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A cup ‘o kindness

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New Year’s Eve for us was a whirlwind of chaos and impressions, but many of those impressions are good ones and we will have memories to treasure for years.

We spent the evening of Dec 30 packing and preparing to leave Madrid.  We really enjoyed Madrid and all the people we met and everything we learned.  At the same time, it was about time to move on.  (Not least because our very basic, “student slums” style apartment had begun to seriously degrade and was accumulating failures.  The prinicipal one of which was that the clothes washer had conked out a couple of weeks before and hadn’t been replaced, so we were running on patchwork remnants of clean and semi-clean clothes.)

Here’s a picture of Susan during our final hours in the Madrid apartment, with our bags packed and ready to roll.

Madrid apartment

Madrid apartment

We had already dropped our cats off with a local vet who’s boarding them until their paperwork can be finalized and they can be sent.  (Therein itself lies a long and frustrating story.)

We slept poorly that night, worrying about things undone, the cats, travel the next day…  All the niggling things that crawl up in the dark reaches of the night and drive sleep away, leaving only fatigue and stress in its place.

New Year’s Eve dawned clear and bright in Madrid.  We were up early, with our bags arranged and ready to roll.  Our flight was at about noon-thirty, so at least we didn’t have to scream off to the airport before the crack of dawn.  We even had time for breakfast.

More importantly, we had time to say farewell to a couple of our neighbors at our apartment building.  Matilde was the woman who cleaned the public spaces in our building.  We saw her out there every morning, cheerfully sweeping up and mopping spaces, chatting with other residents, fiddling with the plants in the courtyard, and so on.  We had also recently discovered that she’s extremely friendly and helpful and willing to speak very slowly, in baby Spanish to us.  Luisa is the little old lady across the courtyard from us, with whom we shared a clothes line.  Negotiating who had “clothesline rights” on any particular day was one of our great Spanish challenges, because Luisa never did process how to speak to us slowly and simply enough for us to fully get what she was saying.  But she was always very cheerful and nice about it, and always seemed concerned about us and how we were getting along.  (She came to check on us when a random cat was loose in the apartment complex at one point, just to be sure that it was not one of our cats.)

So we got to say farewell to Matilde and Luisa, which was delightful.  We broke out our four words of Spanish to tell them that they had been very nice to us and we had enjoyed living there, and they replied that we were all friends and wished us well on our trip to London.  It was a very touching farewell.

Soon, Mike and Eliana, the apartment agents who had helped us find this place originally, dropped by to pick up the keys and see us on our way.  It was good to see them again one last time.  On the way out, they asked whether we had lost weight, which was pleasant to consider.  Eliana suggested that it was the food.  We think more likely it’s all about walking.  A lot.  (Don’t get me wrong — I have really enjoyed learning about the cuisine in Spain, and we have discovered many new, delicious dishes.  But any cuisine in which lunch can consist of deep fried cheese-and-ham croquettes, fried lamb steaks, flan, and beer is not precisely on the crash-diet short list.)

So, off to the airport.  Where we discovered that our bags were over weight.  Of course.  You would think that 23 kg (50 lbs) would be plenty of weight allowance.  That you could fit all your clothes in there, with room to spare.  You’d be wrong.  Even having ditched belongings in Indianapolis and then sent home a variety of boxes from Madrid and packing everything heavy we could into carry-on bags, we were still over by about 2 kg/bag.

Fortunately, the nice woman at the Iberia check in desk pointed out that we could have another carry-on and that we might be able to shuffle a couple of kilos out of each of our main suitcases into a spare carry-on.  We had a light duffel stuffed into the bags, for just such an eventuality.  So we scooted over to the side and transferred a certain amount of heavy items and dense clothes into it until we made all the weight limits.  It was something of a triumph to finally be able to check our main suitcases through, given that we’d had to pay weight surcharges on them from ABQ to IND in the first place.  And we just ended up with extra weight to schlep around Barajas airport and then Gatwick.

On to Gatwick.  The plane flies.  No events. Thankfully.  Landed, made it past the bored passport control agent by flashing our brand-shiny-new visas at him.  Retrieved suitcases which were, thankfully, not lost this time.  Re-compressed duffel back into suitcases, then on to the train.

