Back to Egham

Since I was savvy enough to purchase my ticket from London to Newcastle online, I decided to head to Egham railway station to pick up the ticket (I was supposed to get it from one of the ticket kiosks at the station). When I purchased the ticket online, I was repeatedly reminded that I needed to use the credit card that I used online to pick up the ticket from the automatic kiosk. So, I put my Tilley hat back on, set my stopwatch (to see how long the walk *really was) and headed back to Egham.

Embarassingly, despite my complaining earlier, it took me only 18 minutes 45 seconds to get to the railway station. Of course, my last trip into Egham involved many detours since I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but it was depressing to know that it actually was only a 19-minute walk. I kept regaling people with my stories about how Egham is "at least" 45 minutes away!

I get to the station and at the kiosk there was a clearly marked button that said something like "Pick Up Tickets Purchased Online." So, I clicked on it and it asked me for the credit card which I triumphantly swiped. Then, it asked me for the confirmation number. Now, I *did* have a confirmation number that I received when I bought the ticket, but because of the repeated reminders about the credit card, I had convinced myself that I did not need to carry the number with me. In hindsight, I guess all you smart alecks are wondering why i didn't just carry that confirmation number with me since I had even savedf a copy on my hard drive. Well, you weren't repeatedly reminded by the site to carry the credit card used for the purchase.

The point being that I stood there at this damn kiosk wihtout having the confirmation number with me. I tried about six different combinations (that I later found out were close but never close enough) and then gave up. Damn British Rail needed the confirmation number to pick up the ticket, but all they had rtold me (repeatedly) was to make sure that I had the credit card (which I did). Why they couldn't let me know that I also would need the confirmation number to pick up the ticket I don't know. We've never been really been able to understand the English anyway.

So, I aimlessly wandered around town for a short while refusing to admit that the entire walk into town had been completely wasted. Realizing there was nothing else I needed, I walked back to RHU knowing that I would have to come back to the station.

You should know that I attended another couple of conference sessions in the morning that were quite good. I also made it back into town to attend an afternoon session. During the lunch hour, there was a tour of RHU that I enjoyed a great deal. I should point out that the University was built in 1886 and not 1888 as I had mentioned previously. The red brick building cost Mr. Thomas Holloway just about GBP700,000 and in their first few years, they only had about 28 students. So, life was quite luxurious for these 28 women (it was a college for women only until 1965). The chapel was beautiful as is the south quad with Queen Victoria sternly looking over everyone. They have an incredible "picture gallery" in the Founder's building with some great paintings, but we were told that most of the really valuable paintings in the gallery are currently touring galleries in America and will be back on display here next year. One of the paintings I loved is on the left. It is "Early Sorrow" by someone called H. LeJeaune. While I still have not learned to appreciate the contemporary art of the sort that hangs in our LSBE building, I challenge anyone not to admire and love the talent on display in a painting like this one.





In the evening, we had a BBQ in the north quad with the usual tasteless food. I tried the vegetarian burger hoping it would be better than the rather insipid looking beef burger. It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't pay for one in a restaurant. Dessert was "summer pudding." You can see the remnants of my summer pudding on the right. It didn't taste much different than it looks in the picture.




After enjoying a "Blue Hawaiian" and a few glasses of wine, we were all urged to head to the "Medicine" which is the name of their bar. I have found a new favorite beer. I was introduced to John Smith's - a stout that was absolutely delicious. I think it was the fact that I ended up having 5 (or maybe it was 6) pints of John Smith's that led to me finding myself on the dance floor. Anyone who knows me fully understands that I hate to dance, am very self conscious, and would rather stand on the sideline watching others dance. Still, I spent most of the night on the dance floor (I hope there are no videos) and just got back to my room.

It is 3:40 AM.