Wednesday, May 25
The 6:30 am alarm went off and we groggily
got up, got ready, finished the last of our packing (toiletries) went up to
breakfast, which was happening early today due to disembarkation. I stopped at
the Purser’s Desk to handle some mischarges on our final statement. Soon we
were in one of the bars with our backpacks and bags waiting our turn to get
off.
View from our stateroom of Southampton.
Disembarking was a lot easier, simpler, and
more organized than in Brooklyn and we were off the ship, had our bags
collected, and in a taxi in under ten minutes. We took the taxi to the
Southampton train station where we noticed for the first time our “land
sickness.” Oh, the motion from the ship! In our heads we swayed to and fro,
back and forth. At times, when holding perfectly still, we would feel like we
were suddenly swooning—and listing!—even though visually and physically we were
perfectly still. This was quite a bit more pronounced than when we got off the
Celebrity Millennium after our Alaska cruise and quite a bit more disconcerting
as well.
A sign from the toilet on the train.
A few minutes in the station in Southampton and were on our way to
London Waterloo. The 80-minute train ride went by quickly, and before we knew
it we were passing by the area where Laura, David, Judy, Bryce and I stayed
near Battersea a little over a year ago when we came to London for the opening
of Platform 9 ¾ and Laura and I got engaged.
Off in Waterloo and then we went to hunt down
a luggage shipping service, which we had researched before our trip and knew
was something we’d be able to do. Cunard offered an easy and convenient
service, but at a premium, so I thought we’d save some money by doing it
ourselves. After an hour of dicking around with paperwork, waiting for the
supervisor to show up (the only one who knew how to fill out the paperwork for
international shipping—and even he didn’t seem to know very well), filling out
US government customs declaration forms, etc. we finally had our bag filled
with all our formal and ship specific clothing out of our possession. Now,
whether it shows up or not in Los Angeles remains to be seen. I’m beting I’ll
get at least one call or email from the shipper or Customs before the bag
actually arrives.
Waterloo Station
From Waterloo station we took a taxi to
Euston station, where we would be catching the Caledonian Sleeper overnight
train to Inverness, Scotland. We dumped all our bags at Left Luggage and set
about to figure out stuff to do for the next nine hours or so.
We ended up taking the Tube to the Victoria
& Albert Museum to see an exhibit on the history of undergarments. Laura
found it quite interesting and once again was able to identify some items in
the exhibit from her textbooks. This has happed at both the previous fashion
exhibits we’ve been to, which I think is really neat that she’s able to see
things in person only seen in her texts.
After that, we grabbed a taxi and went to the
rooftop at Harvey Nichols (an upscale, trendy, fashion forward department store
in Knightsbridge near Harrod’s) for afternoon tea. Yes, I realize this is the
third afternoon tea we’ve had, this on the heels of us complaining in this very
journal about how much we disliked our first champagne tea about the QM2, but
our second tea—which consisted of much warmer tea, better scones, and a decided
lack of champagne—was better. This tea, also consisting of no champagne, hotter
tea, and decent nibbles was also good. But we did it mostly to kill time.
We took the Tube to Covent Garden and did a
little window shopping so Laura could look for shoes. We stopped in a few shops
but didn’t really find anything. From there, we walked to an Italian restaurant
and had dinner before heading back to Euston station to collect our bags and
board the Caledonian Sleeper.
We found our first class cabins, two bunk
rooms with the upper bunk shut, with a connecting door inside to turn into two
twin beds in two connecting cabins. The rooms had a narrow bed with sheets,
pillows, and a comforter and a fold-up counter that had a sink beneath. We got
little convenience kits with the usual eye mask, lotion, etc. plus a towel and
a small washrag.
We hurried to the dining/lounge car because I
suspected people would plant themselves there early and it would be impossible
to get a seat later and I was right. We sat on a sofa with others and sipped
wine and ate a dessert cheese platter while a man pulled glasses and bottles
out of a cardboard box. He ended up being a representative from Scottish
distillery Tomatin, who set about giving us little dram whiskey glasses and then
pouring us tastings of a variety of their single malt scotches. We really liked
the Tomatin 18 year, which was very fruit-forward.
A Scotsman attempting to get us drunk.
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