I have so much to say, but I'm so exhausted. It's been a loooooong day... But going to power through, since it's important to keep journal up to date and emotions fresh, and believe me I had a lot of emotions today.
I kind of had some ideas how I'm going to start this post even yesterday. I didn't sleep that well cause I could not stop thinking about this trip and how both excited and scared I am. Well, below I'm going to tell all the versions of how I wanted to start this post.
It was supposed to be the happiest and the most exciting day of my life. Ever since my English teacher gave us a topic to learn by heart that "...London is the capital of Great Britain..."
I knew that I really want to visit it one day. People usually say: "See Paris and die". Like Paris is so amazing and beautiful that it worth dying for. Paris obviously is on my list, but more like #2. London was always #1.
If London was a guy, I would say that he and I are in long term relationship. But not a mutual one, unfortunately. Every single time I try to get to him something happens. First, my passport was in too many embassies and it was not ready in time, then the price of tickets was like phone numbers, later I was not able to go because could not leave work, and then my passport was not ready in time again. It is like an ongoing joke, every time I try there is 99% chance it won't work.
So when Bogdan thew the idea about flying to London from Dublin, I was like "Yes" and then "Maybe". I didn't buy tickets in advance, I didn't book airbnb in advance, I couldn't believe it's actually going to happen, so didn't want to plan and get upset, for which obviously I had to pay a much more expensive price for everything. Before my trip to Ireland I got sick, my mom goes: "You are getting closer to London, here is the result. Maybe it's a sign and you shouldn't go." We both laughed but still when I got to Dublin the first thing we did we booked tickets and airbnb. The same day I booked 3 tours and a Broadway show, I was all ready for the trip. One of the tours was supposed to start in like 3 hours after I land in London.
Remember I said there were multiple ways I wanted to start today's post. You've already read the positive one about how it was supposed to be the most exciting day ever and how I dreamed about it ever since I was a little girl. Here is another beginning.
Today is the reason why I'm so scared and why I hate traveling alone. Have you seen the movie with Lindsey Lokhan where she kisses the guy and becomes really and really unlucky, in everything!!! I don't know who I kissed, can't remember anything like that (also very hard for me to skip f words in half of the sentences), but today was what's called "one of these days". Starting with a stupid mobile app. I got up early since I couldn't sleep anyway, got ready. As I mentioned before Uber is not very popular here, so the night before I downloaded the app that called "cab:app". It had a pre-booking option, I scheduled it for 8.15 so that even with traffic I can get to the airport in time for my 11.05 flight. Beep, beep, beep. Those a placeholder for all the cursing that happens in my head when I think about those15 min that spent outside in the wind waiting, just to receive the message "Driver did not confirm your trip" right at 8.15 am. So I did call uber, didn't have much choice. But they didn't have a regular option, just a black car. Just going to omit the price, trying to forget it. But it was almost twice more than I would pay for the regular car. Getting in the car I was trying to calm myself down, that it doesn't mean that it's going to be a bad day. Everything is going to work out from now on. I'm going to London what else can go wrong? hmmm, everything? First Traffic, really bad traffic. Then really unorganized Dublin airport, or at least that part of it, where there is no way you can print your boarding pass, you have to really search for a NICE person to help you. Nice is capitalized for the reason, not many of them are actually nice. Then at the security check, the guy made me take all my cosmetic and hygienic stuff out, cause it's liquid, a phrase "but it's a really tiny amount of liquid" did not convince him. He sent it through the scan again. I was still trying to repeat like a mantra "it's going to be okay, I'm going to have my first brunch in London". Wasn't very smart of me not to eat before the flight, but I was nervous, and in moments like that I become nauseous and can't really make myself eat anything. I got to the gate I was kind of early, so I thought it's a perfect opportunity to catch up with a sleep. My sleep turned into the bad dream with flight changing from being on time to "delayed for an hour". Then they changed the gate. Did I forget to mention, that in this airport gates are like really-really far from each other? Anyway, after everyone moved to the new gate and they lined us up in priority and not a priority, they told us we are delayed even more. So we spent some more time just standing in line. You would think after getting on the plane everything would finally go smoothly. Yeah, right. We spent an hour more just sitting on the plane. Because we were delayed for so long, we missed our queue to leave and now had to wait for the next one. We took off at the time we were supposed to land in London. Flight attendant smiling told us: "Don't worry it's a short flight, we will be in London very soon. " She probably regretted saying it 2 hours later when we were circling around London Gatwick airport not being able to land, cause guess what? We missed the queue here too. Around like 10 times they told us we were landing, but we were still above the clouds and only getting higher, making like 20th circle around London. What else do you think can go wrong? After not being able to land in this airport, they simply decided to send us to the different one. Remember the tour I mentioned I was supposed to have some time in advance before it, well it was supposed to start at 3.30. At 3 we landed, and for 20 more minutes, they didn't let us out of the plane. Carma? London and I are not meant to be? Remembered mom big time at that momement. I wasn't even unluckiest one on that plane. Yes, I kind of wasted the whole day, because of the stupid plane, and missed the tour. But at least I wasn't missing my connecting flight. Something that happened to me in Costa Rico was happening to the lovely woman, but in my case, it was the end of the vacation, for her, it was the beginning. She was not only missing the connecting plane but also missing the cruise from Palma De Majorca. Not a cheap cruise. And at least half of the people were also missing their planes, which were now in the different airport since we were not supposed to land where we landed. When the flight attendant said: "Thank you for your patience and we hope to see you soon on one of our flights", the crowd became very loud and very angry. Not surprising!
