DAY FOUR: The miners are coming!

Spoiler alert: we did not get into Padella.  We got there at 6:30 (1830 for our European/U.S military readers) to find, hidden somewhere behind the mob of young, tie-less professionals waiting for tables, a small sign reading "We are sold out for tonight."  The meaning here is that at 6:30/1830, THREE AND A HALF HOURS BEFORE CLOSING, they'd maxed out their wait list.  It's an Italian restaurant.  Pasta.  Great pasta, I've been told.

I'll just let that sit there for a second.  

"Waiting in line for three hours is something best left to the young," I quipped, scanning the tables and seeing only fresh faces.  

"There's other stuff around here," said Sandra Bullock, unsinkable to the end.  And sure enough, just around the corner was... another mob scene!  All of London, it seemed, had

Young England enjoys Thursday night

converged on the small street lying adjacent to Borough Market, for a beer.  People are nominally affiliated with one or two pubs but mostly were just milling about in the street like WTO protesters, only instead of vague rage they had beers in plastic cups.  (We later found out, when we joined them, that upon ordering your beer, the bartender will ask, "Are you going outside?"  If you say "yes," he will pour your beer into a plastic cup.

Believe it or not, this was after we had Mexican food (!) at El Pastore, congratulating ourselves for suspending our "We're from California; we're not having Mexican food in England" campaign, mostly out of need. 

This morning, after another night of pushing Desmond's button every 44 minutes to activate the A/C, we re-packed our enormous yet somehow insufficient Patagonia bags, lugged them to Kings Cross Station and boarded a train for Durham.  Before boarding, though, as Sandra Bullock bought a coffee at Starbucks (forgive me father for I have sinned), I sat in the plaza outside the train station and reached into my pocket for my phone, then remembered that I had it on airplane mode in a vain hope to convince Verizon not to charge me $10 per day for having a phone outside the U.S. (so far not working)  Airplane mode means no connection, so I put the phone back in my pocket and watched everyone enter and leave the plaza.  I saw an old guy who looked like Gerald McRaney wearing a "Never Mind the Bullocks" Sex Pistols t-shirt, a family in matching Adidas, several college age kids with backpacks, and Todd, who sat next to me and called a work colleague, even though he didn't really have time, and told him or her about his disappointing phone call with Michael, who "wasn't really buying it."

It was the first time in a very long time that I hadn't had my phone to save me from boredom and it felt great.  I reminded me, in fact, that the last time I was sitting in a plaza outside a train station without a phone in a strange country was probably 1987, in Rockhampton, Australia.  That time I was playing a guitar and had probably about a dozen friendship bracelets around my left wrist.  I played for awhile, and then a couple came up and invited me to go with them to hang out at their friend's house at the beach for the weekend, so I picked up my stuff, hoisted my backpack onto my back, and joined them.

Times have changed.

When we take trains in Europe, we ride first class, having learned our lesson two years ago on a sweltering SwissRail train full of braying schoolkids.  Yes, it costs more.  Yes, those costs are defrayed by the Two Together rail cards we bought yesterday from Bridget and her awesome Jamaican accent at the King's Cross Station.  Give us grief if you wish, but guaranteed a/c and a reserved seat go a long way when you're a sweaty person who gets sick when riding backwards.  And the ride was a dream, all rolling fields and gratis deli boxes, reclining seats and cheeky Italian dads who, when the woman came by and asked if anyone wanted bottled water said, "We are going to Scotland. Whiskey!"

Eventually we arrived in Durham, chosen as a midway overnight between London and Aberdeen for reasons not remembered by me and known perhaps only by God.  "Why didn't we stay in York," asked a nonplussed Bullock as we rode the rails in ultimate bourgeois comfort.  I thought for a moment, stumped.  "Not sure," I said, but I suspected the reason was that I'd had my fill of cities in London and hoped that Durham (population 48,000) would offer up a different (authentic?) English experience.  So far so good.

"There are three things I want to see in Durham," Sandra Bullock announced as we swooned over our room at the Hotel Indigo.  Once something called the Shire Hall, the Indigo is about 300 years old on the oustide and sleekly modern within.  Our room is twice the size of the one in London and yes, the A/C works. 

"I want to see the cathedral, the castle and the market."

"Sounds good."

"Also, I want to take a taxi back to the train station tomorrow, because our bags weigh about a thousand pounds."

"I'm on board with that."

Well, three out of four ain't bad.  Tomorrow is the annual Miners Gala in Durham, so the roads will be closed from 6 AM to 10 PM.  I wish I'd known, because no way do I want to miss the Miners Gala.  Who would willingly miss miners from all the surrounding villages marching into town, making speeches at the market and then basically wreaking the kind of havoc that only an army of what I can only imagine is big shaved-head guys wearing tiny little shorts and soccer jerseys, blowing off steam and seeing people they haven't seen for a year?

Unfortunately, we're booked on a train to Aberdeen at 12:30.  And we will be dragging huge suitcases up the hill to get there.

"I'm Arthur, King of the Britons!"

So far, though, Durham has exceeded our expectations, which were none.  The cathedral was awesome and breathtaking, built in the 11th century and -- as an added bonus -- full of a chorus warming up for a performance, filling the huge space with their haunting tones.  It was pretty cool, even though we got their too late to see the monks' dormitories. 

And the castle was impressive... even though we got their too late to take a tour, and thus got turned away at the ropes blocking the courtyard.  Nice courtyard, though.

We were not too late to sample some exotic gin at the Tin of Sardines gin bar, where we found seats at Durham's smallest bar because fortunately a crew of eight shaved head, tiny shorts guys had just exited.  I'm not a hard alcohol guy, and a giant class full of pink liquid isn't usually my look, but that Malfi blood orange gin was pretty flavorful.  And the two guys working their were really nice, even if we could only understand about half of everything they said. 

Durham: big city antidote

Once again you find Sandra Bullock and I lounging around our hotel room, preparing for dinner.  Tonight we have no expectations of world-class pasta or hip name-brand restaurants.  As I sit here, typing, she's casually searching the internet to see if the places suggested to us at the Tin of Sardines actually check out. And we're okay with that.  As Sandra Bullock said earlier today while we hiked a bucolic trail along the river, after walking through narrow, cobblestoned streets lined with two- and three-story buildings in kind of an "England's version of Tuscany" way, "It's kind of nice to be out of a city."



Here are today's numbers:

34.7  weight, in pounds, of my Patagonia bag.  The weight limit on the flight we are scheduled to take on Monday is 20 KG.  Pray for my luggage.

0.7  the distance to the train station from the Hotel Indigo in Durham.  It doesn't sound like a alot, but it's uphill and I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but our bags are heavy.

2.57  cost, in pounds, of the vegan sausage I bought at a coffee shop this afternoon because I was starving.  It was excellent.

63  height, in inches, of our bearded bartender at the Tin of Sardines.  We'd been looking for a pub, to do our usual afternoon beer thing, but the first one we went into was packed, really warm, and made S. Bullock feel claustrophobic.  So we moved on.  The bartender cannot reach the gin on the highest shelf, but is very happy to use a small ladder to bring one down so you can smell its essence.

4.5 hours we will be on a train tomorrow.  In first class, thank you very much.

15,882  steps so far today.  Durham, unlike London, is a very small city.  You can see the market (disappointing and weird), the Cathedral (awe-inspiring) and the castle (I can only guess) and still struggle to get to your steps quota for the day. 

21 degrees (C) in our room at the Hotel Indigo.  That translates to 72 (F) which, according to my wife, is "freezing."

I'm going to quit now.  The miners are coming and I don't want to miss any of it.