Dear Mom,
I am finally un-jetlagged after returning from my holiday in Champaign-Chicago. While I had a lovely holiday (Chicago is a very beautiful city to walk around in), I found traveling even more of a drag than normal. Planes were delayed because of fog and thunderstorms; and they ran out of vegetarian meal options before reaching our seats (and yes we had requested these in advance).
On returning home, we found that the train fares back here in London have increased. What with the fact that there are seldom enough seats for everybody and the almost daily delays caused by congestion at Waterloo, I find myself asking what we are actually paying for. And the answer is: “to travel through space and time—and sometimes quite a lot of the latter”.
Yours etc.
Bronwen
We are all glad you made it through the cosmos back to Nature Publishing Group offices, Bronwen! Welcome home.
I agree with you re: the cost of train fares in London… and UK as a whole too. What a shame it always seems more economical (financially) to travel abroad than within the UK and to fly rather than take a train!
Li Kim: It is rather strange and oddly complicated.
I have come to really enjoy travelling to interesting places on holiday, but it is definitely not how I was brought up. I did not leave South Africa (ever!) until I was 26 and hardly explored SA up until then, so this travelling phase is actually something that I started after (environmentally) I should have known better.
I guess the argument that I am putting forward is simply that, at least for myself, a change of mindset back to that of the holidays of my youth might mean that I could enjoy a break without having to leave “my hometown”. There are an awfully large number of fun things that I don’t usually get around to in the normal work week, so perhaps I could pack my next holiday full of these instead of thinking about flying away to take photos of Greek ruins. :)
Anyway. Regarding the commuting, I think that I might take a half-day sometime and try doing the journey to-and-from work on buses. This will probably help me to appreciate South West Train services more? I realise that the equation for the train timetables (and the number of coaches most efficient for each service) must be really complicated, but I do wish that more of the trains coming through Woking had the maximum number of coaches.