We landed in London at 6:00 a.m. local time, but midnight our time. We were exhausted, but hyped up on adrenaline. I remember when we landed, I looked out the window and saw a Union Jack flag and felt all fluttery. I couldn't believe our dream was finally a reality but as always happened, I was once again overcome with mixed feelings of guilt and dread, but I'll get to that later.
Customs was very busy, and we stood in line for an hour. The customs agent who processed us was the first real person I'd heard speak with a British accent and it was such a novelty, and we chatted about our teenager who was trying to pretend that he wasn't part of our group, and the agent said he had one of those at home, so I guess it's universal. Our baggage was waiting for us at baggage claim, we were able to exchange our American cash for pound notes, and we were off to find the bus that would take us to the car rental facility. Easy peasy.
People think we're nuts to have rented a car in London, and we were. But at the time, we didn't know how we'd get around to the outside parts of London without trains and buses, so we opted to rent a car for two days. Only two days. I'd spent countless hours researching maps and routes and I knew we were ready. The "seven-seater" car we were given was a joke. Imagine a VW Beetle with an extra row. With our bags and people, that's how we fit inside the thing. At this point we were going on no sleep in almost twenty-four hours, but we were doing fine. That is, until we left the parking lot.
We got on the morotway (i.e. American freeway) and not even a quarter of a mile down the road, the car started acting funny, and then BAM!!!
A front tire blew and there was a terrible noise coming from under the car. The rim was grating into the asphalt and leaving a half-inch indentation for about fifty feet. Did I mention we could still see the exit to the car rental place in the rear-view mirror? I'll make this painful story short and say that the tire blew off with such force, that it struck the truck behind us (large food truck), wrapped around his back axle casing him to skid and lose control, and he hit another car. All because of a blown tire. Well, in the UK, the police have zero tolerance for any kind of road mishap and will fine/ticket drivers for even having a flat tire.
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| Trying to make lemonade out of lemons! |
They tried for an hour to get the tire unwrapped from the truck's axle and couldn't. Those were some POWERFUL physics at play. The cop looks at the rim that came off our car and said it had obviously been driven for a long time in that condition (this is where he was going to give us a ticket) until we convinced him that it was a rental and we'd been driving less than a mile!
After a couple of hours on the side of the motorway and going on even less sleep, we eventually made our way back to the car rental place, hobbling in on an old donut tire. Remember that secene in "National Lampoon's European Vacation" when they get stuck on the roundabout in London?
"Look, kids! Big Ben!"
I promise to God, England motorways are a nightmare. I'll leave it at that.
And when we finally make it back there an hour and a half later, what happens? The rental people charge us for damaging their car. I'm just gonna end this right here before I start seeing red again. $2,500 for a damaged rim that wasn't our fault. The next day, we'd discover that our credit card had been lost somewhere along the motorway or in the parking lot or perhaps in the damaged rental car. Yeah, there went our money and our only way to get cash.
We were now behind schedule by about seven hours. All we wanted to do was make it to the flat, unpack, shower, and try to catch a nap. But what happened when we got there? We found out our reservation was wrong. Long story and I won't rehash it, but the landlord who met us was going to make us find another place to stay unless I could pay him an extra hundred pounds on the spot to accommodate us. Cash only. Remember how I said we could no longer get cash because our card was gone? I reached into my wallet and pulled out the LAST of our remaining cash and gave it to him, all so we wouldn't be on the street. That would be all of our cash for the rest of the week, and this was a group of countries that took only cash in most places, especially in the villages. Great.
I had a mental break-down in front of the landlord who simply looked at me like a deer in headlights.
"Stupid Americans."
When we were finally able to get checked in, I sat on the bed and just cried. I was so tired, emotionally, physically, and my heart was heavy. This was Garrett's trip. This trip was only happening because of him, and everything was going wrong, and we hadn't even been in the country a full day yet. All of the anxiety and guilt and sadness I felt about the circumstances surrounding the trip came flooding out of me. For weeks, I'd had nightmares of everything that could go wrong on the trip, and it seemed to have been happening in pieces. I'm leaving a lot out here, but trust me when I say it was bad. We'd already run into so many major snags and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I was too anxious to sleep, so I lied there in bed and just shook.
Finally, it was dark outside and we decided to shower and then head into the village to find some dinner. The walk through this part of London was quaint and idyllic, despite the terrible day we'd had the horrible welcome into the country. We found a little Turkish restaurant and the food was excellent. We didn't plan on eating Turk while in England, but that's what we found, and that's what we had. On the way back to the flat, we stopped in a little market for some essentials and the clerks got a kick out of hearing our "huge" family speak "American". We got that everywhere we went, and it was odd!
Despite the almost ruined reservation and using our only remaining cash reserve to save our hides, our flat was adequate and served our needs. It was in a quiet neighborhood in northwest London, a little village called "Wilstead Green", and we had part of the second floor in this subdivided townhouse.
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