Vacation Deluge - Edition 1 - Day 1: To London!

And now let the deluge of vacation-related stories begin.

Feel free not to read these, but you should, because there are stories. Lots of them.

This one's going to be a mess because I have mad jet lag right now - got in at like 6:00 last night and woke up at about 4:30 this morning. Awesome.

And so it begins...

We were worried that our flight out would involve some sort of mayhem, because (a) NJ was flooded and we were flying out of Newark and (b) an SUV ran down five pedestrians on a sidewalk on the corner of 47th and 10th! Right by my apartment! I'd never have known had I not been watching the news in order to get information about flight delays out of Newark. Crazy. I ran and looked out the window and yes! Ambulances! News crews! Right on the corner of my block!

The flight was fine despite the floods and bad omen, and we departed without incident from Newark at 10:00 pm.

The flight began with our conversing with this pompous guy from England who claimed to know everything there was to know about everything possible. He was returning from a 5-week long trip through Canada's Inside Passage and told us everything about it. He's a writer/filmmaker who found himself fascinating. He was in desperate need of someone to talk at. I hated him instantly, and he found a captive audience in D. When we told him we were scientists he told us everything he knew about science. He also told us not to go to Bath. "Why would you want to go there?" he asked, cross with us. "Because... of The Baths," I said. "No, no, go to Oxford instead," he said, and promised D the oldest museum in the world that houses the private collection of an eccentric who travelled the world and gathered bizarre objects like shrunken heads. I must admit I was enthused about the shrunken heads, but I had my heart set on Bath. It became apparent, however, that D was more into the idea of Oxford. D talked to this guy (which was awkard given that I was seated between them) for what seemed like eternity.

Luckily he stopped talking when we took off and instead started to whistle.

I'm not kidding. He whistled on the plane.

I was determined to sleep on the plane as we wanted to take in a bit of London that day. I reclined in my seat, and within a few seconds it shot back up. I tried again, and again it happened. I decided to wait a few minutes and then try again. I tried again, and when it shot back up I realized that someone was actually pushing me. I knew there was a child seated behind me, so I decided to turn around and beg the parents to stop their child from pushing my seat. When I turned around, I was shocked to learn that it was an adult who was pushing me.

I thought "What would LBF do?" LBF is assertive. I tried my best to channel LBF.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?"

She played dumb.

"Excuse me, are you pushing my seat?"

"Yes."

"Why are you pushing my seat?"

"Because we are eating dinner."

"No we're not."

"No, see, you can't lean back because of dinner."

"Right, yes, except that we're not eating dinner."

Silence.

"Are you eating dinner?"

"What?"

"Are you actually eating dinner right now?"

"No... but...."

I turned around, because for the love of god what is wrong with people!??!?! I had to turn around because I was about to cry. And then I cried for a bit, because of the whistling and the woman and because I was so tired and wanted so badly to sleep. I rehearsed in my mind what I would say should she push me again post-dinner, and got up the nerve to conjure up the necessary drama. Luckily she didn't push me again, and I was able to get a good three hours of sleep on the flight.

We arrived in London again without incident. We took the Gatwick Express to London. I slept the entire time. Allegedly it took an hour to get to London (it is supposed to take 35 minutes) but it didn't matter to me because more sleep! We transferred to the tube and headed to D's cousin's office to pick up the keys to her apartment.

D didn't remember where it was. We walked around aimlessly, looking for number 88. I let this go on for about five minutes and finally said "Um, D, do you think it might be 33?" I knew it was number 33, because I'd seen it written down earlier that day. D is the kind of guy who likes to know where he is and not have his sense of direction challenged, especially by a girl. I'd hoped he'd just figure it out on his own, but I had limited patience after so much transportation. Once we found the address, we had no idea how to get in. Again, there was some mention of a complicated entrance to her office but he couldn't remember what she'd said. And he didn't know what company she worked for. We walked around, down alleys, without any idea of what to do. Finally we asked a man wearing a suit if we could borrow his phone.

We found D's cousin and she put us in a cab to her apartment.

We dropped off our bags and went to lunch. It was delicious.

We went back to her apartment. We broke one of her toilets instantly. How? No idea. The flushing mechanism just disconnected. And can you fix it? No! Because in London, all flushing-related articles are BEHIND THE WALL for the purposes of aesthetics. We tried to access it through the closet, through the hallway, but no luck!

We took showers and napped for too long.

Then I felt sick. I think that my lunch may have been laced with meat. With only one functioning toilet which we were both afraid to use as we feared breaking it, I just had to suffer.

When D's cousin returned from work, we walked along the river and soaked up the sights. D drank outside because it is allowed there and he was like a kid in a candy store. I took pictures (coming soon).

We ate a gross dinner in Covent Garden. We drank Pimm's (I don't see the big deal). My stomach rebelled, still angry from earlier that day. We walked around a bit more. We didn't get run over but it was difficult to adjust to traffic coming from the wrong direction. London reminded me of Boston, which made me homesick.

We returned to D's cousin's amazing flat and watched some bizarre made-for-TV-esque prequel to Romy and Michelle against which we were powerless.

We tried to sleep on the tall air mattress that caved into the middle when there are two people on it, as though it were a giant piece of memory foam!

And that was Day 1.