In London

Christine drove us from sleepy little Staithes to thrumming York, where there was, as far as we could tell, no way to get to the rail station by car. We drove into one closed street after another, clock ticking toward time for our train, till she wisely pulled into a Morrison's and called a taxi to take us. We made it to the train, which was already on the platform, with 5 minutes to spare. Thank you, Christine!

Two and a half easy hours on the train and we emerged on a new planet where we kept asking ourselves if maybe we had fallen asleep and were dreaming, or maybe we were on a film set for a movie nobody gave us the script for. Ira met us and expertly led us through a network of bus queues to her place, where Orthodox Jewish people throng the streets in outfits out of the 19th century. Sara arrived after work, we went for a walk, had dinner, laughed till we had tears in our eyes, and concluded that through some bizarre tear in the fabric of time and space, we are in London. "Daniel Defoe lived here," the sign said as we emerged from eating a Turkish dinner. Our heads are spinning.