My first real stop in UK was the city of Leeds where I was presenting a paper at a conference. It was a hectic trip. I landed at Heathrow on a Friday morning and then took a National Express bus to the Victoria Bus Terminus. From there, I took a Megabus to Leeds. Megabuses are definitely low cost but they also have a very small seat. The journey was supposed to be of 4 hours but due to the heavy Friday traffic it took 6 hours to reach Leeds. The next day morning I had a paper to present followed by a visit to Saltaire. Later in the evening was the conference dinner at the Royal Armouries.
So, it became past 11 at night when I came back to my hotel after the day’s program on the Saturday. And then I had to take a Megabus to London at 6.15 the next morning. The hotel phone gave an option of stetting the alarm on my own but I could not figure it out. So, I asked the good people at the front desk to give me a wakeup call at 5.00 in the morning. And then after doing the packing, I collapsed to sleep.
I woke up with a start at 5.00 without any wakeup call. The wakeup call never arrived. By 5.45 I checked out and walked for 3 minutes to the bus stop. Being Sunday morning the roads were mostly empty. Only a place by the name of Blue Leopard had some people mingling about it. I could not figure out what it was. People came out of it for a smoke, some kind of employees hanged at the door. Another surprise was that there was activity at this place at the ungodly hour of 6.00 am.
By 6.10 there was still no sign of a bus and I was wondering what is it that I am doing wrong? Is this not the correct bus stop or the timings have changed or what? By 6.20 I was getting desperate. So, I decided to ask the people at the door of the Blue Leopard if they had any clue about the bus.
A young lad told me I was at the correct bus stop and then asked me what time my bus was. I told him it was at 6.15. Then he pointed out to a town clock and said, “But we changed the clock, look it is only 5.20 in the morning. We put it back by an hour this night!” I had of course read about changing of clocks but as nothing like this happens in India, I could never figure out what this meant! Now that I have experienced it, I am not going to forget it in a hurry.
I finally understood why the wakeup call never came. It must have come through an hour later. Also, it was a cold and windy morning and I did not enjoy the prospect of spending an hour at the freezing bus stop. Luckily the train station was just next door and it was covered. So, I went in and waited for an hour there. And of course later when it became 6.10 am again, the bus promptly came. This time it also took the appointed 4 hours to reach London.
Realizing that I’m a foreign student, my department sent me an email 2 days before the weekend they were supposed to change the clocks. It felt funny, since we’ve done so back home.And its funny that different countries change their clocks on different days. I think we in the UK changed out clocks on the weekend of October 27-28 while my sister in the US told me that they changed their clocks a week later.
🙂 Daytime saving. I was surprised too when i first went to US. all the clocks changed time during oct and April.I had a similar experience. We had booked a hotel room in Arizona during our trip to the grand canyon and I had told them that we will be arrivingg at 8 AM. We reach there after a long drive from Colorado and sunrise at Grand canyon only to find out that the people at reception to slow. They asked us to wait even though it was already 8, the maid had not arrived to clean the room for us. After about half an hour we realised that we were at different time zone. Arizona is one hour behind in time of colorado…Even in India the time actually needs to vary from say Meghalaya and Rajasthan… but for some reason we are not following the same priniciple…To avoid confusion maybe. 🙂
We did it in US too. Now, I have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to call my brother in S’pore and it becomes pitch dark at 5:00 p.m. – I don’t like it. BTW Arizona does not participate in this inanity and this causes more confusion. Last week I missed my flight from Phoenix to San Diego. Last month Arizona and California were in same time zone – now, Arizona is 1 hour ahead of California. My flight was at 10 a.m. – I reached airport at 8:30 a.m. (by my watch, which was showing CA time), but it was 9:30 a.m. in AZ. Time Travel!!
LOL. Do you remember this post? You were as confused as I was.
Oh daytime saving. :-)For a change I was always aware (and maybe cautious) of these facts and never faced any problem whichever country I was in… Only problem for me is to adjust to new timings during 1st week of its inception… twice yearly.But. yes many people who arrive just at the time are caught unaware.
Anuj, glad to hear that I am not the only one who found it confusing.Ajeya, welcome to the club!Atul, you too, welcome to the club.Priyank, that post and the comment brought a smile to my face. Thanks for sharing.Cuckoo, can’t welcome you to the club 🙂
Oh I should have lied then… don’t want to be left out. :))