So, I haven't blogged in nearly a month--not for real. I've got a couple drafts lying around that just never got posted, and you can't always post these things when you're not in the moment anymore ... Which is why I need to get this obviously necessary post off my chest before it just gets embarrassingly late.
Thirteen days ago, I left London. (Okay, it's already embarrassingly late.)
I got up at five in the morning on Monday, August 6th. I had intended to sleep in until at least six or seven, since I didn't have much of anything left to do at the flat, but the cat, Moppet, had woken me up to let him out and I just couldn't get back to sleep thanks to my bizarro travel-excitement-slash-anxiety (which had been building for days, especially once Averyl left on Friday because that was just depressing). With the abundance of time, I turned on Olympic Breakfast on BBC and took my own sweet time doing all the moving-out things. Finally, it was nearly eight, so I got my suitcase, my ridiculously heavy carry-on (I had to put all of my books in it because they were too heavy to go in my suitcase. Boo.), and my enormous backpack, and headed for the bus stop.
I caught the 121 for the last time somewhere around 8:02 in the morning and took the 20 minute ride to Oakwood Station, where I got on the Piccadilly Line. Oakwood is the second-to-last stop on the northernmost end of the line (the last stop is called Cockfosters ... ) and I was bound for Heathrow Terminal 5—the very last stop on the southernmost end. I was on there for somewhere around an hour and a half. It wasn't the fastest way there, but it was the way that involved the least amount of suitcase dragging, so I think it was worth it. Plus, getting on so early in the route meant that all the luggage areas were free, and I would be able to sit right next to it. (Remember what I said earlier about travel anxiety? You have no idea how much time I spent thinking about this garbage.) (I also just want to point out that when I arrived at the Tube stop for Heathrow Terminal 5, I had accurately estimated a 2 hour trip within sixty seconds. That's pretty impressive. Just sayin'.)
I didn't know this, having only flown in to Heathrow and not ever out of Heathrow, but their baggage check and security lines are slick. I was through both of them in less than ten minutes. Another (un)fortunate side-effect of my travel anxiety is that, instead of falling to pieces, I get horrifically efficient and almost machine-like in my manner. I mean, it's good ... but it's not so great when you give yourself a comfortable time cushion, and then that time cushion gets ridiculously huge because you're being such a travel-boss, the airport's being awesome at doing what they do, and then your plane gets delayed. So I sat in the airport for over an hour.
A little bit about the airport, for those of you who care... it's quite posh. All Dolce & Gabbana and a miniature Harrod's and Bulgari and Coach and Gucci and Dior and Prada and Tiffany & Co. and whatnot. What was most ridiculous to me was that there were actually people buying things. You don't go to an airport to shop! Everything in airports is like twice as expensive as it is outside the airport! And who even wants to have extra crap to carry?? It was absurd.
But let's get moving because there's a lot more story to tell and so far, I'm still in London.
My plane was supposed to depart at 12:15 for Toronto. It didn't quite make that, and we ended up being at least a half an hour late, if not more, due to some minor doohickey requiring engineer sign-off. We also got the great news that there was a strike going on with the caterers in Toronto which meant that the plane had to carry the food for its outgoing and return trips. Apparently, this didn't change much of anything except that the trays were smaller. Whatever. The flight to London was much more magical than the flight out of London ... I guess they're more concerned with impressing new visitors on the way in than after they've finished with the country. All that being said, they did have The Avengers on demand, and what with my brand-spankin'-new Tom Hiddleston obsession, I was on that like white on rice.
I think I was also going a little nutty at this point from all the travel anxiety; I knew I had a speedy connection to make in Toronto, and every minute that ticked by on the ground at Heathrow was another minute I'd be spending running through the Toronto airport like a chicken with my head cut off.
Once we were off the ground, things started getting better. The weird thing about an eight-hour flight is that it feels like it's never going to end, but when it's over, it doesn't feel like it's been eight hours at all. Especially when you're flying east-to-west because you're pretty much going backwards in time. Of course, the on-demand movies and TV really help. In addition to The Avengers, I watched Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and a few episodes of Modern Family. Aaaaannnndddd I ate a lot of food :)
Anyways, we arrived in Toronto I think around 4:00ish in the afternoon [8:00 p.m. London time]. The airport was weird--the terminal we arrived in was really empty and deserted looking, but then it just got more and more crowded as we went along. I was racing through, bumping into people left and right. Then the line for immigration was ridiculous. Freaking Canada. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait at all in the connections line and basically got straight to the counter, although I was a complete nervous wreck by this point.
Then came the waiting for the baggage. What a nightmare. My need to arrive at airports early is really an issue because I think there's some evil magic that happens that means they put my bags on the plane first ... and then they have to come off last. I swear, my bag is always one of the last ones to come down onto the stupid conveyor belt. It's obnoxious. I finally got it, ran past a pack of elders, and then went upstairs to check my bag for my next flight.
Unfortunately, the travel gods were not smiling upon me, and I was too late to check in at the kiosk. So then I had to talk to a real person (always the worst) ... and they told me I was going to miss my flight to Chicago. Well, that wasn't awesome, but I figured it would be okay. Then I heard these words:
"We're not going to be able to get you into St. Louis tonight."
