International Travelloging Mishaps and Misfortune.

The last travipedia posting that occurred before my long absence to the Internet world was this little travel update mocking Twitter.com. It was kinda fun, but kinda lame, which is a growing trend in my perception of the world. I got rid of it, anyhow. It's over. Fuhgeddahbowtit.

But I did miss my flight. Home from Europe. Okay, real quick, this is how it went down.

Two weeks of a Reader's Theatre course in London. Don't know what Reader's Theatre is? Don't worry about it. All you need to imagine is people dressed all in black reading plays out loud from music stands occasionally interacting with one another. And you should also know once a few Travipedia stories were read out loud in a Reader's Theatre style but that's also unimportant here. What's important was LONDON.

London was wild. Racing through Covent Garden to make it to the Royal Opera House on time, mounting up escalators to the nosebleed seats with only minutes left before they lock the doors. Drinking at the same pub every night in order to become regulars and seeing Jason Segel there nightly. Getting threatened by "gangsters" in the secret jazz club out in the back of the kebab shop in Camdentown (Called Marathon, check it out sometime, excellent lamb shears). Getting a free 40 dollar phone. Walking the Cliffs of Dover. Touching a piece by Banksy right down the street from my hotel. I wanted to scribe it all down for you, but I had to keep a day-to-day journal of my out of class activities to be graded by the illuminated Dr. Walter Ray Stump, Ph.D. So it was like Travipedia had to go analog for a little bit with the pen on page style and turned in. I got an A. Enough about that though, the real shit went down when the trip was over, and we all had to go fly home.

I woke up. I was already packed. I was all planned out.
I ate my breakfast. I said goodbyes.
I turned in my key. I hefted my luggage and prepared for the long voyage home.
The cheapest way between central London and the Heathrow Airport is the Underground, often simply called the Tube. In America, we just call it the subway. This subway was a bit more of a train after a certain distance. But the Reverend and I had taken it into London, so I was taking it out, straight from Waterloo Station. It was the plan.

I got to Heathrow, and made it right to United Airlines, who I flew in on. I asked a couple questions to people who looked like they knew, and turns out there wasn't a flight to Boston today. Impossible, I tell them. I booked this flight months ago. My ass is flying home. They tell me to ask the funny british accent Indian guy at Baggage. Turns out, he's awesome. He checks the paper on my suitcase, and my passport, and hooks me up with Lufthansa.

Lufthansa, for the uneducated is a fancy shmancy German airline that I guess I booked my flight for using this cheap college student travel ticket booking website I don't even know but the truth is my flight is with them. I know this as fact. I walk up and try to check my bags. A very kind Indian women with a German accent walks over and politely tells me the flight is leaving in fifteen minutes.
I flip out, and I'm all "I can run!" to the lady. But she politely calms me, and tells me to go stand in this real long line.

I've missed my flight. Just by fifteen minutes. I'm pissed.

The line is long and torturous and full of sad German people. All around me are televisions displaying news on the strike in the airport in Frankfurt, Germany yesterday. Telling about cancellations across the board due to the strike. But my flight was not cancelled. It had just left.

The German lady behind the counter tried her best to help me. But she made some award winning faces, grimacing at her computer. The next flight she could get me to Germany was in one and a half days. Ouch.

So I sulk around Heathrow, wondering which corner, nook or cranny I was going to be spending the night in. Long periods of sitting down, head in hands, with all my luggage, calculating how to get out of this mess. It was a rough scene.

I've got to get back to the hotel. This is the only conclusion.
I head back down to the Underground station, but a cheeky bastard tells me I'm in Zone Six and my card only covers Zones One and Two (Central London). I don't know what to do. More walking, more sulking, till I wander to the Underground information center. I ask the nice lady how in God's name I can get back into London today, with my saddest puppy eyes and my saddest sob story.

"Four pounds to add Zone Six."

I pull out the last handful of shrapnel in my left pocket, the last remaining sterling I've got. She helps me count it all out. Four pounds and ten pence. In fucking credible. Simply smashing.

Zone Six on my Oyster Card and I'm swiping my way back onto the Tube. Yes, it is actually called an Oyster Card. But I'm on the long sad train ride back to good ol' Londontown to face my professors at the hotel, a sentinel of shame. "I missed my flight."

They took it better than I did. The first two people I met back in the lobby let me stay in their room for the night. Good people. Dr. Stump was overcome with worry for my well-being which I was grateful for but tried to relieve him of any stress. I told him I know people in London, which was not a lie, and I would try and stay with them the second night. Unfortunately, this man hereby referred to as Getwell was once a counselor at the summer camp, we knew each other six years ago, and turns out his phone had run out of money. Dr. Stump graciously purchased me one night in a single in the hotel. It had a bay view window that instead of a bay viewed the London skyline, foggy and grey. This was the real London.

