The first time I went to the UK...
...I was already alerted to the fact that my travelling companions weren’t exactly a model of responsibility or even remotely mentally sane.
Our first ‘adventure’ was at the airport at home: we were practically accused of kidnapping my friend’s kid because his dad wasn’t coming with us and she’s too stubborn to explain to people he’s not even married to her – she thinks it’s no one’s business and doesn’t understand the reason why the people at the airport asked (duh).
The trip turned out to be a disappointment because we had no money at all to see the sights (apparently, our ‘pal’ who invited us and was going to save us some money by letting us sleepover suddenly decided her landlord wouldn’t find it acceptable to have three people sleeping in her tiny rented bedroom so we ended up spending our first night at a taxi driver’s house who was gracious enough to offer it as a temporary hotel). I was truly sorry I didn’t get to enjoy my first real tourist experience, but it’s my own fault (I live in a Mediterranean country with miles of beaches; why should I even bother to go anywhere else?).
So after a not-so-pleasant 10 days in London eating Tesco-based meals and walking until we couldn’t stand anymore (no money for bus fares), I decided it was time to go home. Also, my mother was scheduled to have a cancer related emergency surgery and I guessed I was better off heading back home as soon as possible.
The three of us (me, a friend and her, at the time, 8 year old son) leave the Hostel two hours past check-out time because we couldn’t pay for another night and it’s constantly raining, cold and we don’t find the idea of spending the next 12 hours hanging around a central station very appealing. Our flight is at 9 a.m. the next morning and we have to kill time.
We drag our huge bags across the city to Stanstead Airport and nest there for the night.
All was going as planned when suddenly my friend’s 8 year old kid, who was playing football with some other children, appears to us with his head and face covered in blood.
We nearly freak out until the boy says he split his head open by smashing it into a security barrier when trying to catch the ball. His mother doesn’t speak a word of English so I stay with him while he gets patched up by a paramedic. At this time, I’m very nervous – my mother’s having life threatening surgery a million miles away, I have no money left to get this kid to a hospital and I start feeling very, very sick. While the paramedic is explaining to me what he can do so the kid can have his head in one peace until we get home I start seeing him divide into three equal people at the same time the floor decides its going to aerobicize under me.
The paramedic asks me if its because of the blood and I say no (which was true), but I need to get to a bathroom as soon as possible.
In the small stall I calm down and when I get out of the bathroom the kid’s ready to go (btw, thanks to that super nice paramedic – you saved what was left of my sanity, guy). We’re back on track. Now if only the people around me at the airport didn’t look so strange I could actually get some sleep until check-in time. Except I don’t. While my friend and her kid sleep like the dead, I stay awake and guard the luggage, us and the last two pounds we have in our pockets.
After checking in, I get a weird look from the people x-raying our bags because I have a foldable umbrella in my back-pack and they think it looks like a bomb. I also have a small office knife in there, but this was before 9/11 so no one notices that.
By the time I’m on the plane, I’m so stressed and tired I fall asleep even before the damn thing takes off.
I wake up in my radically warmer home town and run to the hospital so see my mother, only to get criticized because I was having my fun in London instead of being at her bedside.
(Mikash, Mon 6 Mar 2006, 11:14, Reply)