Travels with Goatdog

I'm going on a week-long trip—my first—to the UK on Thursday. I arrive in London on Friday morning, and then I take a train to Cambridge, where Rebecca has a conference. We're staying there until Saturday, when we get on a train to London. We hope to meet up with my friends Lemont and Jackie in London on Saturday or Sunday. Monday, Rebecca comes back to the US, and I get on a train to York, where Lemont lives. Tuesday, Lemont and I get on a train to Edinburgh for an evening of pub-crawling with three other grad school friends, who happen to be there doing research. Wednesday, after I crawl out of bed with my hangover, I get on a train back to London, and then Thursday evening I fly back to Chicago.

Wow. That's a lot of trains. I'm bringing half of my library to keep me occupied, and I assume that there will be nice scenery to look at as well. I wish I could stay longer in any given spot, but seeing old friends is more important right now than sightseeing.

I just received my $300 Britrail pass, which, sadly, is the cheapest way to pay for all of my trains. It's a combination of the high price of travel in Britain and the sad state of the US dollar. I'm used to traveling to other countries and receiving a bounty of oddly shaped and colored money in exchange for a pittance in US funds. Going to England, though, makes me feel like I live in a third-world country (for a lot of reasons, actually).