I had no idea how to get from that airport to my airbnb home, but shuttle bus till subway sounded good. It did, till they asked for 2 pounds for it.WTF Thought it should be free. Obviously I didn't have pounds yet, I asked about euro, she said she has no change. Can you imagine how pissed I was already at that time? Did I mention that it was already 3.30 and last time I ate was 5.30 yesterday? I took a cab, and if you ask me about the price I'll pretend I don't remember. I was so emotionally exhausted and I couldn't risk getting lost in the subway and missing Broadway show in addition to everything. 1.5 hours later we got to the correct address. And surprisingly I was able to open all the locks easily. The caring host left banana, orange, and 2 apples. Thanks, G, she did. Banana and orange were the only things I had for the whole day till like 10.30 when I came back from the show.
No more horrible things happened, I easily found the subway and easily got to the ticket box and picked up the ticket. Subways here are mad expensive I have to say, and even though they ran very often they are also not very clean as in New York. I won't go into much details about London itself today since I didn't get to chance to see much of it today. And also I'm very tired. Just kind of pushed myself to write this post. Self-discipline. The only thing I will say: I did see Book of Mormon today. I'm glad I didn't pay a New York price for it, cause it was by far not my favorite one, it would be sad to waste too much money on it. But actors were great and now I can cross it off the list.
Summarizing, it might be my last solo trip. I don't know if I'm ready to go through this hell by myself every time. I hope tomorrow will be a better day. And I hope London will meet my high expectation and our relationship will become mutual...
I kind of had some ideas how I'm going to start this post even yesterday. I didn't sleep that well cause I could not stop thinking about this trip and how both excited and scared I am. Well, below I'm going to tell all the versions of how I wanted to start this post.
It was supposed to be the happiest and the most exciting day of my life. Ever since my English teacher gave us a topic to learn by heart that "...London is the capital of Great Britain..."
I knew that I really want to visit it one day. People usually say: "See Paris and die". Like Paris is so amazing and beautiful that it worth dying for. Paris obviously is on my list, but more like #2. London was always #1.
If London was a guy, I would say that he and I are in long term relationship. But not a mutual one, unfortunately. Every single time I try to get to him something happens. First, my passport was in too many embassies and it was not ready in time, then the price of tickets was like phone numbers, later I was not able to go because could not leave work, and then my passport was not ready in time again. It is like an ongoing joke, every time I try there is 99% chance it won't work.
So when Bogdan thew the idea about flying to London from Dublin, I was like "Yes" and then "Maybe". I didn't buy tickets in advance, I didn't book airbnb in advance, I couldn't believe it's actually going to happen, so didn't want to plan and get upset, for which obviously I had to pay a much more expensive price for everything. Before my trip to Ireland I got sick, my mom goes: "You are getting closer to London, here is the result. Maybe it's a sign and you shouldn't go." We both laughed but still when I got to Dublin the first thing we did we booked tickets and airbnb. The same day I booked 3 tours and a Broadway show, I was all ready for the trip. One of the tours was supposed to start in like 3 hours after I land in London.
Remember I said there were multiple ways I wanted to start today's post. You've already read the positive one about how it was supposed to be the most exciting day ever and how I dreamed about it ever since I was a little girl. Here is another beginning.
