Yesterday, Andy and I had a little bit of a rough commute. Our first train hung out in the station for a while as more and more people jammed into the car. It’s funny to watch people tear down the steps at full speed to run onto the waiting train (assuming that it will leave quickly, as they normally do) only to wait on the train for 5 minutes while the train people sort out the signaling problems wherever the signaling problems are. HA. I’ve done it many times, but somehow I think that makes it funnier.

Then we transferred to our next train, which - according to the sign - was only going to Baker Street (we go further). When we got most of the way to Baker Street, the train operator/ announcer guy came on and said, “Sorry about this, but I’ve just been told that this train will not go on past Baker Street.” That was funny, because we already knew that - I guess nobody told the driver.

Then at Baker Street, the next train on the line we usually take would have been another 6 minutes away, so we decided to take one of the other lines. The other platform was quite crowded, but when the train came, we found space, and again, we waited on the train for a long time. After about 4 or 5 minutes, the announcer lady came on and said (in a thick, Cockney-like accent), “Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologise for the delay; the line manager has decided to let all of the trains on the other lines out before us. Again, please do not have a go at the staff - it’s the line manager’s fault.” That was funny all by itself, but we found it extra funny, because we might have left earlier if we had waited for one of those trains that the line manager decided to let out on the other line, where we were in the first place.

THEN, when we finally arrived at our destination station, we stumbled upon a Canadian couple who made us laugh again, because we had recently been discussing the ways to tell Americans and Canadians apart, and we said that one easy way is that Canadians don’t want people to think they’re American, so they tend to wear Canadian flags all over themselves. This man had on a Canadian flag scarf and had Canadian flag patches on his bags, and the lady with him had a Canadian flag hat (complete with pompom and hangy-down tassle thingies) and Canadian flag gloves. I can understand why they don’t want people to think they’re Yanks (lots of people don’t like Americans - how can you not like a Canadian?), but it’s still funny.

So that’s how our day started yesterday, and when I was walking home, it snowed. It was WONDerful. Little boys jumped around and tried to catch it on their tongues, and I grinned my way back home from the tube stop. It reminded me of home.