OFF: UK travel tips?

[stephen lindas]

HI, Same Here. I'm having hell of a time finding a decent priced flight.
Maybe we can all rent a plane. HA!HA!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arin Komins" <akomins at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: OFF: UK travel tips?


> On Wed, 1 May 2002, John Majka wrote:
>
> :Subject: OFF:  UK travel tips?
> :
> :So I've now got my plane ticket to London for this upcoming Hawk event,
but
> :I'm wondering what an American ought to do about the travel situation.
Is
> :public transportation widely and easily available in England?  Should I
rent
> :a car?  The idea of zipping down the "wrong" side of the road makes me
fear
> :accidentally driving by instinct (i.e. the USA way) and getting into some
> :sort of fearsome accident.... has anyone else been in this travel
situation
> :and how did you solve it?
> :John Majka
> :jmajka2 at comcast.net
>
> Out of curiosity, what airline are you flying?  I'm still trying
> to find a reasonable rate to get over there.
>
> (hey boc-l'ers.  chime in with what airlines you are flying, and what
> price you managed to get.)
>
> As for transportation, well, I think it depends on how close your flights
> are to the fest itself.
>
> When I went over to the UK and did the "drooling fangirl follow the band
> around" thing, I rented a car, mostly because I didn't trust pubtrans
> to get me where I needed to go in the short period of time I had to
> travel.
>
> Although Rich managed to get around ok by train when he did his week.
>
> That said, a couple of caveats about renting a car over there:
>
> 1) If you don't drive a manual, you may find that most rental agencies
> don't have automatics available, and if they do, then they are more
> expensive....
>
> 2) Make sure you familiarize yourself with road regulations before renting
> the car.  The agency I rented from didn't give me any of that, and I was
> very confused at first.
>
> 3) The slow lane is the left lane, not the right. This is probably
> self-evident to everyone but me, but hey....
>
> 4) Street signs are frequently somewhat lower to the ground, then they
> are in the states.
>
> 5) watch out for really narrow roads.
>
> 6) Take extra time.  Whenever I got stressed out (as Mike, Jill, and
> Rich can attest ;-) ), I fell back into drifting to the wrong side of the
> road.
>
> 7) When planning routes, Motorways and A roads are decent in size, but
> the others can be iffy.
>
> ....that said, of course, I'm sure there are going to be a bunch of
> us flying into London and needing to get out to the fest site.
>
> We should rent a coach or something, if we can all coordinate times.
>
> Arin
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Arin Komins                                   akomins at uchicago.edu
> Manager of Web Systems Architecture
> University of Chicago/NSIT                      tel: (773)834-4087
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