Recipe for a commuting disaster

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Traveling… an adventure in itself.

Boarding would supposedly start at 9 p.m. and the flight would leave at 10:05 p.m. Actual time boarding started: 10:05 p.m. We apparently had some sort of mechanical error they were trying to fix. (Sometimes I would prefer they not fully communicate the reasons for delay). Leaving the city I saw some random fireworks over DC for the 4^th of July celebrations, which was very festive.

I was fully expecting an awful flight – I had to finish reading Mrs. Dalloway and there were literally (I counted) over 25 young children on the plane. Luckily for this flight they were relatively quiet and I didn’t have one seated behind me kicking my chair for the entire 7 or so hours. The only real kid mishap was after landing – we had to wait for another plane (who was also having a mechanical error) to leave our deboarding port (stairs to a bus out in the middle of London Heathrow’s airport) and there was one little boy who HAD to go to the bathroom right then – and he was letting everyone know. The fasten seatbelt signs were still on because we had to be prepared to taxi in at a moment’s notice, so for approximately 20 minutes of our over an hour wait I heard (increasingly louder and more whiney screams over time), “I have to go potty.” Finally a stewardess came and let them go, but then the 24 other kids suddenly wanted to get up to go too.

Immigration was a breeze, then I met with a few other OSU students in my program to transport to our student housing in Greenwich – which was an experience. It isn’t my first time on the London tube system, BUT we had a perfect recipe for a commuting disaster.

Ingredients:

5 Americans in a foreign city

A foreign public transportation system

Two large, heavy suitcases and a carry-on item each

Steps:

1. Close several main lines (which happen to be integral to getting to our final destination) for maintenance (but don’t communicate this to the personnel working or on signs throughout the underground). This ensures that even though they have mapped out a route, they will be painfully surprised when lines are closed and need a new one – multiple times. Overall, the trip that could take like an hour should require 4 hours of commuting time.
2. Require they pay for some type of additional train because the lines are closed that for the group “½ price discount” still costs over 8 pounds, plus 4 more for the tube.
3. Despite attempting to enter different doors so that all 5 can travel together, convince young British children to crowd out one of your passengers and wave sadly good-bye to him as your train leaves. (Make sure when you reunite someone in your party embarrassingly runs and gives him a huge pat on the back).
4. The stations towards the end of the journey should have no lifts or escalators so that your party has to carry their suitcases (which are becoming increasingly heavy and bulky) up several flights (to the annoyance of the locals).
5. When you finally depart the last train, ensure it is a mile hike to get to the student housing from the station.

In summary, I have calloused hands, sore shoulders and calves, and was exhausted from an entire day of traveling on practically every tube line in London.

Checking in was mild. I hopped in the shower as soon as I got to my room, discovering only AFTER I was wet that the promised linens (most importantly towels) were not actually provided as promised by the student housing. I dried off with a t-shirt.

One good thing to end my crazy travel day was a pub with WKD Blue and free wifi. I may have started a little bit of a trend at my dinner table. Cheers to that!