C Bandit takes LONDON

To begin the C Bandit takes Europe series, let’s go back to day 1…May 6^th.  I'm going to give you a play by play because I don't really know how to talk about my ONE day in London - hoping a post will just formulate out of thin air.

I arrived in London after a hellacious trip from DTW to NY(LGA) to NY(JFK) to London (LHR).  Actually, if we’re being real here, it wasn’t all that bad.  I had an aisle seat on both flights but that makes it difficult to sleep.  All I really remember is the man next to me spoke French and a tiny bit of English.  He also decided to JUMP over me at least twice whilst sleeping.  Would've been fine had he not used my seat back as an aid for the jumping.  You don't want to wake me up to ask me to move?  Just use my seat and SHAKE me til I wake in a state of confusion - that's better.  After my one of my many in and out sleeping spells, I woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of food.  As I looked about, most of the passengers were eating dinner and the flight attendant, at that point, was collecting finished meals.  Yep – I had been skipped due to my drooling and snoozing.  I was upset for a brief moment but I really didn’t care after about 2 minutes; I was too out of it to care.  I proceeded to go back to sleep and hoped that my breakfast would suffice.  It was mediocre at best.  Ok, FINALLY, we arrive in London.  It hadn’t felt like a long trip.  The trip from NY to London was under 7hrs. 

Once I got there, I had to somehow find 2 other classmates that flew into the same airport on the same day.  How was this going to happen without a phone you ask?  My answer is, I don’t have a f*cking clue.  Pray and hope for the best I guess.  So, all I knew is that 1 of the 2 people should arrive after me and perhaps, BY CHANCE, I would be able to find him in the baggage claim. All of my money was riding on this.  After a disguised frantic search around baggage claim for what seemed like hours but was probably 40 minutes or so, I had almost given up hope and almost thought I had seen him several times because my ability to see far distances is not so great, I looked around the emptyish baggage claim area and tried to devise a plan B.  Nada.  Drawing a blank.  I haven't a clue.  I waited for the next waive of bag claimers and, thank god almighty, there he was.  I had never been so happy to see him in my life!  We greeted each other and attempted to find the other person.  We looked around for a while, after I had informed him that her flight was several hours before mine and that I had not seen her, he decided we should just leave and hope that we’d find her later.  Upon exiting the baggage claim area, low and behold, there she was, waiving with excitement as though we’d just returned from a 4 year voyage overseas.  Apparently she asked the airport to call us over the intercom but we hadn't heard.  We managed the first task quite well, I’d say.  People who say they would DIE if they didn’t have a cell phone (that was me at one time) really would NOT – life is just a lot more difficult and unbearable, but you certainly wouldn't die - you might WANT to though.

So, next order of business was to get from the airport to our hostel in the center of town.  Now, you would think that a person hired to work at an airport in the Information Office, who speaks perfect English, would be able to direct 3 travelers to the nearest train station or at least give us usable information in the unlikely event that we’d never been to London, nor knew the transit system.  In thinking so, you’d be wrong.  She informs us that her computer didn’t really work and that she did not know how we were going to get where we needed to go.  The only encouraging comment she gave was, “oh dear!  You lads don’t know where you’re going.  I would hate to be traveling with you!” Cheerio!  We decided to play Russian Roulette and gamble with hailing a cab.  First of all, the cars here are hilarious.  I really thought they looked “normal” but they, in fact, do not.  Back to the cab though – I had the address and we were good to go.  The man got us there but it wasn’t cheap.  I later found out that taking a cab is possibly the most expensive mode of transportation here.  The conversion from USD to the Pound, or ANY European currency, as I have come to find out, is terrible.  You give them $1000 and you get like 600 Euro or some shit.  I feel like I’m being ripped off but what do I know?  I’m just an unexperienced traveler.  So, here we are, we’re at our hostel…or are we?

Looks like a bar to me…where is it?  After minutes of searching, there was a tiny sign on the door of the bar that says, “Steam Engine Hostel.”  Ok so…This is it!  I’m new to the “Hostel Game” but apparently, “this is normal.”  The hostel part of the bar was upstairs and consisted of 4 rooms that housed 9-12 bunks each.  They really know how to CRAM you in there.  Oh well, this place was cheap and we were only staying the night.  After settling into the less-than-cozy room, we three decided to explore the town.  What the hell, the night was young!  Actually, it was about 3 in the afternoon but REALLY it was 9 AM to us because our mental clocks had be shaken and thrown into a bathtub.  To be frankly honest, I’m not even sure what we saw.  I know we saw Big Ben and I don’t even think I realized that even as I was taking the picture.  We saw a ferris wheel and…Westminster Abbey.  I really didn’t enjoy all the walking but unbeknownst to me, I would be walking LOADS more over the next 2 months.  Yep, the day was kind of a blur at this point - I was drunk on exhaustion as evident by my inability to take a straight photograph.

It was a good time though - we didn't waste away the day.  If we hadn't returned to London, at least we saw what we saw and we can say, "London? Been there, done that."