Friday, August 29

Just 10 minutes and three Tube stops away from my destination -- Hampstead crepes! -- the whole network was hit by a blackout. My face was dem black, as I was so near yet so far and so hungry, but everyone else behaved like it was an everyday occurence that the entire underground system of a major city had just gone kaput.

I feel so privileged that I was one of 500,000 commuters affected by the blackout. Apparently, the same thing which happened in New York had happened here, albeit on a smaller scale, and the power grid was wiped out. Coincidence?

There wasn't even a bleat of complaint as we were herded in a sheep-like manner from the station. People just made their way to the bus stops and stoically waited and waited and waited in the drizzle. I finally arrived thirty minutes late, after being stepped on and rained on, to partake of those long-awaited crepes.

But of course, after stuffing our faces with five different types of crepes, it was time once again to confront the horrors of London transport. So many Tube lines were closed that I would have had to change trains four or five times to get home. So I decided to brave the bus route instead. Big mistake.

It took me two hours to complete my journey -- I just got back -- which was more than double my usual time. More than 40 minutes was spent freezing at various bus stops, and I had to stand throughout the journey. My slippered feet were so numb that the only feeling I had was when people trampled on them, which was pretty often, because the buses were packed with people all wearing the same beleaguered expression on their faces.

There were sighs of commiseration all around, yet, there wasn't even a murmur of anger. It was all very British stiff upper lippy. A friend who had to wait 40 minutes for the Piccadilly line said people were talking to each other -- an unheard of phenomenon -- and generally being good-natured about it. As he put it: "I was beginning to see how the English survived the Battle of Britain."

I'm so glad to be going home to good ol' SMRT and SBS soon. Can't wait to buy my very first EZ Link card.

[In case you're wondering why I keep going on and on about being cold and wet, well, just so you know, the temperature is a chilly 14 deg C. The Great British Summer has fizzled out after that brief sizzle, and the not-so-great London drizzle is back. And I had over-optimistically packed all my warm jackets and shipped them off, so the next few days are gonna be cold ones. Despite constantly getting played out by the fickle weather, I never learn my lesson.]

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