We finally got out of London, but not uneventfully. We intended to catch an early morning train to York, but at the Great Portland Street station only two stops before our destination of King's Cross rail station, the subway got shut down again. I was learning to hate the Tube.

Apparently someone got smeared on the tracks at King's Cross.

After sitting 20 minutes on the stopped, un-air-conditioned subway, they announced it would be at least 30 minutes more and we should arrange alternate transport. No east-bound trains were arriving at King's Cross.

Bogged down with a lot of luggage, I hatched a scheme that, at the time, seemed like a good idea. We'd catch the first west-bound train back one stop to Baker Street, transfer to the Bakerloo Line, head to Piccadilly Circus, then transfer to another line and approach King's Cross from a west-bound direction, thus avoiding the east-bound shut down.

The problem was, when I leaped on the subway to execute my brilliant plan, the doors clamped on my luggage and didn't bounce back like I expected. Chu-Wan got caught flat-footed and got left behind.

Realizing the enormity of this dilemma, I shouted through the window that she should follow me one station, which was Baker Street. Since the Eastbound trains weren't running, I couldn't go back, so she had to catch the next west-bound train and meet me there.

I sat, waiting on the platform as the next train came and went. There followed the next and the next. The trains kept coming and going, Chu-Wan wasn't on them. There was nothing I could do except wait.

It turns out that the next train at Great Portland Street that went to Baker Street was a different line. She got on the train, but it arrived at Baker Street on a completely different platform than the one I was at. Without any way to communicate, we got totally split up in London. There was little I could do but wait and worry until finally Chu-Wan found her way to my platform. She was in tears and so we had to stay while she recovered. Meanwhile, they apparently scrapped the guy off the tracks and started east-bound service, but we had been delayed over an hour.

We traveled on the Flying Scotsman, at least that's what it said on the side of the train, to York, which is just over 2 hours ride from London along the east coast. We went to the tourist office to book a Bed & Breakfast. Just as we arrived, their network crashed.

Unfortunately, although I could have fixed their problem with little difficulty, they decided to call their help desk somewhere else in town and be put on hold by their tech support staff. "Bloody computer guys", I overheard one of the old women say.

Unable to book a room, we set out on foot to find one. We ended up in a beautiful but slightly expensive Bed & Breakfast with a great view of Yorkminster cathedral.

York is a town still surrounded by the ancient city wall. The city's embattlements are authentic castle walls,

complete with towers and archery positions. Inside there's a castle, complete with a (now dry) moat. It all dates back to the 12th century and is remarkably well preserved. The center of town is blocked from most traffic and is more like a shopping mall.

For over 800 years, performers have done their shows in the square near Yorkminster. A Yorkshire comedian/escape artist was doing his gig. Unfortunately, he chose me to pick on when it came time to pick people out of the audience. Oddly enough, being from the US does not really get all that many cheers from the audience. After all we did for them during WWI and WWII! What a bunch of ingrates!

The act was pretty good, so after being publicly humiliated in a foreign country in front of a hundred strangers, I paid the man 2 quid for the privilege.

There were signs everywhere for a visit on 7/27 by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Therefore, Yorkminster was closed to the public until after their visit. It's supposed to have one of the most impressive displays of stained glass in the world, but we never got to see it.

I ate Fish and Chips more than once that day. It's pretty darn good, which makes up for the rest of British food

which is unbelievably bland! Well, at least there's lots of ethnic food to compensate and we had pretty good

Chicken Kebab for dinner.

After a long, taxing day, we decided to stay in the room, relax and watch TV. Oh, would that Ground Force could have been on! Apparently, Tuesday is gay & lesbian night on British TV. The sitcoms were about them, the documentaries were about them, the big news of the day was about legislation concerning them and for laughs they threw in a special on a pedophiliac priest who had been caught abusing the alter boys for the last 20 years.

We finally resorted to watching the UK version of Big Brother. (Of course, the show has a lesbian in it, otherwise, they probably couldn't show it on Tuesday nights.) The show is awful.