the trip: traveling
Apr. 15th, 2005 03:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fearlesstempSo last month I went on a big fun trip to Europe with my friends, and it was awesome. I'm hoping to post some pictures in a few days, and eventually write up all of the trip, but for now, I'll just post this summary of our traveling (primarily plane and airport) adventures.
::traveling::
1 – fear of flying
I don't like flying. It's not a debilitating fear, but I never look forward to getting on a plane. At best, it's an uncomfortable few hours. At worst, I spend the middle hours of the flight resisting the powerful urge to bury my head in the shoulder of the person next to me, sobbing openly. Whether I know the person seated next to me or not.
For this trip, I had some pills to get me through the five flights I'd be taking on my trip. I don't know what they were, exactly; they're what my grandmother uses when she gets stressed out. For all I know, they're sugar pills. Or maybe they're black-market OxyContin. They seemed to help me (there were no urges to sob openly on this trip), but there was always the lurking fear of the pills being discovered at a security checkpoint and me being arrested a la that scary Claire Danes movie about Thailand or some other country in Asia where you can be locked up for ages on drug charges with NO HOPE just because you're YOUNG AND STUPID.
And there would be no Mark Darcy to bail me out like in Bridget Jones! My father is a lawyer, sure, but he's not a top barrister of human rights law like Mark Darcy!
But that's neither here nor there since I wasn't arrested at any border. In general, my flights were fine, Virgin probably being the best (individual viewscreens! With Tetris!) in spite of the lack of legroom, and Aegean being the most troubling (mostly after the fact, when I discovered it was referred to in some press item as a "comeback" airline - I was a little surprised when I went to put my carry-on in the overhead compartment and discovered it was stuffed full of bags of rolls for our dinner tray. They served us OCTOPUS).
But all in all: Flying went okay.
2 – heathrow part one
Even though flying went okay, it didn't go so okay that Jo (my main travel buddy) and I got any real sleep on our first flight, the one from Newark to London. This is what we use to excuse our snafu in Heathrow.
By the time we dragged our carry-ons off of the plane in London, Jo and I had both been awake for nearly twenty-four hours with only two hours of sleep between us, maybe. This is why neither of us saw the big "CONNECTING FLIGHTS" sign and instead followed all of the other, London-bound passengers towards customs. Long-ass line, long-ass wait, and a long-ass layover to look forward to (seven hours until our flight to Athens was due to take off), but we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we would be able to spend that time together, drinking coffee in some cafe, doing some shopping, possibly tag-napping.
Oh! Such dreams!
Jo and I were sent to separate customs agents. Hers looked at her landing card and said, quite rightly, "You're getting on a connecting flight; you should go over to X location and get in line there." Mine looked at mine, stamped my passport, and waved me through the little gate, which I walked through calmly, not realizing! Not knowing! Not having the slightest idea that those few steps would RUIN MY DAY.
Basically: I had officially "landed" in London and now could not go back through the gate to be with Jo. Jo had already turned her landing card in and when she asked for another one, the customs guy made such a big deal about it (mainly through huffing and eyerolling and repeatedly saying that it would only take me ten minutes, MAXIMUM, to get my boarding pass and make it through security to meet Jo on the other side) that we both decided to split up and meet at the end of where I'd go through security.
Ten minutes! Ten minutes, the man said. Try FOUR HOURS OF EXCRUCIATING STRESS AND TORTURE.
Because! Olympic does not open its ticket window until three hours before its first flight! Which was the one I was on! At 4:30 in the afternoon! It was only 9:30 in the morning!
A brief summary of my mental state:
1 – I was tired and stressed out and COULD NOT HANDLE COMPLICATIONS with any degree of grace at this point.
2 – I had no means of getting in touch with Jo, who was, I thought, expecting me to walk through security any minute, when it would take four hours. I know my reaction, were I in her position, would be to assume that I had been kidnapped or taken hostage or something terrible. I did not remember that Jo, unlike me, did not spend so many formative hours in her childhood sneakily watching scary shows like America's Most Wanted and so her mind does not immediately jump to felonies when there are delays.
3 – Jo and I were supposed to go SHOPPING and get COFFEE! I wasn't supposed to be BY MYSELF and COFFEE-LESS!
You must bear this in mind when you hear what I did in the ensuing four hours. In those hours, I:
-paged Jo several times, to no avail, and since they paged her to come meet me instead of to call the Info Desk where I was standing, I was unable to move more than ten feet from that spot for the next four hours in the fear that she'd arrive and find me gone;
-because of the preceding, took no bathroom breaks;
-drank no coffee because of the impossibility of bathroom breaks;
-talked to the info desk people on so many occasions that, by the end, I could swear I could hear them growling at me when I approached;
-called Jo's cell phone in Upstate NY to leave her a message on the off chance she'd check that voicemail while waiting for me;
-called Jo's mother in Upstate NY (at an ungodly hour) to leave a message there, too, in case Jo called;
-tried to call Jo's sister in London but could not get through because I had written the number down wrong;
-ate the rest of the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups I'd brought with me; and
-moped a lot.
