Destination: Blackpool

Travel Day: December 20, 2012

I wake up feeling like my brain has been dismembered, and then crudely sewn back together with some parts missing and others in the wrong places. Dreams were harsh and murky. As I shower I consider which is worse, a tequila hangover, or “I lost a day” jet lag. Something is missing, and I have no idea what it is. Oh wait, it’s gray and raining. Nothing is missing, it’s just like home!

In the hotel restaurant my brother and I have a full English breakfast of fried eggs, thick Lancashire bacon, wonderfully seasoned sausage, institutional hash brown wedges, baked beans, and an Americano coffee. We both relish the meal. It reminds us of the Christmas breakfasts our dad always made for our extended family. I feel full, simultaneously sad and happy, but only slightly more alert.

 

A cab picks us up from the hotel to take us round to the car hire at the airport. We reserved a small Peugot 208 with Avis. It’s slightly larger than a roller skate, and getting in on the driver’s side requires some contortionist moves I thought I’d forgotten. Cars here are not built for people my size. They are built for great gas mileage, and with petrol advertised for 1 pound 30 pence a litre (approx. $2.10 Canadian) one would hope so.

 

Our first stop is a couple of blocks up the road from the airport, at a Currys Electronic store. We need to get a mobile phone SIM card for a phone loaned to us by a cousin. However, me being me, I suddenly realize they have “unlocked” phones. We have a heck of a time getting them at home. “Unlocked” means they are not tied to a single carrier, and the number and service can be changed with the simple act of changing the SIM card. This provides huge flexibility in being able to carry the phone most anywhere in the world. You buy a local SIM for around $20 (includes a modest amount of service time and data) and then you get smartphone service without the criminal like international roaming rates of most carriers.

We are served by Brian and Luis, a couple of really great guys at the “phones 4U” concession booth, who help us to understand the mobile phone landscape. There is a very wide selection of phones, carriers, and plans. Nothing at all like the closed monopolistic competition we suffer with in Canada. I buy a Samsung Galaxy Ace smartphone for 70 pounds (about $112), and 30 pounds of calling time and data (250 minutes and 250mb). It’s a smart move as I now have a phone I can travel with anywhere. I also remember the $600 replacement cost of a new i-Phone 4 when I lost my last one. For a carrier we select a UK wide “pay as you go” on the O2 network.

From Currys we journey across town to my Aunts house. It’s just over four miles, but when you’re driving a manual transmission for the first time in 20 years, on the left side of the road for the first time ever, four miles seems like four hundred. The road lanes are narrow, and at times the painted lines are ambiguous. Around bus stops are squiggly white lines, sometimes people cross the centre lines to get around illegally parked cars, and making a right turn across oncoming traffic is a new one on me. Speaking of parking, I have minor heart attacks as cars can park most any direction they choose, making you question whether or not you've been an idiot and turned into a one way street, because cars on both sides are pointed towards you. And most people park on the sidewalk.

Then there is the protocol of roundabouts. I understand the basics of yielding to traffic on the right in the roundabout, but who has priority when it comes to actually getting into the roundabout? After a few attempts I get it right, thankfully, as roundabouts are more common here than traffic lights. Some roundabouts are so busy they have traffic lights to aid right of way.

My brother, bless his soul, makes no comments on my driving style or ability. His job is to watch the SatNav and warn me of upcoming turns, or which exit we take while in a roundabout. We only get lost three times, and that’s because we find ourselves in the wrong lane at intersections or miscount which exit of a roundabout. I’ll only briefly mention how easy it is to nearly sideswipe parked cars since all the usual unconscious driving cues are now on the other side.

We have a tearful reunion with our Aunt. We haven’t seen her in several years, since her last trip home to Vancouver. She was a major figure in our lives as we grew up. Her decision seven years ago to return home to England was hard for all of us. She now lives in a lovely bungalow on a street at the edge of a farm field. From her sunroom at the back of the house she looks over a low green hill with grazing sheep. Very peaceful and quietly pastoral.

Around four it begins to darken up and in our fatigued state head back to the hotel. We retrace our route, getting lost yet again as we take the wrong lanes at intersections and roundabouts, and have problems seeing street signs. Turns out they are either in small letters high up on the sides of buildings, or low down on retaining walls hiding behind cars. And it’s still dark and raining.

Safely back in the Brewers Fayre bar at the hotel we have a couple of beers and some really wonderful fish and chips.

 

According to the Mayan calendar tomorrow is supposed to be the end of the world, maybe. If it happens, so be it, because yet another tick mark has been placed on my bucket list. The tick mark sits next to “Surviving a day driving on the wrong side of the road, while on the other side of the world”!