the homecomIng

Kevin Wang analyses your preferred modes of transport

child…” Please, for the love of yourself, take the train. You’ll thank me later.

You ran into a brick wall at King’s Cross and boarded a train: You were seated next to another returning student you don’t know, but thankfully both of you know the protocol: you plug in your headphones and spend the entire journey checking your phone, careful not to start a conversation and make friends. Welcome back to the UK!

You arrived at London Heathrow Airport:

You likely have a lot of jetlag to fight off. But maybe at least the prospect of spending another two hours on the tube and the train to Cambridge will lift you up? It is a most scenic ride, of which you will spend 30 minutes on the tube without cell signal. It's 2018, how is this still a thing?

You arrived at London Stansted Airport: You likely paid less for your flight than it cost Ryanair to operate it. Congratulations, you have benefitted from large scale social dumping. Be thankful that their planes don’t have the ability to dump fuel as well. Even their charity scratch cards don’t add up: a mathematician from The Other Place recently proved that their 2 for 1 offer does not “double your chances to win.”

You did not have to travel at all: Oh, you poor soul. You never left Cambridge during the holidays, did you? You missed out on navigating the roads with heavy suitcases and stairs that were designed to exhaust you. Instead, you paid extra rent for the privilege of spending Christmas Eve in the library studying for your exams. Your room became vacation storage for all your friends. We feel you.

You arrived in a horse-drawn carriage and became that day’s number one tourist attraction in Cambridge:

Why.

You considered taking a 10-hour train journey with a DB London Saver Fare to dodge the sky-high Eurostar prices. You remembered that Eurostar’s Bob is no longer there to sell you the £4.45 London Eurostar CIV to Cambridge ticket, then got sad and booked a £10 Ryanair flight instead. Upon landing, you decided that you were too smart for the £6.85 train ticket from Stansted Airport to Cambridge when you can buy a ticket from Stansted Mountfitchet via the Airport for £6.75. Upon arrival, you annoyed your friends by scolding them for paying £16.10 for the King’s Cross to Cambridge train, when the same journey can be done on a flexible £5.40 fare from Nottingham to Cambridge via King’s Cross:

Oh, it’s starting to dawn on me that this might just be me...