Subjected

Being reliant on public transport to get to and from work made this week interesting, given that the RMT Union Workers went on strike in order to push the Metronet into promising job security and no change in pensions despite a change in management. In British terms, this means that all underground lines except the Jubilee, Piccadilly, and Northern Lines were shut for 3 days this week, impacting millions of passengers. In American terms, my primary mode of transport had been removed, increasing my journey time to/from the client site and making the alternate routes even more congested.

To give you some context, I already have a horrendous commute - 1.5 hours EACH way, EVERY day. That's 3 hours/day = 15 hours week just commuting. That statistic alone makes me want to cry. But with the strike, my per journey time was increasing to 2 hours - 2 hrs, 15 min. Yes, 4-4.5 hours a day commuting. In that amount of time I could get to Paris on the Eurostar or I could fly to Eastern Europe. Instead, I'm going to Slough, a very unglamourous business and industrial park near Heathrow. For any of you who have seen the British comedy show The Office - that takes place in Slough. The saving grace is that when we leave the office to board the shuttle bus to Slough Rail Station, we often smell the chocolate from the Sara Lee factory across the street. Small recompense for hours a day on the trains/tube.

Today, when I realised that I missed my train at Windsor (this weeks 'no tube' journey home involved a bus to Slough Rail, a train to Windsor, walk to a different station in Windsor, take another train to Clapham Junction, and another train to Wimbledon), I had 30 minutes to kill. So I walked around Windsor, which is quaint and quite nice really.

The Windsor train station is actually called Windsor & Eton, and I slowly realise that it's THE Eton, as in the boys boarding college (equivalent to high school) where famous people such as the Duke of Wellington and the authors Shelley, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell attended, amongst several other famous 'Etonians'. In any case, it's referred to in much of the English literature I've read over the years so I followed the tourist signs and voila! 10 minutes down the road I stood before Eton College.

Tours are available, but not so late in the day, so I was only able to walk around the outside and peek into the main courtyard. This place kicks Ivy League schools' arse for history and being 'old'. It's beautiful, well worn and looks very...distinguished. If you are at all interested, go here and navigate to Eton College>An Eton Tour and click on the virtual tour photos. I'd definitely like to go back for a tour sometime, as well as tour Windsor Castle, which I have now seen 5 times from the outside either commuting or while eating dinner with my coworkers on a team night out. It's a massive compound of a castle, I can tell you that.

So I was planning to moan about my horrible commute on this post, and instead, I'm glad I had the opportunity to briefly see a bit more of Windsor & Eton. Who knew?