Olympos Climbing: Day -1
Oct. 13th, 2017 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylUsual busy Friday morning in the office, with the added complication of a need to have a debriefing meeting with my colleagues and to say farewell to the American I've been working with for the last couple of weeks. Normally neither of these tasks would've been a big deal but my schedule required me to get home in time to do my laundry and pack ready to catch a train at three.
I got away at around 12:30 and with some clever overlapping, managed to get everything washed and dried by two. I threw my clothes and my helmet into my main rucksack, and packed my harness, shoes, and camera in my carry-on bag, and dashed out of the door. On the way to the station I dropped in to the bank to get them to enable my cards for Turkey — I don't want to set off their anti-fraud measures — picked up far too much foreign currency, and arrived 10 minutes before my train was due to depart.
The carriage was absolutely rammed, with people sitting all over the place. I turfed someone out of my reserved seat & settled in. Once the train was going, the manager apologised for the failure of the above-seat booking indicators and assured everyone that the problem should now be fixed. It wasn't, but it was good enough to keep people from losing it completely — although a couple of guys sat behind me spent the entire journey to Birmingham fuming about it.
Arriving at New Street slightly late, I discovered I'd missed my connection with the reserved seat; instead, I was faced with the prospect of catching the stopping service to Euston. As this provides a stopping service for commuters, it was absolutely heaving on a Friday night with barely more than standing room only. After an extended and rather purgatorial journey, I found myself in Coventry and walked to my parents' house.
After phoning my folks in Greece, I went out in search of food — there was literally nothing in — and went to bed.
I got away at around 12:30 and with some clever overlapping, managed to get everything washed and dried by two. I threw my clothes and my helmet into my main rucksack, and packed my harness, shoes, and camera in my carry-on bag, and dashed out of the door. On the way to the station I dropped in to the bank to get them to enable my cards for Turkey — I don't want to set off their anti-fraud measures — picked up far too much foreign currency, and arrived 10 minutes before my train was due to depart.
The carriage was absolutely rammed, with people sitting all over the place. I turfed someone out of my reserved seat & settled in. Once the train was going, the manager apologised for the failure of the above-seat booking indicators and assured everyone that the problem should now be fixed. It wasn't, but it was good enough to keep people from losing it completely — although a couple of guys sat behind me spent the entire journey to Birmingham fuming about it.
Arriving at New Street slightly late, I discovered I'd missed my connection with the reserved seat; instead, I was faced with the prospect of catching the stopping service to Euston. As this provides a stopping service for commuters, it was absolutely heaving on a Friday night with barely more than standing room only. After an extended and rather purgatorial journey, I found myself in Coventry and walked to my parents' house.
After phoning my folks in Greece, I went out in search of food — there was literally nothing in — and went to bed.