It was very sad and stressful!
But there was a happy ending. I met up with Jo's sister at the Olympic ticket counter at 1:30 in the afternoon, and we both made it through security in good time and found Jo waiting on the other side. There was a sweet sisterly reunion, and then a relieved friend reunion that involved, primarily, both of us waving our arms around saying, "Oh my God, we are NEVER SEPARATING AGAIN!" and then running for the nearest bathroom, since while I had paged Jo, Jo had also paged me, and had sat stuck to the same spot for four hours just like I'd stuck to mine. And then we had lunch and shopped and Jo got a new purse and I bought a Cadbury Creme Egg to replace my Peanut Butter Cups and our first Heathrow adventure was complete.
3 – the other two airports
These were fine and not very eventful, except for the fact that our luggage was, literally, the last on the belt in Athens. That was a tense ten minutes or so. Frankfurt was big but not to stressful, though we did arrive a little late to the airport and kind of had to book it to our gate (this was a theme).
4 – heathrow part two
On our last day in Europe, Jo's sister, Nicole, brought us right to the tube stop we'd need to get on to take the train straight to Heathrow airport. She helped us carry our massive amounts of luggage, chatted with us on the platform, and was, in all respects, the awesome host she'd been for the previous four days.
And then the train arrived, and I hopped through one set of doors and dragged my bags behind me, and Jo hopped through another set of doors further down the car, and pulled her bags on behind her, and a bunch of other people swarmed on the train around us. Jo and I both looked to the platform to wave a last good-bye to Nicole just as the train's doors were closing, and then all three of us realized in that one moment that OH MY GOD NICOLE HAD ONE OF JO'S BAGS.
There was lots of frantic hand-waving and pointing and desperate expressions but then the train left! Pulled away! For the next station!
There was freaking out and loud talking back-and-forth across the train (we were very popular with our fellow travelers). Jo and I decided to get off at the next stop, figuring Nicole would take the next train and meet us there, hand off the bag, and go on about her day.
The next train came, no Nicole.
Another train came, still no Nicole.
Twenty minutes later, still no Nicole, and by this point, a creepy guy had struck up a conversation with us, flashing his Oyster ID card and saying that he was an off-duty Tube employee and liked to help wherever he could. Jo and I tried to be casual and friendly in an icy way, all the while desperately guarding our massive piles of luggage and looking into the distance for any sign of Nicole. After getting rid of Oyster guy, me going back to the previous station to look for Nicole there, and lots of calls to Nicole's cell, Jo and I decided to head for the airport minus one bag, which ended up being mailed to Jo a few days later.
By the time we got to the airport, what had once been a cushiony few hours between our arrival time at the airport and our flight's boarding time (time we had planned to use to do all of that shopping and coffee-getting we didn't do on our first stop in Heathrow) was now a very compact hour and a half. When we got to the ticket counter, in fact, we were informed our flight was boarding. Boarding! Ninety minutes before takeoff!
The only sensible response to this involved extreme outrage and lots of bad language muttered under our breath while we booked it through the airport to our gate which was - you guessed it - as far as humanly possible from the security checkpoint we went through. It's true! They give you a sign with estimated walking times to each gate and ours was the longest!
And at the end of it? THE COKE MACHINE WAS BROKEN. I almost cried. But then we got in line and handed over our boarding passes and there, on the other side, like a beacon shining through the darkness, was a functioning Coke machine with Diet Coke in stock. I conveniently forgot my recent pledge to only drink Diet Pepsi since Coke is supposed to be evil and everything (I don't know, I heard that somewhere, I can't remember where, and anyway, I like Diet Pepsi better), bought myself a nice cold bottle to wash my pill for the day's flight down, and sat down to wait for our trip's final flight to board.
4 – coming home
We landed in the middle of an ice storm. An ICE STORM. I just thank God I had no idea it was happening until I stepped outside to get into Jo's father's Jeep. It took five hours to get home when it should have taken two and a half; there were so many cars off on the side of the road that I was positive I'd spend my first night back in the states half-buried in a snowbank, waiting for Triple A; and I kept thinking about how much fun the trip was and how it was 67 and sunny in London right before we left.
But I was still glad to be home.
::traveling::
1 – fear of flying
I don't like flying. It's not a debilitating fear, but I never look forward to getting on a plane. At best, it's an uncomfortable few hours. At worst, I spend the middle hours of the flight resisting the powerful urge to bury my head in the shoulder of the person next to me, sobbing openly. Whether I know the person seated next to me or not.
