We did pretty well, maybe a little turned around but eventually we got to Platform B after walking around and trying to find "First Capital Connect" on the tube map ("the tube" is the underground train) (we soon learned that St. Pancras was another overground station that we had to walk a bit to), on the train to Mill Hill Broadway, going our merry little way and suddenly BOOM!!! the train takes off like the first 60 seconds of that ride California Screamin' at Disney's California Adventure Park. What the??? The directions said we should only be on this train for about 15-20 minutes and it was only supposed to be a couple little stations down, right? Right. Well, at the rate we're going we're passing like 3 stations every 5 minutes I swear! Then the voice from above, the conductor speaker, announces the next stop. Uh, yeah that's about 3 stops after what we want. Janise kinda looks as me and I turn and ask someone sitting at my rear about the station we're supposed to get off on.
me: "Do you know how far until Mill Hill Broadway???"
him: "Umm, that was about three exits ago. This is a speed train. It doesn't stop for a while."
We burst into laughter.
him: "You can just get off at the next exit, cross the station, and get off three station back."
We got 'er done. Mill Hill Broadway. ok ok we got this.
From here Sarah (the friend we're to stay with) gave us some pretty specific directions for how to walk to their home from the station. They were as follows:
"Cross the street from Station, turn left onto Hale Grove Gardens, go straight down this street, straight onto Highwood Grove, when you get to the end turn left onto Maxwelton Close. Number 14 is at the end on the right hand side. If Paul (her husband) isn't there we'll leave you a key."
K cool. Ha! Here's how it actually played out:
So we get off the train and look around. Hmmm...there are four options for "crossing the street from the station," interesting. We choose to follow the people getting off the train to "their normal exit" and pick one of the streets from there. Ok. Looking to the left and to the right, we are definitely going to have to first go left or right on this street before we can get anywhere near a street turning option. Janise wants to go right because there's a left turn near but the street name is totally wrong. We go left in search of Hale Grove Garden. We quickly realize that there are NO LEFT TURN OPTIONS and none of the names match up, except one maybe. "Hale Road," a right turn. We asked a handful of guys at some mechanic place and they had NO idea where the road was, so we went with Hale Road--at least it was 1 of 3 for the words in the name of the street we’re looking for. Ignoring the fact that it was a right hand turn, we headed down it for lack of any better idea (or phone for that matter). We don’t get more than 100 yards and there to our right is Hale Grove Gardens!! But it’s a RIGHT?? We decide to walk a little further down to see if it’s just like one of those that disconnects and then appears on the other side of road so we could turn left. Nope. Again we trek back and go right. Awesome.
Next direction: Go straight and continue on Highwood Grove.
Yeah!!! This one was actually totally possible though as we approached the end of Hale Grove Gardens the street took a little bend to the left and just as we were cresting a little part, the “end” came into view and I said, “Just watch, we’re gonna get up there and the street will probably just end.” And….drum roll please….yup, that’s exactly what happened. Hahaha. We get to the end of the road and it literally is the END of the road. Of course. It was like one of those kinda like a culdesac backing into a dead-end lined with bushes, a little retaining wall, and a sidewalk on one side (not the side we could see). But alas, I must say there at least was a way to get through once we really looked, therefore the direction was correct. :)
From there we got to the end of the street, that was totally right and the street in fact was Maxwelton Close. We turned left and giddily headed left, strolled down to the end of the street despite the fact that as we were going we noticed that the house numbers conveniently jumped from #13 to #15 and kept going. Hmm. Down to the corner and...yeah, definitely numbers way past and nowhere near including #14. About Face! Yes, it was all the way at the other e
We were greeted by a cute note stuck to the door--"Janise and Cami"--enclosed were instructions, "key is under the mat, food on the counter, please help yourself." We went in and crashed on the couches mostly undistrubed, other than a bit of confusion when to her surprise, upon enter the house, the housekeep found two ragged girls sleeping in the livingroom.
When I woke up again I found myself surrounded by a couple new friends and the fragrance of homemade chili on the stove...mmm...
Paul is like a manager of a band (really it's more like a bunch of those really talented musicians and backup singers that huge names use when they travel to different countries instead of traveling with an entire crew) that gets together every Wednesday night at a Bar called "Dion" in "The City" in London (the financial district...see, betcha didn't think you'd be learning so much from reading a blog). So after making some chili from scratch Sarah sent us off to for the "concert" with some more scribbled directions in hand. We made it much more smoothly this time...though there was one more "left" that was a "right" incident but that's cool. No biggy :)
We walked in and luckily I had made us get a little dolled up because this wasn't like any bar I've ever been to. And definitely a far stretch from the most recent, Montana's Country Bar. We were in the heart of London's response to our Wall Street and let's just say, I've never seen so many nice designer suits in my life...nor have I been offered some many drinks. I felt so bad about it actually, because some of the guys actually bought us drinks and kinda cornered us into the bar before I could tell them that we don't drink...oops. How do you avoid that? I don't know. In the end, that's where we met Paul and apparently he's like a pretty big deal because once people knew who this "guy" was that we were looking for they all treated us totally different and were totally like nervous to talk to us...he said it was because we'd just jumped from some cute american traveling girls to VIP. That's cool. We met tons of people, everything was "on the house," and danced to this rockin' live band and met all of them after for like 30 minutes. Like we're talking people that have played with HUGE names. In fact, one of the guys even taught Madonna how to play the guitar back in the day. It was totally rad!!
Then, Paul drove us all around the entire first two or three zones of the city. I mean we saw everything and he's born and raised in London so he told us all kinds of rad history and little known facts. He had us get out on abby road of course and took pictures of us (The Beatles). Then he took us for some Salt Beef sandwiches, mind you it's now like coming up on like 1am. He drive totally like an awesome taxi driver, going on all these back roads, and and and then he pulls down some dark ally, parks and gets out. We follow him down the road to "The Best Bagels" shop, the second, not the first. Only people that don't really know go to the first and he proceeds to order the most amazing hot out of the oven fresh bagel sandwiches that mom would probably die if she saw them. Red red red, salty beef, dijon mustard, and a pickle all on a scrumptuous bagel made right there. Not typically my style but yummy yum yum! Everyone should try one! The rest of the evening was spent with Paul showing us all these youtube clips of all the members of his "band" and their performances with famous people until the wee hours of the morning. Totally rad and a great way to start out the trip!
I'll give more on these members of the cast later.
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