I literally started crying that instant. Because at this point, I've been awake and busy and anxious and travelling for approximately 15-16 hours, which is about the amount of time I typically spend awake before going to bed, except that I knew I had two more planes and two hours in the car minimum standing between me and my bed.
Oh, and let's not forget the fact that I'd been waiting for this day since before I even left the States. You don't just tell a girl who's been waiting to come back home since before she even left three months ago, and tell her that she's going to have to sleep in an airport and wait until the next day to go home. You just don't. And if you do, she's going to cry in public and humiliate herself. The only good thing about crying in public is that people really want to make you stop, which means that the wonderful employee at the desk got the manager's approval to re-route me to Kansas City that night at no extra charge.
I got a hold of my family, let them know I was due to arrive in KC at 11:45 p.m. [5:45 a.m. London time] and went through customs and security. The customs agent was not pleased to welcome me back to America. I didn't really care. I waited in the Toronto airport for a couple of hours before I finally found myself with a seat on an over-booked plane (it was overbooked before they booked me on it, so I don't feel totally bad for taking someone's spot). The flight was slightly delayed, but hey, I was going to sleep in my own bed and not in an airport and that was good enough for me. I got to sit on my favorite kind of airplane seat (aisle AND window at the front of the plane with no pesky people stealing your armrests--every good thing you can have in an airplane seat, in my opinion) and the steward gave me the whole can of Diet Coke (caffeine SO needed at this point, obviously). It was great.
The Chicago airport is my favorite. Best bathrooms of all time. If you've been there, you understand; if you haven't, the toilets automatically dispense plastic sanitary covers onto the seats, which is aaaaaamazing. (It's all about the little luxuries of life, y'all. Appreciate them, dang it.) Of course, the travel gods were still holding me in contempt and my plane was yet again delayed, but not by too very much. Just enough to annoy me.
The flight from Chicago to Kansas City was alright. Apparently I used up all of my good-seat points on the previous flight, because I ended up in a middle seat with people on either side of me. I almost couldn't remember the experience because I was so tired that I fell asleep before they even did the safety thing. I don't think we'd even left the gate yet. When I woke up just a few minutes before we landed, my knee was touching that of the guy next to me ... nothing like a little unintentional intimacy with a stranger to alarm you back into full consciousness.
We landed in Kansas City just a few minutes after midnight, and since my mom and Alyssa hadn't arrived yet, I headed down to baggage claim to get my bag. As per usual, it was ridiculously slow in making it off the plane, but it got there safe and sound and intact, which is more than some people get.
The drive from Kansas City to Jefferson City is approximately three hours. At 2:20 a.m. [8:20 a.m. London time], we stopped in a McDonald's parking lot to take a nap. It was only supposed to be twenty minutes or so, but we all just passed out and slept for a full hour. When we woke up, we went through the drive-thru. I had a McGriddle. Definitely an ideal first-meal-back-in-'Merica. I have exactly zero regrets on that front. It was delicious. Once that was all done, we kept driving and made it back to the house around 4:30-5ish a.m.—which is nearly 11 a.m. London time.
So, if you were keeping count, I got up at 5 a.m. Monday morning and didn't make it to my bed until 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, on my London clock. That is a lot of hours. 30 hours, to be exactish. Especially since Tube, plane, airport, and car sleep don't count at all in situations such as these. Luckily enough, I didn't have any weird sleeping habits in getting over jet lag. I got right on a normal sleeping schedule. Sure, it took a few days for my mood to catch up with me, but that's still pretty good, I think. Now, I'm home. For the next few days anyways. On the 23rd, it's back to Provolone . . .
I definitely didn't intend for this to become a long story of my trip home, but I guess it's all I really have to say. I'm sure you all expected something a little more ... London-y. A little more conclusive, explanatory, descriptive. But to be honest, I don't think you're ever going to see anything like that. Not for a long while anyways.
You see, there's this problem about experiences like these in that you can tell little stories of little things that happened here and there ... but I'm never going to be able to put into words any kind of succinct statement of what those three months were. With all the words in the world, I don't think I'd ever be able to make anyone fully understand what they were like. It's incredibly frustrating for someone like me who likes to tell the long story and give the full explanation (Exhibit A: The previous twenty-two paragraphs of travel vomit that I deposited on you. (Twenty-two?! I am out of control. And I'm amazed if you made it all the way down here. Good job you! I will totally give you a gold star sticker if you want one because you're a freakin' trooper!)). It's so hard to know that I will never be able to have someone else understand exactly what my experience in London was; it's an incredibly lonely feeling.
But then again, I guess life's all like that. We're all just doing things and experiencing things and nobody really understands everything exactly the way that anyone else does because they can't experience it exactly the same way.
It being Sunday, I find it very appropriate to take a moment and just say how glad I am that Christ understands us perfectly. I'm so glad that He knows exactly what we've been through, exactly the way we feel, and exactly what we need to be able to move forward. It makes life so much easier, so much less lonely, to know that He is there, to know that no matter how much it seems like no one understands ... He does.
That's all I've got for you today :)
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