Yeah, right. Never do that.
When we actually got to London, we decided that it would be awesome to leave our luggage at the hotel, pick up the car, drive back to our hotel, have breakfast, check out, get our stuff in the car, and then leave London.
Again, never do that.
All went well until we left the parking garage to return to our hotel. It would have been fine, even then, had the way back to our hotel not been one-way streets all pointing in the wrong direction. But they were one-way streets, and so we had to go round the other way. This also would have been fine, had we not somehow ended up in the other direction of where we wanted to go.
And if the check-engine light had not gone on.
So, there we were, at the mercy of traffic lights and one-way streets, still getting used to the fact that right was our left and left was our right. An hour later, after much effort and several arguments, we arrived back at the car hire place, explained the situation, and exchanged our Ford Focus - which Joy was terrified of hurting or crashing - for a Mercedes Benz. Oh, if that isn't irony, I don't know what is.
At this point, I called our hotel using Budget's phone, explained the situation, and begged about half an hour's leniency on checking out. Silly me, I figured that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to return to our hotel (which was still only three blocks away), especially since the nice lady at the desk had given me directions and marked it on our map.
Well, it wasn't enough time. We tried our hardest to get out of that awful city, but nothing would work. Finally we just turned down a little street and parked in the "you will be towed if you do not have a permit" area. Then I got out, looked around, spotted two men in a doorway, and went to ask for directions.
They were deep in conversation, but as I approached (saying, of course, how terribly sorry I was to trouble them, but might I bother them for a bit of directions?), they stopped talking and the one left in his car. How I envied the easy way he drove off! But the other looked at my map, turned it every which way until he figured out where we were, and said,
"You just need to go straight from here. Straight, straight, straight. You don't turn left; you don't turn right. Just straight, straight, straight." (Sounds like the Christian life!) While I was processing this startling bit of information, he said, "I'm going that way anyway. You follow me."
What were the odds? Well, our doors locked, and we could always just gun the engine and get out of whatever trap he led us into. So, with not a whole lot of trepidation - we were far too tired for that - we followed him. He brought us very close to the hotel, waved us on - "Straight, straight, straight!" - and we never saw him or his van again.
We parked a little ways from our hotel - Joy absolutely refused to go any farther, which made me unreasonably miffed. My mom and I went to collect our bags and check out. The guy at the front desk was glad to hear that we no longer had car trouble, but he was horrified to hear that we were still actually driving.
Well, what else could we do? We didn't want to rely on trains, especially with the threat of a national railway strike.
It took a bit for us to actually leave London. The roads were dreadfully narrow, and absolutely everyone drove like maniacs. Motorcycles especially tended to think that no rules applied to them. But we didn't get horribly turned around anymore, and we successfully left London behind us. We left our schedule two hours behind us, too, but it didn't really matter at this point.
After Joy had been driving for about four hours straight, almost ending up at Heathrow due to a confusing construction configuration, our car told us to take a tea break.
That's right; our car had a screen pop up. It even had a little picture of a steaming cup of tea.
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| Our car was a bit more commanding than this one. |
We had to skip Nether Wallop, a little town we'd planned on seeing, but that didn't matter. After all, we were driving through some of the prettiest little towns I've ever seen. Joy, it is true, didn't like the sharp turns or the steep hills or any of the myriads of roundabouts (traffic circles) that we encountered on our way to Bath, but even she was able to see and enjoy some of the towns.
We arrived at Bath at about 4:00, thinking that everything closed at 5. Lo and behold, they were open until 9 pm. So we didn't have to worry about taking too long. I still wanted to get to Oxford, but we managed to enjoy Bath plenty. When my mom went to England, technology was non-existent and all the various interactive displays were not there. So she really enjoyed seeing all the reconstructions. I, myself, just enjoyed all the history. I had already read everything I could about Rome in sixth grade, I think, so I knew well how the baths worked.
We tasted the water, of course, and were just as unimpressed as I thought we would be, but in the opposite direction. It was not even nasty; it just tasted like lukewarm Chicago tap water. (Maybe we could set up a spa in our back yard and convince everyone that it's the fountain of youth...)
We peeked into the famed Pump Room of Jane Austen and Amazing Grace.
And then we left for Oxford. Regrettably, we did get a bit turned around and lost about 45 minutes, but we still arrived in Oxford only a couple blocks from where I meant to be: the Martyrs' Memorial. We parked right across the street from the Eagle and Child, the pub which the Inklings, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien called "the Bird and Baby." We threaded our way through the bar crowd to take a look at the Rabbit Room, where the Inklings met.
Martyr's Memorial looks much like a sunken church spire - the stuff of Oxford legend, in fact. It honors Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, martyrs of the Inquisition. These three men were burnt to death in 1555 for refusing to believe and practice "the errors of the church of Rome." They were put to death near the spot of Martyrs' Memorial by Bloody Mary.All in all, we saw everything we really wanted to see in Oxford, though we didn't get all the time we would have wanted to spend.
And then we got to find our way to our hotel for the night. It was a little country place, called the Brasenose Arms, located in Cropredy, a small town near Banbury. We had thought we'd be able to see the statue of the fine lady upon the white horse that's mentioned in the child's nursery rhyme, but we weren't able to.Ride a cock horse to Banbury cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse.
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.
A strange thing to put on an itinerary, to be sure, but we thought that since we were in the area anyway, we might as well try.
We arrived at the Brasenose Arms 13 minutes past check-in time. I had asked for late check-in, in the event that anything happened and we needed to use it. But the place was dark and no one was up. We knocked on the door in vain. No one seemed to be there.
I broke down crying. It had been a very long day, and I had been looking forward to staying at one of the six rooms in the little country inn for quite some time. I had paid for it, planned for it, and set my heart on it. Joy suggested that we sleep in the car, which I did not want to do. But there was nothing for it, and after knocking once again, we turned toward the car.
Unbeknownst to me, my mom was reminding God that anything that happened must be for our good and His glory. Joy was reminding Him that He had always come through for us before, and she didn't see why He wasn't now. But I was struggling with trusting Him at all, and finally I just told God that I trusted Him to make a way for us before I got to the car. I then walked toward it.
"Hello?" we heard from the back of the hotel. It was the owners, key in hand, ready to let us in. They gave us our room, ensured that we were fine with it, and left us to settle in.
I broke down crying yet again. Mercy isn't always seen in such a short amount of time, but this time it was, and I was very grateful.
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