Europe 2008. Part II, Scunthorpe Adventure
23 June 2008. I left my pajamas in London. And my deodorant in Bountiful. And we won't even mention the sports unmentionable that I wore through airport security and forgot to repack the regular unmentionable, because they are, after all, unmentionable. I brought my toothbrush, and my notebook, so it's okay. Missed breakfast the first day, mostly because I didn't know where it was or how to work it. And I thought I was late, because I left the syllabus in my truck. Got my toothbrush, and my notebook and my pen, so all was good. Accidentally had two colors of pen, so that was fantastic. (Oh, speaking of accidents, I found the leatherman I thought had been stolen. Actually, the TSA found it for me when they x-rayed my backpack. I was thrilled. Mailed it back to myself. They didn't care about the cake cutting/serving silverware that was also in the backpack. My backpack may be too big.)
I sat for three days and packed in how to be a Dog Listener. Jan's son, Tony (a tasty dish, I must say), lead the class the first two days. He is not only knowledgeable, he is funny. He does great accents. Jan came the third day and finished it up, giving us our certificates herself. There were people there from all over: New Zealand, Estonia, Denmark, the English mid-lands, Surrey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and of course, Utah. I went in knowing two of my classmates, Louise Pay from San Francisco (originally from England, very posh accent.) and Diane Collins from Philadelphia. All female, not a guy among us. (There was one who, how did she put it? "Greets the world with masculine energy." She took over my role of being inadvertently disruptive. Her battle cry when something went drastically, loudly wrong with something she was doing as part of the class was "Disregard the American!") Every two of us had a pitcher of ice water, and two large bottles of Britvic: Orange Cordial and Lime Cordial. The idea is, you put a little cordial in your glass, fill it with water and you have a lovely drink. I took full advantage of it. (I also discovered it is not a good idea to drink too much water at a meeting/class such as that; it is taken as an indication of an excess of drinking of another sort the night before. Sadly, I was with that group, sipping my lemonade. The lemonade wasn't reported. Paul was right. Avoid the very appearance, because nobody asks what was in your glass. It was the social time for the class, and I learned things about my classmates and had a great good time. We closed down the bar the first two nights. The third night most people had left for points unknown.)
Lunch was catered in the Hotel restaurant, a very small room, not quite the size of my classroom, but wonderful food. They passed around a lunch menu and you got to choose what you ate from the lunch menu. Good sandwiches, good everything. I did have a ciabatta pizza that was over cooked one day, but mostly the fare was excellent. Discovered that breakfast was up three stairs in a yet smaller room, a buffet that you then brought to the main dining room. Selections of cereal, grilled tomatoes, eggs, sausage, ham, fruit and several kinds of juice. Most of us ate there for dinner, too. We turned into a jolly little group. I tried three times to get a filo tart, something that sounded yummy and involved filo dough, avocado and feta cheese, but no luck
The class itself was excellent. It really did fill in pieces needed to work with other people's dogs. I am so glad I went. The scary thing is, I can see this business taking off and demanding more time than I really have. I will need an office contact, but I have my sister that I can put on payroll. I don't have a name for my little business. Stuck. Dry. Uninspired. The only thing I have come up with yet is Amicuscanis, the exact Latin translation of Amichien, or Amicuslupi, which takes it back to the wolf. Or maybe since it's my business I could use the feminine--Amicacanis. Then again, that might be too foreign. I don't know. Anybody?
I had grand plans for getting a bike and tooling around, but there was NOTHING within walking distance, and I was too cheap to take a cab anywhere. Besides, I was having a lot of fun laughing with my classmates, and listening to them talk. So much fun. Nottingham turned out NOT to be a leisurely jaunt, but rather, a serious day's adventure at a flat-out sprint. England closes at 8 anyhow, so no big deal. I READ! a real BOOK! in my room. It was kind of nice being all by myself for a change. My room is directly behind the Wortley House Hotel sign. You can see one of my closed windows, and I had another window on the other side. Very nice little room. They have this really cool shelf with two cups, a kettle heated by induction (I really want one of those), a selection of coffee, teas, and hot chocolate, and two biscuits of some kind or another, all refreshed daily. First and last day, the cocoa and biscuits were breakfast.
I got adventurous one day and went out walking. Found a little bitty store with Dr. Pepper (more cherry-flavored than anything else over here) and a map of the Lincoln area. Meant to come to the fish n' chips shop next door once, but never made it, which was good, because I thought I went a different way than I really did and would have gotten way far lost.
The day after the class I had to retrace my steps back to the train station
which turned out trickier than expected, because I arrived in full darkness and it was now bright morning light. Had a nice little Scunthorpe walking tour and eventually got to where I needed to be, which then turned out to be on platform 2 across the tracks from the station.
