Shopping in Staines

Today is the day before classes start! Rebecca and I decided to go shopping in Staines, one of the towns near Egham, because their grocery store is larger. And we wanted to pick up other items such as a hair dryer and a bed sheet for me and a hair straightener for Rebecca. Unfortunately, I stayed up until past 2 am last night, so I didn't get out of bed until a shameful 12:30 or so. (I also theorize that our bodies are still operating on U.S. time, since we get tired early and wake up at odd hours during the night.) We met at around 1:30 and walked to the bus station just outside of campus. Somewhere along the way I lost a glove, which was irritating because I wasn't able to buy a replacement pair (for the reason why, read on).

A major reason for our troubles in navigating is that we have little experience in public transportation. We told the driver as we entered that we wanted to go to Staines, but we didn't know that we should push the stop button to let her know which stop we wanted in Staines. So we passed the stop right near the grocery store. We knew where it was, though, so we arrived without incident.

Shopping for items took some time because we had to, in most cases, find the cheapest price and scan amongst the different brands to find what we wanted. Then, from over the loud speaker came a voice with a message that made us gasp: "Sainsbury's will be closing in twenty minutes at 4 o'clock." Who knew that a grocery store would close so early? We hurried to find the few remaining essential items then queued up to check out.

We lugged everything to the closest bus stop. (I had brought the cloth grocery bag that I had bought in Tesco's a few nights ago, but Rebecca hadn't brought hers. So she had three plastic bags.) Unfortunately, the bus did not stop there on Sundays. While Rebecca watched the groceries and transferred the cans and glass containers to my bag so that the plastic would not rip, I ran back to the store to ask for directions. The young store clerk told me to go "down that road out there" to find a big bus station and he pointed in the direction of the road that we were already on. Well, it turns out that he meant a road in the opposite direction of what I thought he meant, and it was good that we stopped at a petrol station because a very nice cashier told us that we were headed in the wrong direction. (Also, he let me pay 32 pence instead of 33 pence for a bottle of water, probably because I looked harassed at this point.) We gathered our stuff again and walked in the direction he pointed, asked for directions several more times, and finally found it. We met up with other Americans from Royal Holloway and were able to determine the right bus (there were seven terminals). And then the driver did NOT accept our student IDs for the discount, so it was 1.80.

In the end, we bought food and items that we needed, but we still did not buy the hair dryer, straightener, or my bed sheet (I've been talking about the bed sheet for about four days now). Lesson learned: if you want to go shopping on Sunday, go early.