London/Berlin Jan 31 2009: Leaving Central London, England

2FEB09 Central London, England

I awoke at 5:00a and was really tired. At 5:4a, I departed and headed for the tube station. It was still snowing outside with the same intensity as it did last night.

I got to the tube at 6:00a after trudging through the unplowed snow.



There was a worker writing down the current status of the trains. Almost all of them were either suspended or delayed.. The Distric Line westbound was running, so I swiped my Oyster card and headed downstairs.

After waiting for 10 minutes I realized nothing was moving, so I headed back upstairs and asked the agent how to catch the #15 bus to Paddington station. He gave me directions on how to get there, I did and waited. No bus showed up for 15 minutes, so I decided to take the next cab.

There were two other guys at the station and we decided to share the cab. This was at 6:30p. When the first guy got off, he gave the other guy 4 GBP, when that guy got off, he gave me 10 GBP. As we drove through the city, the traffic was light, I saw no buses and the streets were unploughed.

At about 7:00a, I made it to Paddington, paid the fare of 15.20 GBP and added a nice tip for the driver, thanked him and alighted. My fun morning continued at Paddington when I saw signs and were told that the Heathrow Express was not running. Luckily the Heathrow Connect was running (still don’t get that). I was told to make my way to the track 11, they are not even selling tickets.

I ran to the track along with other commuters and made it into the train. The operator finally came on the PA and said that the train was delayed as there was a broken down train blocking the path to Heathrow. He said we would not move in the foreseeable future. There were moans and groans from the occupants of the train when he said this.

I went and checked the cab lines and it would have been about two hours I think as the line was very long and there were limited cabs. No shortage of people to share with though. I then headed back to the still waiting and sat down as this was the only way out of town.

After about 30 minutes, the train moved and we were on our way. You can see some pictures of the snow along the way.