travel

Live from Cornwall: Blog carnivals and the Amazon winner.

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Pam F. is the winner of the $20 Amazon.com gift card. She’ll use it to birthday gifts for her little sister. (Cue the girl noise: Awwww!) Thanks to all who entered.

I entered two blog carnivals this week and was happy to get into both:

On the train ride to Cornwall today I met a delightful woman who has traveled extensively and once shot photos of a tiger while riding on an elephant. She suggested accompanying me to Paris on a day trip (boy, does that sound weird) this weekend or, if the Chunnel train tickets are too costly, to tour me around Windsor (the region, not the castle).

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The Underground tried to eat me! And other shocking travel tales.

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When the Megabus from Cardiff dropped me off last week, I headed toward Victoria Station and found myself trudging along in lockstep with thousands of Underground commuters. I followed the crowd into the subway car, carrying my suitcase in front of me. Then people stopped moving. I could see there was room elsewhere in the car, but apparently these folks liked being close to the doors.

“Excuse me, could I get by?” I said.

No one moved.

“I’m not quite in, please let me get by,” I said, louder.

This was met with a peculiarly British inertia. People looked at advertising placards, or their shoes. A few looked at their cell phones, as though scanning texts. Nobody looked at the tired American tourist who was carrying way too much baggage. (Physical, not emotional.)

Then the doors shut on me.

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My chance encounter with a Scotsman.

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I’m writing this from the Westminster Reference Library in London, because I needed a quiet place to work. I have another MSN Money deadline and the hostel’s “common room” is too noisy even when I’m wearing earplugs.

Because I didn’t trust the very vague directions given by the hostel staff, I asked a man on the street for help. After a couple of false starts he realized he could go there but he couldn’t tell me how to go there – so he walked me over.

We chatted while we walked. He turned out to be an actor from Perth, Scotland, in town to audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming production of both Henry plays.

 

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My day job, blog carnivals and funny potato-chip flavors.

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Now up at MSN Money is my latest column, “Useless Groupon? Cash it in.” It’s all about the secondary market for social commerce vouchers from places like Tippr, Buy With Me, Living Social and, of course, Groupon.

The advantage is twofold: You can unload deals you no longer want and, more to the point, you can look for deals you missed on the first go-round or that you didn’t know existed.

As one secondary-market host says, it’s “a catalog experience vs. an impulse buy.”

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The world’s second-worst wakeup call.

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If just before bed you get one of those odd, fleeting thoughts along the lines of “The fire alarm is going to ring,” pay attention.

Yep: At around 6:30 a.m. I was awakened by a shrieking siren. I’m glad I’ve learned to listen to those weird little flashes I get from time to time. When the shrieking started, I was ready to roll.

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Potty animals.

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“FEMALE TOILET SHOWERS” is painted on the door of the bathroom near my room at the hostel. If you had the same reaction to “toilet shower” that I did, please write and let me know that I am not alone.

Two toilets are available, each in its own little room. The showers are off to the left. Important safety note if you plan to stay at a hostel: When a sign notes that there may be hot water shortages between 8 and 10 a.m., believe that sign.

This morning when I walked in, the first thing I saw was someone standing in front of a toilet. Facing the wrong way. And offloading.

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One of my hostel roommates got arrested for importing machetes.

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Made you look, didn’t I?

Seriously: One of the six people in my “pod bed shared room” brought some machetes back from the Congo. The situation is too convoluted to explain because I’m on free wifi at McDonalds and I’m getting glared at for sitting here so long.

Short form: He spent several hours in a jail cell when his souvenirs were discovered.

“They took my pocketknife, too,” he said, sounding dispirited. “They told me any blade that locks is illegal, and any blade longer than three inches is illegal.”

“Most machete blades are longer than three inches,” I agreed.

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Floss-less in Houston.

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The good news: Despite the fact that there were at least a dozen kids and babies on the first flight, there was no wailing or weeping. Not even from the grownups.

The bad news: They made me gate-check my bag after all, saying it was a little too tall to fit into the overhead compartment. That’ll teach me to over-pack an “expandable” suiter.

I’m in Houston for a four-hour layover, preparatory to a nine-hour flight. I had a swell plate of barbecue (beef and pork — why limit myself?) on the theory that a big meal should come in the middle of the day rather than right before I get on the plane.

They will feed us for free on the Houston-to-Heathrow flight, but it won’t be a huge meal. I pre-ordered the kosher meal on the theory that it won’t be overly heavy or greasy. Or what mystery author Sue Grafton memorably described as a “fist of chicken, covered with rubber cement.”

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