For this trip, I had some pills to get me through the five flights I'd be taking on my trip. I don't know what they were, exactly; they're what my grandmother uses when she gets stressed out. For all I know, they're sugar pills. Or maybe they're black-market OxyContin. They seemed to help me (there were no urges to sob openly on this trip), but there was always the lurking fear of the pills being discovered at a security checkpoint and me being arrested a la that scary Claire Danes movie about Thailand or some other country in Asia where you can be locked up for ages on drug charges with NO HOPE just because you're YOUNG AND STUPID.
And there would be no Mark Darcy to bail me out like in Bridget Jones! My father is a lawyer, sure, but he's not a top barrister of human rights law like Mark Darcy!
But that's neither here nor there since I wasn't arrested at any border. In general, my flights were fine, Virgin probably being the best (individual viewscreens! With Tetris!) in spite of the lack of legroom, and Aegean being the most troubling (mostly after the fact, when I discovered it was referred to in some press item as a "comeback" airline - I was a little surprised when I went to put my carry-on in the overhead compartment and discovered it was stuffed full of bags of rolls for our dinner tray. They served us OCTOPUS).
But all in all: Flying went okay.
2 – heathrow part one
Even though flying went okay, it didn't go so okay that Jo (my main travel buddy) and I got any real sleep on our first flight, the one from Newark to London. This is what we use to excuse our snafu in Heathrow.
By the time we dragged our carry-ons off of the plane in London, Jo and I had both been awake for nearly twenty-four hours with only two hours of sleep between us, maybe. This is why neither of us saw the big "CONNECTING FLIGHTS" sign and instead followed all of the other, London-bound passengers towards customs. Long-ass line, long-ass wait, and a long-ass layover to look forward to (seven hours until our flight to Athens was due to take off), but we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we would be able to spend that time together, drinking coffee in some cafe, doing some shopping, possibly tag-napping.
Oh! Such dreams!
Jo and I were sent to separate customs agents. Hers looked at her landing card and said, quite rightly, "You're getting on a connecting flight; you should go over to X location and get in line there." Mine looked at mine, stamped my passport, and waved me through the little gate, which I walked through calmly, not realizing! Not knowing! Not having the slightest idea that those few steps would RUIN MY DAY.
Basically: I had officially "landed" in London and now could not go back through the gate to be with Jo. Jo had already turned her landing card in and when she asked for another one, the customs guy made such a big deal about it (mainly through huffing and eyerolling and repeatedly saying that it would only take me ten minutes, MAXIMUM, to get my boarding pass and make it through security to meet Jo on the other side) that we both decided to split up and meet at the end of where I'd go through security.
Ten minutes! Ten minutes, the man said. Try FOUR HOURS OF EXCRUCIATING STRESS AND TORTURE.
Because! Olympic does not open its ticket window until three hours before its first flight! Which was the one I was on! At 4:30 in the afternoon! It was only 9:30 in the morning!
A brief summary of my mental state:
1 – I was tired and stressed out and COULD NOT HANDLE COMPLICATIONS with any degree of grace at this point.
2 – I had no means of getting in touch with Jo, who was, I thought, expecting me to walk through security any minute, when it would take four hours. I know my reaction, were I in her position, would be to assume that I had been kidnapped or taken hostage or something terrible. I did not remember that Jo, unlike me, did not spend so many formative hours in her childhood sneakily watching scary shows like America's Most Wanted and so her mind does not immediately jump to felonies when there are delays.
3 – Jo and I were supposed to go SHOPPING and get COFFEE! I wasn't supposed to be BY MYSELF and COFFEE-LESS!
You must bear this in mind when you hear what I did in the ensuing four hours. In those hours, I:
-paged Jo several times, to no avail, and since they paged her to come meet me instead of to call the Info Desk where I was standing, I was unable to move more than ten feet from that spot for the next four hours in the fear that she'd arrive and find me gone;
-because of the preceding, took no bathroom breaks;
-drank no coffee because of the impossibility of bathroom breaks;
-talked to the info desk people on so many occasions that, by the end, I could swear I could hear them growling at me when I approached;
-called Jo's cell phone in Upstate NY to leave her a message on the off chance she'd check that voicemail while waiting for me;
-called Jo's mother in Upstate NY (at an ungodly hour) to leave a message there, too, in case Jo called;
-tried to call Jo's sister in London but could not get through because I had written the number down wrong;
-ate the rest of the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups I'd brought with me; and
-moped a lot.
It was very sad and stressful!
