#pun time

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@animatemush - some more info for you.

Abraham van Helsing is heading for London. He's not going to drive there - he probably doesn't have a car and in any event, the road network of Europe is nowhere near as developed as it will be 125 years later.

So, he's going via public transport. From Amsterdam, he'll get the 8.51pm train to Hook of Holland, which had a station literally next to the dockside. On arrival at 10.41pm, it will be a case of go through Dutch passport control and onto the ship, that left at 11.20pm every day in 1899.

With a 20-minute time difference (I believe) between the UK and the Netherlands, the steamer crossing takes 7 hours in reasonable weather, arriving at Harwich at 6am the following morning. Through British customs and onto a waiting Great Eastern Railway train at Harwich Parkeston Quay, specially put on just for the ferry passengers, then non-stop with breakfast available on the train, for an 8.10am arrival in London Liverpool Street.

The timetable is here:

The "up" boat trains arrived at Platform 10 at Liverpool Street, from where you could literally walk into the Great Eastern Hotel, owned by the company. Two tracks ran into the basement to bring stuff in (like fresh fish) and take rubbish etc. out.

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most of ellie’s puns come from the books she's picked up over the years she's smart and loves word play however she never really writes her own stuff. just remembers jokes from her books. jj on the other hand loves making up his own jokes. it started off when he was a toddler and they fostered a great sense of humor in him, ellie reading him every joke in her books over and over, letting him "prank" them (putting a toy on dina’s head and calling it a hat, jumping out from behind a table, etc)

his first verbal joke is saying “bye jj” when dina tells him to  “say bye, jj” to ellie as she’s leaving for work. it startles them both but then they can’t stop laughing, every time they calm down jj says it again and the three of them start over again. ellie is late to work that day.

jj loves words and one day he tells a joke to ellie that she’s never read and she asks him “hey, spud. where did you read that one?” and jj casually admits he wrote it for her cause she seemed sad.