Gatwick is South of London and is further out than Heathrow.  It is possible to get to our new London place from Gatwick entirely by public transit.  But it’s considerably longer and involves more changes.  That wouldn’t be such a big deal if (a) we weren’t hauling heavy carry-ons plus suitcases that weighed in at 25 kg each and (b) if the London public transit system were more uniform and more accessible and didn’t involve random flights of stairs between any two points.

Still, we made it.  At the last leg, as we hauled our heavy suitcases up the stairs out of the Manor House station, a passing good samaritan gave Susan a hand hauling her bag up and out.  We were exhaustedly grateful.

And into the new flat — a house that we’re renting from a London couple who are, themselves, on sabbatical.  It is beautiful and far larger and more comfortable than our place in Madrid.  (Pictures presently, we hope.)

After a day of travel and who knows how long of stress, it was heaven.

We fell inside, dropped all our stuff, and collapsed with fatigue and joy for having made it.

Our great achievement for the afternoon was getting laundry done and casting “Summon delivery Indian food”.  (The joys of the Internet and of speaking the same language!)

The big debate, after some recovery, was whether we had any energy to do anything else with the evening.  Whether we could muster effort to try to ring in the New Year, or whether we should just crash at home.

In the end, we decided that this was probably the only time we’d be in London on New Year’s Eve in our lives, so we should do our best to make the most of it.

A little Internet research revealed that the city was throwing a big midnight fireworks display over the Thames.  And one of the prime viewing spots was right near the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and Terran’s aspiration was to hear Big Ben chime the New Year.  The paper warned that viewing spots filled up early, so we rushed out at a quarter of 10.

We made it to the tube station just in time to hear the PA system announce that all of the viewing areas for fireworks were full.  We were crushed.  It seemed cruel, somehow, even though our other plan had only been to sleep early.

But then fate and kindness struck again.  We needed to put more money on our transit cards anyway, so we dashed inside the station to do so.  In there, we ran into the fellow who was manning the information desk.  As it turns out, he’s the same guy who was running the desk the night that Terran first came through to visit the landlords.  (In between Vancouver and Italy.  Long trip, that.  whew)  And he recognized me, and seemed really excited to talk.

We had a great conversation with him.  When we told him about trying to see the fireworks and the announcement of viewing areas being full, he said, “Oh, don’t pay attention to that.  Those are just the official, roped off viewing areas.  You can get a great view outside them, though.”  He gave us detailed directions on how to get to a great viewing location and cheerfully sent us on our way.

Five minutes to midnight

Five minutes to midnight

And it worked out just as he said.  We took the Piccadilly line to Finsbury Park, changed to Victoria line, on to Victoria station, and then out to street level.  Walked down Victoria street — literally down the middle of it, as the police had all the traffic cordoned off and pedestrians were just streaming down it.  How often do you get to do that!?

After a little re-routing around the official viewing areas, we ended up at the edge of a crowd just between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, beneath the clock tower of Big Ben.  Made it there about 30 min before midnight, so we rested and enjoyed the beautiful, clear night and just watching people.

Susan below Big Ben -- three minutes 'til midnight!

Susan below Big Ben -- three minutes 'til midnight!

In the end, we both got what we were looking for.  The fireworkswere fabulous and, even if we didn’t get the best seat in town, we did have an incredible view.  And we got to hear Big Ben chime in 2009!

We sang Auld Lang Syne with the crowd (only some of whom were so drunk as to butcher it utterly.) And the feeling of good cheer and camaraderie lasted all the way back through the tube to our lovely flat, where we crashed immediately.

But the night wasn’t quite over yet.  We hauled ourselves to semi-consciousness a7:40 AM local time, which just happened to be 11:40 PM in US West Coast time.  We Skyped over to our friends Tim and Emily, who were throwing their own New Year’s bash, reaching them in time to ring in 2009 all over again!  The power of the Internet — faster than the New Year itself.  :-)

All in all, we could not have asked for a better New Year’s eve.  While tiring and stressful in places, it marked a big set of changes for us — leaving one stage of sabbatical and on to another; on to a new country and new city and new things to learn.  And most of all, it was surrounded by good cheer and much kindness.  We were touched to have had the chance to meet so

Fireworks over the Thames, heralding in 2009

Fireworks over the Thames, heralding in 2009

many wonderful and helpful people.  In many ways, our New Year’s eve was a microcosm of all of 2008 for us.

We look forward eagerly to 2009, with as many new and wonderful people and as many new things to discover.

Our best wishes to all for a wonderful new year, filled with joy, success, and kindness.


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