Success confirmed when I conveniently found Louise sitting waiting for the same train. We bought breakfast at Doncaster from the little shop that had been closed at 10:30 on Sunday night, and I accidentally got water with carbonation. You really have to watch that in Europe. So much of the water is "sparkling," and it not only tastes funny, it doesn't quench the thirst. In German they call the carbonation "kohlensaeure" which looks like "sour cabbage" on first glance and pretty much explains what it does to the taste. I had a tuna fish sandwich and a bottle of orange juice for breakfast. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
We retraced our steps from Scunthorpe to Doncaster, Doncaster to King's Cross
which was working that day. Said goodbye to Louise, bought my tube ticket and hopped on the Victoria line
ride to Victoria, transfer to District line at Victoria and ride one stop to St. James. Walk around the corner, and home to the Jolly St. Ermins!
I sat for three days and packed in how to be a Dog Listener. Jan's son, Tony (a tasty dish, I must say), lead the class the first two days. He is not only knowledgeable, he is funny. He does great accents. Jan came the third day and finished it up, giving us our certificates herself. There were people there from all over: New Zealand, Estonia, Denmark, the English mid-lands, Surrey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and of course, Utah. I went in knowing two of my classmates, Louise Pay from San Francisco (originally from England, very posh accent.) and Diane Collins from Philadelphia. All female, not a guy among us. (There was one who, how did she put it? "Greets the world with masculine energy." She took over my role of being inadvertently disruptive. Her battle cry when something went drastically, loudly wrong with something she was doing as part of the class was "Disregard the American!") Every two of us had a pitcher of ice water, and two large bottles of Britvic: Orange Cordial and Lime Cordial. The idea is, you put a little cordial in your glass, fill it with water and you have a lovely drink. I took full advantage of it. (I also discovered it is not a good idea to drink too much water at a meeting/class such as that; it is taken as an indication of an excess of drinking of another sort the night before. Sadly, I was with that group, sipping my lemonade. The lemonade wasn't reported. Paul was right. Avoid the very appearance, because nobody asks what was in your glass. It was the social time for the class, and I learned things about my classmates and had a great good time. We closed down the bar the first two nights. The third night most people had left for points unknown.)
Lunch was catered in the Hotel restaurant, a very small room, not quite the size of my classroom, but wonderful food. They passed around a lunch menu and you got to choose what you ate from the lunch menu. Good sandwiches, good everything. I did have a ciabatta pizza that was over cooked one day, but mostly the fare was excellent. Discovered that breakfast was up three stairs in a yet smaller room, a buffet that you then brought to the main dining room. Selections of cereal, grilled tomatoes, eggs, sausage, ham, fruit and several kinds of juice. Most of us ate there for dinner, too. We turned into a jolly little group. I tried three times to get a filo tart, something that sounded yummy and involved filo dough, avocado and feta cheese, but no luck
The class itself was excellent. It really did fill in pieces needed to work with other people's dogs. I am so glad I went. The scary thing is, I can see this business taking off and demanding more time than I really have. I will need an office contact, but I have my sister that I can put on payroll. I don't have a name for my little business. Stuck. Dry. Uninspired. The only thing I have come up with yet is Amicuscanis, the exact Latin translation of Amichien, or Amicuslupi, which takes it back to the wolf. Or maybe since it's my business I could use the feminine--Amicacanis. Then again, that might be too foreign. I don't know. Anybody?
I had grand plans for getting a bike and tooling around, but there was NOTHING within walking distance, and I was too cheap to take a cab anywhere. Besides, I was having a lot of fun laughing with my classmates, and listening to them talk. So much fun. Nottingham turned out NOT to be a leisurely jaunt, but rather, a serious day's adventure at a flat-out sprint. England closes at 8 anyhow, so no big deal. I READ! a real BOOK! in my room. It was kind of nice being all by myself for a change. My room is directly behind the Wortley House Hotel sign. You can see one of my closed windows, and I had another window on the other side. Very nice little room. They have this really cool shelf with two cups, a kettle heated by induction (I really want one of those), a selection of coffee, teas, and hot chocolate, and two biscuits of some kind or another, all refreshed daily. First and last day, the cocoa and biscuits were breakfast.
I got adventurous one day and went out walking. Found a little bitty store with Dr. Pepper (more cherry-flavored than anything else over here) and a map of the Lincoln area. Meant to come to the fish n' chips shop next door once, but never made it, which was good, because I thought I went a different way than I really did and would have gotten way far lost.
The day after the class I had to retrace my steps back to the train station
which turned out trickier than expected, because I arrived in full darkness and it was now bright morning light. Had a nice little Scunthorpe walking tour and eventually got to where I needed to be, which then turned out to be on platform 2 across the tracks from the station.
Success confirmed when I conveniently found Louise sitting waiting for the same train. We bought breakfast at Doncaster from the little shop that had been closed at 10:30 on Sunday night, and I accidentally got water with carbonation. You really have to watch that in Europe. So much of the water is "sparkling," and it not only tastes funny, it doesn't quench the thirst. In German they call the carbonation "kohlensaeure" which looks like "sour cabbage" on first glance and pretty much explains what it does to the taste. I had a tuna fish sandwich and a bottle of orange juice for breakfast. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
We retraced our steps from Scunthorpe to Doncaster, Doncaster to King's Cross
which was working that day. Said goodbye to Louise, bought my tube ticket and hopped on the Victoria line
ride to Victoria, transfer to District line at Victoria and ride one stop to St. James. Walk around the corner, and home to the Jolly St. Ermins!