Today is the reason why I'm so scared and why I hate traveling alone. Have you seen the movie with Lindsey Lokhan where she kisses the guy and becomes really and really unlucky, in everything!!! I don't know who I kissed, can't remember anything like that (also very hard for me to skip f words in half of the sentences), but today was what's called "one of these days". Starting with a stupid mobile app. I got up early since I couldn't sleep anyway, got ready. As I mentioned before Uber is not very popular here, so the night before I downloaded the app that called "cab:app". It had a pre-booking option, I scheduled it for 8.15 so that even with traffic I can get to the airport in time for my 11.05 flight. Beep, beep, beep. Those a placeholder for all the cursing that happens in my head when I think about those15 min that spent outside in the wind waiting, just to receive the message "Driver did not confirm your trip" right at 8.15 am. So I did call uber, didn't have much choice. But they didn't have a regular option, just a black car. Just going to omit the price, trying to forget it. But it was almost twice more than I would pay for the regular car. Getting in the car I was trying to calm myself down, that it doesn't mean that it's going to be a bad day. Everything is going to work out from now on. I'm going to London what else can go wrong? hmmm, everything? First Traffic, really bad traffic. Then really unorganized Dublin airport, or at least that part of it, where there is no way you can print your boarding pass, you have to really search for a NICE person to help you. Nice is capitalized for the reason, not many of them are actually nice. Then at the security check, the guy made me take all my cosmetic and hygienic stuff out, cause it's liquid, a phrase "but it's a really tiny amount of liquid" did not convince him. He sent it through the scan again. I was still trying to repeat like a mantra "it's going to be okay, I'm going to have my first brunch in London". Wasn't very smart of me not to eat before the flight, but I was nervous, and in moments like that I become nauseous and can't really make myself eat anything. I got to the gate I was kind of early, so I thought it's a perfect opportunity to catch up with a sleep. My sleep turned into the bad dream with flight changing from being on time to "delayed for an hour". Then they changed the gate. Did I forget to mention, that in this airport gates are like really-really far from each other? Anyway, after everyone moved to the new gate and they lined us up in priority and not a priority, they told us we are delayed even more. So we spent some more time just standing in line. You would think after getting on the plane everything would finally go smoothly. Yeah, right. We spent an hour more just sitting on the plane. Because we were delayed for so long, we missed our queue to leave and now had to wait for the next one. We took off at the time we were supposed to land in London. Flight attendant smiling told us: "Don't worry it's a short flight, we will be in London very soon. " She probably regretted saying it 2 hours later when we were circling around London Gatwick airport not being able to land, cause guess what? We missed the queue here too. Around like 10 times they told us we were landing, but we were still above the clouds and only getting higher, making like 20th circle around London. What else do you think can go wrong? After not being able to land in this airport, they simply decided to send us to the different one. Remember the tour I mentioned I was supposed to have some time in advance before it, well it was supposed to start at 3.30. At 3 we landed, and for 20 more minutes, they didn't let us out of the plane. Carma? London and I are not meant to be? Remembered mom big time at that momement. I wasn't even unluckiest one on that plane. Yes, I kind of wasted the whole day, because of the stupid plane, and missed the tour. But at least I wasn't missing my connecting flight. Something that happened to me in Costa Rico was happening to the lovely woman, but in my case, it was the end of the vacation, for her, it was the beginning. She was not only missing the connecting plane but also missing the cruise from Palma De Majorca. Not a cheap cruise. And at least half of the people were also missing their planes, which were now in the different airport since we were not supposed to land where we landed. When the flight attendant said: "Thank you for your patience and we hope to see you soon on one of our flights", the crowd became very loud and very angry. Not surprising!
I had no idea how to get from that airport to my airbnb home, but shuttle bus till subway sounded good. It did, till they asked for 2 pounds for it.
No more horrible things happened, I easily found the subway and easily got to the ticket box and picked up the ticket. Subways here are mad expensive I have to say, and even though they ran very often they are also not very clean as in New York. I won't go into much details about London itself today since I didn't get to chance to see much of it today. And also I'm very tired. Just kind of pushed myself to write this post. Self-discipline. The only thing I will say: I did see Book of Mormon today. I'm glad I didn't pay a New York price for it, cause it was by far not my favorite one, it would be sad to waste too much money on it. But actors were great and now I can cross it off the list.
Summarizing, it might be my last solo trip. I don't know if I'm ready to go through this hell by myself every time. I hope tomorrow will be a better day. And I hope London will meet my high expectation and our relationship will become mutual...
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