2nd April 2019, 4:03am
I found pizza in my bed!
It was the morning after our return from London and, because of my internal clock still ticking on UK time, I woke up at 4am in desperate need to pee. I pulled the blanket aside and could see in the faint light of the pre-dawn morning that there was something in my bed. It had the size of my thumb nail and my first thought was that it was some sort of mutant bug. I picked it up; it was cold and squishy. In the bathroom light I could clearly identify it as a small piece of pizza covered in lint.
I had fallen asleep while eating a frozen pizza the night before. We hadn’t returned until after 7pm and I felt ready to call it a night, but I had to eat something to avoid crashing in the morning. Never did I imagine finding my dinner in bed with me.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though, as it really fit with the rather interesting nature of our UK trip. Nothing could have prepared us for what was in store or the hard lessons we would learn.
Let’s backtrack to roughly two weeks prior to the pizza-in-bed incident, shall we?
16th March 2019
Departure
We booked our flight for March 17th at 9:30am with Air Canada. I have never taken a morning flight from North America to Europe, but I hoped it would be easier to handle the jetlag, since we were supposed to arrive at night.
So, in theory, we would tiredly stumble off the plane, get to our hotel and go straight to sleep, waking up in the morning as per usual. I was certainly intrigued by that prospect. But this also meant getting an incredibly early start to the day of our departure.
My period had been right on time, so as I lay in bed at a reasonable hour I hugged and begged myself to fall asleep, despite the awful cramps I had. I saw the silver lining, though, this month the traditional migraine had spared me. What a relief.
The alarm went off at 4am. My husband, B–, and I got up and got ready for the day ahead. I was even able to squeeze in a short yoga practice, how wonderful!
We made ourselves sandwiches to-go and called an Uber. We hadn’t been able to use the online check-in the night before, nothing I was really concerned about, since the same thing happened to my mother the previous year when the two of us took a trip to England. I checked my email for flight changes, not having received any, we were on our way to the airport at a little before 6am.
Something was nagging me, though. I kept having this strange feeling I had forgotten something crucial. I checked the flight status on my phone and was horrified to see that our lovely flight had been delayed by 15 hours!
“Oh my god! How could this be? No email? No automatic rebooking?” I began chanting these questions to myself over and over again.
“Want me to turn around?” Our Uber driver asked.
No, we decided. It was best to get to the airport and find out what happened on site.
A $50 Uber ride later, we arrived at the airport promptly at 6:30am, just as we had planned. We tried the self check-in machines, which indeed showed us in the typical unemotional computer fashion that the departure time had been changed from 9:30am to 11:05pm that night.
We found someone from the Air Canada ground personnel and received this short statement: “The system is currently not accepting check-ins for the originally scheduled 9:30am flight. We are waiting for another plane to get in. Check the ticketing counter to get booked on an earlier flight.”
Any chance of asking more questions was squashed by the person deliberately turning her back on us.
I wondered, if this still had anything to do with the crashed Boeing machine in Ethiopia that caused the grounding of one specific model. It had been almost a week. This wasn’t a new situation. Why weren’t we informed that Air Canada was still in the process of fixing the flight schedule? Only assumptions could be made.
I dragged B– to the ticketing counter. We were lucky we got to the airport as early as we did. Not many people had shown up for the 9:30am flight, yet, so our chances to get rebooked to an earlier flight were still good.
I worked for Lufthansa for a bit a few years ago and I remember their procedures for dealing with mass schedule changes took on similar tactics: don’t say anything and let the passengers figure things out once they get to the airport and feel truly stranded.
The ground personnel can deal with their flaring tempers and empty threats. It is a terrible way to deal with things, but in the end, those who take the time to send in their documentation for reimbursement will get some money back and everyone is happy.
We got put on a flight leaving at 7:35pm. Our purchased seat reservations were void and we had about 8 hours to kill before we needed to be at security. B– wanted to stay. I wanted to go back home to rest. This promised to become a very long day.
We went back home via public transportation. We watched Netflix, took a nap and had homemade bacon sandwiches. At 4pm we took public transit back to the airport, just in time for my monthly migraine to make a late appearance. My head was burning from my neck, to my temples and my forehead.
The wait after the security check and before boarding was relatively uneventful. We had some pretty awful airport food, watched a basketball game they showed at one of the bars and muscled our way to be the first of our section to be on board, because Air Canada never provides enough overhead space for carry-on luggage. If one is unlucky enough to find themselves out of space, they require the carry-on to be checked…Air Canada is also notorious for losing or delaying luggage.
In 2018, my mother had to go the first two full days of our trip without her luggage, because Air Canada not only lost it, but the delivery service they hired to return it to her was too lazy to make the drive from London Heathrow to Saint Ives, Cornwall, where we stayed.