But there was a happy ending. I met up with Jo's sister at the Olympic ticket counter at 1:30 in the afternoon, and we both made it through security in good time and found Jo waiting on the other side. There was a sweet sisterly reunion, and then a relieved friend reunion that involved, primarily, both of us waving our arms around saying, "Oh my God, we are NEVER SEPARATING AGAIN!" and then running for the nearest bathroom, since while I had paged Jo, Jo had also paged me, and had sat stuck to the same spot for four hours just like I'd stuck to mine. And then we had lunch and shopped and Jo got a new purse and I bought a Cadbury Creme Egg to replace my Peanut Butter Cups and our first Heathrow adventure was complete.
3 – the other two airports
These were fine and not very eventful, except for the fact that our luggage was, literally, the last on the belt in Athens. That was a tense ten minutes or so. Frankfurt was big but not to stressful, though we did arrive a little late to the airport and kind of had to book it to our gate (this was a theme).
4 – heathrow part two
On our last day in Europe, Jo's sister, Nicole, brought us right to the tube stop we'd need to get on to take the train straight to Heathrow airport. She helped us carry our massive amounts of luggage, chatted with us on the platform, and was, in all respects, the awesome host she'd been for the previous four days.
And then the train arrived, and I hopped through one set of doors and dragged my bags behind me, and Jo hopped through another set of doors further down the car, and pulled her bags on behind her, and a bunch of other people swarmed on the train around us. Jo and I both looked to the platform to wave a last good-bye to Nicole just as the train's doors were closing, and then all three of us realized in that one moment that OH MY GOD NICOLE HAD ONE OF JO'S BAGS.
There was lots of frantic hand-waving and pointing and desperate expressions but then the train left! Pulled away! For the next station!
There was freaking out and loud talking back-and-forth across the train (we were very popular with our fellow travelers). Jo and I decided to get off at the next stop, figuring Nicole would take the next train and meet us there, hand off the bag, and go on about her day.
The next train came, no Nicole.
Another train came, still no Nicole.
Twenty minutes later, still no Nicole, and by this point, a creepy guy had struck up a conversation with us, flashing his Oyster ID card and saying that he was an off-duty Tube employee and liked to help wherever he could. Jo and I tried to be casual and friendly in an icy way, all the while desperately guarding our massive piles of luggage and looking into the distance for any sign of Nicole. After getting rid of Oyster guy, me going back to the previous station to look for Nicole there, and lots of calls to Nicole's cell, Jo and I decided to head for the airport minus one bag, which ended up being mailed to Jo a few days later.
By the time we got to the airport, what had once been a cushiony few hours between our arrival time at the airport and our flight's boarding time (time we had planned to use to do all of that shopping and coffee-getting we didn't do on our first stop in Heathrow) was now a very compact hour and a half. When we got to the ticket counter, in fact, we were informed our flight was boarding. Boarding! Ninety minutes before takeoff!
The only sensible response to this involved extreme outrage and lots of bad language muttered under our breath while we booked it through the airport to our gate which was - you guessed it - as far as humanly possible from the security checkpoint we went through. It's true! They give you a sign with estimated walking times to each gate and ours was the longest!
And at the end of it? THE COKE MACHINE WAS BROKEN. I almost cried. But then we got in line and handed over our boarding passes and there, on the other side, like a beacon shining through the darkness, was a functioning Coke machine with Diet Coke in stock. I conveniently forgot my recent pledge to only drink Diet Pepsi since Coke is supposed to be evil and everything (I don't know, I heard that somewhere, I can't remember where, and anyway, I like Diet Pepsi better), bought myself a nice cold bottle to wash my pill for the day's flight down, and sat down to wait for our trip's final flight to board.
4 – coming home
We landed in the middle of an ice storm. An ICE STORM. I just thank God I had no idea it was happening until I stepped outside to get into Jo's father's Jeep. It took five hours to get home when it should have taken two and a half; there were so many cars off on the side of the road that I was positive I'd spend my first night back in the states half-buried in a snowbank, waiting for Triple A; and I kept thinking about how much fun the trip was and how it was 67 and sunny in London right before we left.
But I was still glad to be home.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 09:10 am (UTC)Those pills are probably Valium. Valley of the dolls!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 04:39 am (UTC)No, there really isn't! And also, that one sentence so perfectly captured the feeling I struggled to describe in paragraphs and paragraphs. Perfectly!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-17 10:17 pm (UTC)I'm sososo happy things worked themselves out and that you got to get your Diet Coke and your Cadbury Creme Egg and that your friend go her bag. Geez. Now I can't wait to hear about your actual adventures once you made it to your final destination!
Though, it is very nice to have you back. ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 04:27 am (UTC)But yes, things worked out, and I had a great time. Thanks so much for the lovely comment, and it's very nice to be back!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 02:43 pm (UTC)Also: How are you? I am working this week, which is annoying because it's harder to call you when I'm working! Will try to email you later.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-20 01:13 pm (UTC)