell me what I need!”

“Did you get everything?”

“Yes, exactly, but I could have been out of there 10 minutes ago!”

“Did you get the tickets BACK from Newcastle?”

“No, I just wanted to get to King’s Cross. If I’d have bought the return from Newcastle…humph! That man! ‘Weeeeelll, what class of ticket would you like?’ ‘Where do you want to sit?’ I can only imagine. I would’ve been there for another hour.”

High on the list of great things in young boys’ lives are trains. They love the freedom to walk around while we are moving at 90 miles an hour. They love the huge windows that allow them to see the countryside flying by in truly living color. They love to feel like they are riding Thomas the train engine. They love their coloring books and Playmobile magazines. So…the three and half hour train ride from London to Newcastle was one thrill after another.

One nugget of British life the boys were eager to see was the cool taxis. These are the boxes with ceilings high enough to accommodate men’s top hats. Apparently many taxis traditionally have these ceilings even today—when no one wears such hats. Their back doors open in the reverse manner for easy access. Even during the brief walk between the hotel and the tube station, they shouted out, “Hey! There’s a funky London taxi!” (Oskar actually used the word funky even though I hadn’t used it, nor had Maura). So of course when we left the station, Maxim nearly jumped in front of the first car he saw. We told the young man our hotel as he put our bag in the back—he paused. “Well, it’s right there, you might want to walk.” Maura had done well with the reservations. The place was across the street from the reception—at science museum, a bonus! …featuring a Dr. Who exhibit, no less. The fun was just beginning.

A picture of the boys in a cab. The top hat-high ceiling is obvious...unfortunately, the doors open like a standard car instead of like a "funky London taxi."