First post on this blog from overseas! Now that I'm here, let me tell you about the journey...
My mom was wonderful enough to drive me to the airport on Monday, so that I wouldn't have to pay to leave my car in the long-term parking for 2.5 weeks! We left around 1:30 so that we'd have plenty of time to deal with traffic, and for me to get through check-in and security. Once we got to the airport and found the check-in desk, I got a nice surprise - the woman took a look at my itinerary and said "I'm going to book you on an earlier flight (to Boston, the first leg of my trip). We're gonna have some weather later and you know what it's like when they start cancelling flights. I don't want you to miss your connection." What. An. ANGEL. So my mom gave me a hug and left while I waited in the security line, found the gate for my new flight, and boarded about 30 minutes later, instead of waiting around for 2ish hours as I had planned.
Cut to Boston - had a classy dinner at BK (mmmmm sweet potato fries), splashed some water on my face so I wouldn't get raccoon eyes on the plane, flipped through some magazines in the bookstore (they had a couple of French ones!), and then went to board my flight to Iceland (second leg of trip). There was a guy in front of me who was concerned about his friend getting there in time, and as we were walking down that rickety hallway thing that you go through to get onto the plane, his friend came barreling up to him, sweaty and stinky from apparently sprinting to our gate after his flight arrived. And WHERE do you think he was flying from? You guessed it - Philly. I can't be sure he was on my original flight, but I still mentally sent that US Airways lady a big hug.
Big bummer that the sound on my in-flight tv wasn't working, but it meant that I actually slept during that flight. I mean, as well as you can sleep on a plane. Once in Keflavik airport, I had a couple granola-y things for breakfast and then boarded my third and final flight for London! On arrival, I had exactly 60 minutes between getting off the plane and my bus's scheduled departure time....so I booked it. I practically ran down all of the hallways that I encountered until finally, mercifully, I found the security/customs area. Most of the people arriving on my flight were UK or European citizens, so I was the only one in the "Other" line. Showed my passport, answered a few questions, and was through. Waited for what seemed like an eternity until they posted the number of our baggage claim carousel, almost knocked a guy over on my way to the stairs, showed up at the carousel....and my bag was like the 5th one I saw. Never happens to me. I was sitting, waiting for that bus to arrive, playing Candy Crush all cool and nonchalant, with 20 minutes to spare. I almost patted myself on the back.
Up until now, everything has gone relatively swimmingly. There were some babies crying on one flight, and I forgot that Icelandair makes you pay for meals if you want to eat, but all in all, a good trip, with some dazzling bits of luck. Then there was the bus. It started out well enough, and I was getting acclimated to driving on the wrong side of the road. Bus had wifi, so my friend Jenny and I were messaging about me arriving soon and getting to her place. I closed my eyes for a while because the lack of real sleep was getting to me.....and I hear *gaspcrashbeeeeeeep* and open my eyes to see a huge white hunk of metal-y thing in the road in front of the bus. I asked a couple sitting next to me, and they explained that a truck had tried to squeeze between the bus oncoming traffic the other way, but didn't have enough room and took off one of the driver side mirrors! That was the great big white thing in the road, which was then stowed under the bus. Our driver called the cops, who filed the accident report but didn't come because nobody was hurt. The truck just kept right on going, but the bus has cameras and probably caught them on tape. Oh, the excitement!
We kept on going since the driver still had the lower mirror on his side, got to our destination, I switched to my other bus on time and got to where I was going with no more fuss. Once I arrived, I was trying to remember what I was supposed to do next, and I remembered Jenny saying I should get an Oyster card (for the underground and city bus), so I did. I then worked out that I needed to take the underground one stop to Jenny's neighborhood, which she had told me but I hadn't written down. Once there, I got hopelessly lost trying to find the bus stop and then went the wrong way once I got off the bus and was walking to her house. Chalk it up to dehydration, sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion.....and hormones, if we're being truthful. Anywho, I did manage to get here only about 20 minutes later than originally thought, hurrah! We hugged, I collapsed, she brought me water, I changed, and we went to lie in the park for a while and catch up while she marked papers.
And that's only how I got here! This post is long enough, so stay tuned for what I've done since then. :-)
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