Finally, B– and I were seated on the plane, seat belts fastened, carry-on stored securely above. The crew announced all passengers were on board, yet nothing happened. It began to get uncomfortably hot on the plane. My head throbbed dangerously, while the well-known migraine nausea slowly kicked in.
It must have been almost an hour before the crew finally made the announcement that not only had security evacuated the entire international building due to smoke coming from one of the kitchens, but the pilots scheduled to fly our plane were among those evacuated.
In the end, we left two hours behind schedule and only two hours earlier than our originally delayed flight. I made a mental note to never travel on St. Patrick’s Day again, that little bugger had way too much fun that day.
18th March 2019
London
We arrived at our hotel the next morning at 11am. We had lost one night of sleep. Our previously purchased Heathrow Express train tickets for the night of March 17th were useless the next morning and we had missed breakfast at the hotel.
Breakfast at The Belgrave, the hotel I had stayed at with my mother the previous year as well, has one of the best hotel breakfasts I have ever tasted, and I looked very much forward to it. But this ridiculously long day was still not over for us and had to be continued without breakfast.
I had purchased tickets to tour Tower of London online prior to our departure. This was my fourth visit to London, and I had never been to this tower.
I took my brother to Paris and London in late summer of 2007 as a celebration of finishing my undergraduate degree. I had worked two jobs throughout the summer to make sure we would have enough money. We split up the cash designated for the trip and when we stood in front of the ticket booth, we noticed that it had run out.
Little did I know at the time that my brother was so good at hiding his portion of the cash in his backpack that he didn’t find it until we were back home in Canada.
Last year, my mother and I weren’t able to get to the tower until after it had closed for the day, our last day in London.
So, this time around I made sure I would have a chance to see this historical place. But the travel gods were making it very difficult. We were sleep deprived and my mood got steadily worse, in part because of the numerous open vendors that sold roasted peanuts just outside the tower grounds – I am allergic to peanuts – and because the tower disappointed me. It was mostly about armours and didn’t go into much factual detail. B– still had a nice time and it was fascinating to see the courtyard where Anne Boleyn had lost her head, but my mood was just too rotten to save the day for me.
As it so often appears, when it rains it pours. That night I noticed my fire agate pendant was missing – it came to be a treasured piece for me – and B– and I got into a fight, about what I can’t remember. Like so often, our fights and arguments are about trivial things that are barely worth their memory.
19th March 2019 – 22nd March 2019
Bath
The next day, after a good night’s sleep we were headed for Bath, the first stop in our Jane Austen research adventure.
On the train I received a text message from B–’s brother, informing me that their grandmother had died the day before.
I replied to his text, letting him know to send me any updates about the funeral arrangements. My phone was always on.
For good measure I sent a text to my mother to test, if my phone actually sent them halfway across the world. It worked and I kept an eye on my phone for the remainder of the entire trip.
I asked B–, if he wanted to return home straight away. He said it didn’t make much sense rushing home without knowing the details of the funeral.
Our time in Bath was actually quite enjoyable and I began to feel like we had shaken the bad juju that stuck to us the first two days.
We had dinner at The Raven the first evening. They make meat pies in house from scratch and they are delightfully delicious. We had to sit at the bar, because the upstairs dining room was being used for a private function.
One of the bar tenders could have been a dear friend’s twin brother: tall, broad, friendly, chatty with a full voice, he had no shortage of suggestions of what types of scotch to try and a local band worth checking out the following evening.
Experiencing local music in a local pub, away from the tourists, soaking up the energy is something I will remember for a very long time.
The pub was almost overcrowded. It was so warm in there, the windows fogged up from condensation; most had stripped down to their shirts or tank tops and left their coats on a pile in a corner. The band played without a break until the pub closed at 11pm.
Walking back to our rented apartment that night reminded me of our walks home from bars in Waterloo during our undergraduate years. The streets were deserted and only tired people, waiting for the late-night bus could be seen, except for those few morons that thought it necessary to run through the streets of old Bath City, screaming. Just like home.
The Jane Austen Centre ended up being as much fun as it had been a year ago, when I visited with my mother. The doorman and greeter, whose stage name is “Mr. Bennet” had a grand old time tricking me into chasing him down the street in order to pose for a photo with me.
Visitors received the newest information about the Rice portrait, which researchers now believe to be of a young Jane Austen. And during the dress up and photoshoot I met an employee named “Jane Fairfax”, who not only turned out to be just as an enthusiastic Janeite as me, but also told us to look for a relatively hidden piece of original wallpaper preserved in the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, our next stop.
B– giggled and told me afterwards that it was a beautiful sight seeing two Jane fans geeking it out together as we both realized we could show our true colours to each other.
On our last night we went to the Thermal Spa, which Bath is so famous for and I have to admit, soaking in the natural hot springs water in a rooftop pool overlooking Bath Abbey and most of Bath City lit up at night made me feel like a million dollars.
