- 27/4: London - Sheffield - London.
In the morning I went to St. Pancras' station and picked a train to Sheffield to meet up with
queenofthehours . After a couple of hours I arrived and we met at the station. She gave me two presents: one was an ELO pin which's origins she wasn't sure about but I reckon it must be quite valuable because it looked to be very old; the other one was a collectible number from a Beatles' magazine, quite a valuable item as well as I suppose they must be rare. I thanked her and we went on a walk through the city center
Here I must say I struggled considerably with the Sheffield accent. I found it to be among the hardest to understand I came across during my trip. At one point I got to a stalemate with a shop vendor because I was completely unable to understand what she was asking me and it was only thanks to Queen's intervention that the situation was saved and the purchase could progress. Our forum moderator was really patient and kind throughout all day thankfully and as the hours went by and we left the noise of the city center my ear got gradually used to the accent and the conversation turned more fluid.
It was a day of first times for me, as for example I got to know about the sport (or game) of snooker. I must ashamedly admit I wasn't even aware of it's existence, let alone that it's quite a big thing in the UK and particularly in Sheffield. I was illustrated about all this by my personal tourist guide. In the world of snooker, it wasn't just any day and Sheffield wasn't just any place: the World Cup semifinals of the sport -or the equivalent of it- were being held in a saloon called the Crucible, which we visited (but didn't go inside the rooms where the games were being played because they charge you and apparently if your stomach happens to make a grumbling noise just when they are about to hit the ball they send you to jail or deport you back to your country).
The Crucible, where the World Championship of snooker was being heldThen we went to the Sheffield Cathedral. I liked it a lot because it keeps a very medieval feel to it, particularly from the inside. Here I had another first time, this one related to weather phenomena, as much to my amazement fine drops of crushed ice started falling from the sky as we were exiting the church. Queen told me it was called hailstone.
Sheffield Cathedral from the outsideMe trying to learn the word while my professor wasn't paying attention to her pupils (or had given up)In front of the Cathedral we saw Cole's Corner, famous for a Richard Howley song. Next was yet another first time thing for me, as we took the tram to Sheffield Wednesday's stadium (I had never traveled by that means of transport). On arriving we saw the monument in memoriam of the 96 Liverpool FC fans who died at the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989. There were flowers and scarves all over because two days before our visit a jury had given the veredict resultant of a two year inquest: contrary to what the Police had stated in first place, the victims of the tragedy had been blameless for causing the disaster.
The monument in memory of the fans who died at the Hillsborough tragedyThen we went to a less grim place, the Sheffield Wednesday FC shop, where I bought a magnet of the Owls that I now have on my fridge. This means that my guide converted me into a Wednesday follower despite the fact that she and her family are all Sheffield United supporters. We walked around the nearby Hillsborough Park, then took the tram to a University (help me with it's name, Queen), then to the beautiful Weston Park where we sat on a bench and then to a very interesting museum which had the particularity of jumping from one subject to another one completely unrelated in the next room.
Weston Park, where we sat until a group of students came to harass usI felt like in "Full Monty" when we were walking through the streets of the relatively humble neighbourhoods of Sheffield. Thankfully for the people around I refrained from imitating the actorsThe polar bear at the museum. Doesn't she look like she's dancing some sort of Hawaian rhythm?That's a powerful beastWe walked through the city center, bought hamburgers at McDonalds and ate them in a winter garden while having a very long and interesting conversation about Jeff Lynne and his ways when playing live -we criticized him a bit-. Then there was still more of Sheffield to see so we went out again to get a look at a few other relevant places. This was the only day during my stay at the UK that I suffered the cold weather. The previous days had been relatively warm so I didn't go with the appropriate clothing and ended up paying the price. Right after lunch I started shaking quite badly, making a spectacle of myself in the middle of the street.
During what in my opinion was the afternoon -or evening at worst- a recurrent subject arose, and the interchange normally went along these lines:
QOTH: "
...but now at night it's closed".
Me: "
Night? How is this night? Look at the sunlight you've got!".
QOTH: "
It's night anyway, it's 17:30".
Me: "
Exactly! That's mid-afternoon! Particularly with this amount of light"
QOTH: "
No, it's nighttime".
This deeply philosophical discussion re-ignited each time there was a mention of the current time of the day or a shop being closed, and despite all of the debate we didn't get to any major conclusion (not one we agreed about at least).
I don't remember what this beautiful building wasAt one point I asked a guy whom was passing by to take us a photo. When I commented to Queen that I was intending to upload it to a thread she started threatening me with abusing of her moderator's powers and kicking me out of the forum if I did so. Yeap, the ever-so-calm, ever-so-polite Queenofthehours repeatedly menacing me with a ban, that was something to witness.
If I disappear from now on you know whom to suspect about.
...and by posting this photo I'm risking my continuity on this forum .
That thing in my pocket is the Beatles' magazine Queen had gifted me We headed to the station and on the way came across a very particular graphic ad (see picture below), one in which a photo was absolutely inevitable. We caught a south bound train together and on the way had a huge laugh with Queen showing off her varied Spanish knowledge. The phrases were hilarious, she jumped from the most basic words to some very complicated ones like "ayuntamiento" which I wondered why she would even know. Then she gifted me a very posh pen and tons of sandwiches and cakes (some of which I ate on the way) and we said goodbye after a great day out. She got down at Chesterfield and I went on the train for a couple more hours.