The next day, I have found myself with a full sunny extra day in the city, but bereft of my friends. I walk down into Camdentown. I snag some fish and chips. But it's not the same. I even roam the streets to find some more Banksy, get lost, succeed, but eventually find myself bored. This is when Getwell finally calls me. He's topped up his Orange account and is not far from the city. I tell him to get his ass on into it.

We meet at Liverpool Station. It's a strange reunion, I had just mowed down a 'pastie' and I don't want to describe what was in it. The executive decision was reached to grab a pint somewhere. I had scoped out some possible locations but for some reason they weren't there as we began to wander about the downtown part of London, with no pub in sight. We hop the Tube up somewhere near Covent Garden but not close enough so we create a makeshift pub crawl all the way to Covent Garden while it lightly drizzled. By the time it was dark we had made it to the Lamb & Flag, the reputable "Oldest Pub in London" having survived the great fire.

We tried to make it to another pub. Then I find myself and stop.

I'm in London. In some random ass back street that is barely a single car wide. It's raining. The streetlights are incandescent. I'm teetering drunk from rounds with Getwell. This was the Real London.

Getwell needs to make it back to his flat. I understand. We part ways and I take the Northern line back up to Chalk Farm one last time. I pass out on top of the bed, not even disturbing the sheets.

The next day, I wake up extra early. Certain not to miss the continental breakfast at 7:00 am. It's the traditional croissant, jelly, slices of salami, cheese, and so on, but I don't even care and go straight for the hot eggs and sausages I didn't pay for. No one stops me. Dr. Stump chuckles at my petty theft. I almost crack my Aladdin joke but hold it back. I break my fast with Dr. Stump and the other head of the Reader's Theatre Institute. We talk about my plans to move to San Francisco. We talk about my college career and it's end. And then I have to go. Because I can't fuck up again.

And I don't. I board right onto Lufthansa with pride. And taxi onto the landing strip and take off from Heathrow feeling much better about myself.

The connecting flight is in Frankfurt, Germany. A very large airport that from all outward appearances is in the middle of nowhere. Germany looks like the rolling hills of Rohan. Nothing going for it. Some grass.

The airport is huge though. Massive. There are tiny glass padded trains without drivers that timely take you on the loop throughout the complex to all the terminals. The passengers of my flight were ushered onto such a train. I checked some of the thick tickets and passes I'd acquired on my journey, and one clearly stated my connecting flight was departing at 5:55 pm and the current time was 6:09 because my flight had in fact landed at 6:01. This devastating news only affects me and this couple from New York also heading back to Boston. We break into a run.

It's tough to compete with people, but at times I honestly felt they were racing me for seats on this plane. By the time we were pacing full speed down one of those escalators on the floor that just speed you up as you walk, we saw the tail end of the line at our gate calmly passing through the door. They were in front of me. I was the last in line. Five people checked my passport. Between the the fourth and the fifth check, a delightful Aryan women with a deep voice boomed that I was invited to join the flight on Business class.

Business class, compared to my eight hour coach tour in hell over the first time, was like Heaven.
My seat could not only recline, it could completely lay flat, or move wherever the hell I wanted it to. It even massaged me. I have no idea what kind of luck was had in mystically attaining this amazing seat. Perhaps the last seat wasn't filled. But why was I granted it? In situations like these, I maintain my cool and don't ask questions. I sat back and really enjoyed this.

During takeoff they asked me if I was thirsty and offered orange juice, water and wine. I took the chilled white wine with an R named, perhaps Riesling, I didn't even care. We took off as I listened to love poetry in German having my chair massage my lower back, eating warm breads. I was livin' life large, without shoes on because their was a special smellproof compartment for them, watching Kung-Fu Panda. My friend had given me some oxycodone to help me sleep through the ride, but how on Earth would I ever pass up every second of this indulgence. The stewardesses came by on a twenty minute cycle to offer more orange juice, water or wine and baked goods, in between the three course meal, salmon, chicken, pudding. Took in a few episodes of The Office, How I Met Your Mother, House, and even a bit of Two and a Half Men. But honestly, I hate that show. Charlie Sheen, come on man.

So to quickly recap, this was horrific catastrophe to total pimp ride back home. Who's at Logan waiting for me but T-Squared and Conman, the greatest of friends and we cruise my ass back up into north. Straight to Portland, ME. To the apartment of Dirty JC and J-Grande.

Home.

Safe.