Divine Intervention

I think we experienced some divine intervention today. Between last night and today we saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, London eye, changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London and Tower Bridge. And then we made our way to King's Cross station to take a train out to Vanja and Cameron Sutter's house near Cambridge. It was rush hour and the train was packed with people. We were feeling claustrophobic and a little stressed because we were running late. We tried to buy our tickets at the ticket machine, but the price seemed strangely high. We were too tired and stressed to try to figure it out, so we were going to just book it anyhow. The 1-way train price was going to be the equivalent of a night's hotel reservation almost for a 35 minute ride! That makes it hard to hit our daily budget. The debit card wouldn't go through. Tried another machine and it wouldn't go through there either. So, I stood in line to talk to a real person while Phill tried one more ticket machine. Debit card failed. We finally got to the counter and the ticket guy gave us a price that nearly half of what we were about to pay at the machine. It was such a relief! The smaller price helps us out tremendously on overall London costs.

As a rule of thumb, we've decided that we really need to learn to slow down and think things through. There are so many times that we've plowed forward out of exasperation and frustration and learned later of a better, more efficient option. If something doesn't quite seem right, it probably isn't.

Anyhow, we've arrived at the Sutters and plan to see Cambridge tomorrow. The weather is great, so it ought to be a fantastic afternoon.