We were as excited about finding this as if we had found the Holy GrailChesterfield Cathedral's needle got deformed due to a failure on it's construction but instead of fixing it they left it like that, making it a particular feature of the church and the cityThe train went by Leicester, where I saw the stadium of the club which just a few days later would be crowned champions in one of the most remarkable Cinderella stories of world football, and finally arrived back in London.
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- Reflection #11: weather in the UK and Ireland. Again, I cannot have a fair idea about the subject of this topic having only been there during April (which of course has it's particularities like the April showers the locals told me about). However, what I saw wasn't exactly like the preconception I had. When I thought about British weather I imagined the sky being totally covered up all day long, as it happens in Buenos Aires on rainy days. What I found was different: the weather changes a lot and very quickly. One moment the day might look sunny and fifteen minutes later it's raining and a while later the sun comes out again. I'd say instability is the rule.
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- 28/4: London - Buenos Aires.
The last day of my trip found me in that melancholic mood you go through when a vacation which you enjoyed like mad is coming to an end and you know you'll miss lots of things from that place and time.
I wanted to show these delicious marzipan rolls which made a big part of my diet during my stay at the UK. A selfie first thing in the morning is not always a good idea.In the morning I went to buy a suitcase to put part of my luggage, which had increased considerably thanks to all the gifts received plus I few things I had bought. The previous night, while doing the check-in online with British Airways I had already paid the fee for an extra bag. Then I checked out of the Royal National Hotel, left my luggage and went to buy a few souvenirs for my family.
Once I was finished with that I whatsapped (if you allow me the verb)
vlogdance and communicated her my intentions of disturbing her during work time that day. She was patient enough to agree on bearing with me one last time, so I took the tube to Ealing, a neighbourhood quite far East of London's center to meet her at the famous subtitles company.
Ealing's Cathedral ruined by a fingerThen another mini-disaster happened. Even though the company where Vlog works is just a few blocks away from the station, I spent a good 1:20 hours trying to find it and people couldn't help me at all and only added to my confusion (for more of this see reflection #10), it was despairing. I walked up and down the street for miles until I found a wi-fi booth where I could speak to Vlog and she gave me more detailed instructions so I ended up arriving, but way later than I was supposed to.
We finally met at the reception hall of the building. If you are friends with Unomusette, Queenofthehours and Vlogdance you can be sure you won't die of starvation. On that occasion Vlog gifted me a delicious chocolate with orange shape and flavour and a package of cat food for my pet Chula. She also told me that she could get me free fruit from the kitchen. I told her a banana would be OK, but she came back from the kitchen running and giggling as someone who has just committed an act of mischief (which she had). I had a laugh when I saw she was carrying a bag full of different fruits, some of which I ate on my way back (although I couldn't deal with everything before getting to the airport). We chatted a bit about how my trip had been -she's a big fan of Edinburgh- and I got the opportunity of seeing on a TV on the wall the famous subtitles as they were being written just a few meters away. Finally it was time for her to get back to work again so I said goodbye to the first and last forum member I had seen during my trip, walked a bit around Ealing and then went back to London.
Vlog and me in front of the subtitlesI picked my luggage at the hotel and took a taxi to Heathrow. The driver was a guy from Bangladesh who involuntarily made me felt good about my English. The guy had been living in England since 2003 and he could barely speak the language. On arriving to the airport I met a couple of Argentines, the first ones I had seen in weeks.
So I took the plane back to my country, this time with no major incidents. The British Airways plane was so much better than the ones from Iberia, more comfortable and the crew were more polite. On the way I took one last chance of practicing the language by chatting with an English passenger sitting next to me and finally arrived in Buenos Aires, where my mother made me feel like a spoiled kid and picked me up at the airport to take me home. Back to reality again. My trip had come to an end.
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- Conclusion: it was an amazing trip. I had the time of my life. When I come to think about it, it will be very difficult to top this.
There were a few factors that were decisive to making it so good. The first one is that I had time to plan it in advance and instead of buying a package from a travel agency or handing the job to a trip planner I designed the whole itinerary by myself. I went wherever I wanted to go did the things I wanted to do. Planning a trip on your own like like this carries the risk of missing like I did with the Dublin ferry, but all in all the pros were many more than the cons. For example, it allowed me to include in my list a few not-so-typical destinations (not so typical for foreign tourists at least) like Inverness, Windermere or Bourton-on-the-Water which ended up being standouts of my trip.
The language was also a factor. As much as I struggled with certain accents, being in English-speaking countries for the first time represented a big challenge for me after having studied English for many years, so I enjoyed that aspect a lot and I think I fared quite well.
Last but not least was the forum members factor. Six out of the six forumheads I met happened to be amazing people with whom I enjoyed a great time (with some of them longer, with others a bit shorter). All of them were very kind, generous and eager to lend me a hand when I needed it. Thanks to that I felt way more at home than I had expected to (besides the help they gave me on planning my trip).
This also confirms why there are so few ELO fans around: we are a rare, special breed of fantastic people. Maybe it's because you need a great sensitivity to appreciate Jeff Lynne's compositions, but ELO is not for any pedestrian average citizen. It's just for a few select really cool people, as I could confirm during my trip. If you are an ELO fan then there's at least 95% chance that you are a great guy/lady.
So again, it was a fantastic trip and I had so much fun I think it will be very hard to top.