For the first time on this trip I could relax; it felt wonderful.
22nd March 2019 – 25th March 2019
Chawton
I was lured into a false sense of security. The morning of our departure to Chawton, B– got very ill. Based on the symptoms, it appeared to have been food poisoning, although I noticed he looked a bit pale the last few days.
I still held on to the food poisoning theory and blamed the fish cakes and mountain of chips he had for dinner last night. I warned him not to eat too much food, he didn’t listen and now our only hope was that he would be able to control his bodily functions during the portions of the trip that excluded a bathroom.
It was going to be one of those seemingly endless travel days that could suck the joy of travelling out of even the most seasoned of travelers.
We got to the train station early. B– felt and looked like a little lump of misery. He could neither eat nor drink.
He remained quiet until we were settled in our seats on the train. He tried to tell me something, which I could not understand and had to ask him five times to repeat himself. He got impatient and started hissing.
“It’s difficult for me to talk.” He explained.
“Then why do you try to talk at all?” I retorted rather tartly.
He kept fidgeting in his seat. He sighed and moaned and was clearly in discomfort. I couldn’t help him and that frustrated me a lot. Also, I had been feeling a little out of it ever since I woke up. I didn’t really feel sick, just a bit squishy in the head, making it difficult to fully concentrate.
Because of B–’s reduced health, I carried the big luggage and he the smaller one. At our transfer point in Reading I got to feel the full effect of already tired muscles that try to hoist a luggage up stairs that seemed to go on for miles.
We had to ask for directions to find our next train, which was a smaller, local service that took travellers right to Gatwick Airport. We were told to take this train until North Camp station, exit, follow the signs to a different train station called Ash and take the train to our destination.
It’s easy, we can’t miss it. Want to bet?
The stop announcement on our current train malfunctioned and skipped one stop ahead. Instead of calling Wokingham station, Blackwater station was called first, which meant the next stop would be ours. I was a little confused, but I could easily explain it away with detours, delays and construction that was underway. Plus, the first train stop actually had two names.
So, Blackwater station came, the announcement said North Camp and we scrambled to grab our bags and exit. We had to rush. In the confusion B– accidentally took the wrong carry-on bag. I noticed it just in time.
The train left and we were standing on a deserted platform with a sign hanging over our head reading “Blackwater”.
There was no one to ask. I was finally able to find a man walking through a nearby park. He kindly offered to find out on his phone when the next train would come, because this was indeed Blackwater station and North Camp was the next station stop.
Back on the train, after a 30-minute wait, we got off at North Camp station. We followed the misleading signs that almost brought us back to North Camp station instead of Ash station. After a 12-minute walk we reached Ash station. A station consisting entirely of stairs, stairs and more stairs.
I was surprised I didn’t spot a mountain goat by the time we got to the platform, soaked in sweat and shaking from exhaustion.
I was thoroughly fed up. Our last bit of the journey to our room opposite the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton went relatively smoothly, except for a little mix up with the bus numbers and a rather bitchy bus driver that stopped the bus for 10 minutes to yell at the school boys on board. And, our host never introduced herself.
She ran a tearoom beside the room we rented. We arrived shortly after it closed at 4pm and one of the girls she employs gave us the key to the room.
The room smelled like mildew and fabric softener. The kettle and small fridge had seen better days and I had to conclude that this really wasn’t worth $460 for 3 nights. It was all about the location.
B– vomited again and went straight to bed. I got myself a pizza from the pub next door and ate it in bed while watching TV. Another exhausting travel day finally came to an end.
B– was still too sick to join me on my first visit to the house museum. I had to return the following day anyway, because it was too busy to see all the exhibits.
In the afternoon we took a walk up to Chawton House, Jane’s brother’s second estate. It had beautiful grounds, contained the graves of her sister and mother and there is a room in the house, which according to family legend, used to be her hiding spot when watching people.
All of it seemed so fascinating and everyone I talked to was friendly and welcoming, yet I felt like my words weren’t coming out properly and my brain was in a constant fog.
That night we had dinner at the local pub. On Saturday nights it turns into more of a formal restaurant with candles on tables and a full dinner menu.
During the three steps it took us to get back to our room I looked around this tiny place of a village with the museum as its centre and all I could see was darkness. The main road led past the tearoom, our room, the pub, the museum and disappeared into the blackness of the eerily quiet night.
The museum stood dark and silent with its shutters drawn, almost desperate to tell stories of its famous tenants those many years ago.
The next day B– accompanied me to the museum. I would have missed a crucial find, if I hadn’t returned with him.
Firstly, I found the wallpaper Jane Fairfax told us about, and secondly, there was a letter written by Jane’s sister on display that dated a day after her death, which provides important clues that are relevant to my thesis.
I was relieved that this trip wasn’t just a struggle in vain through Hampshire, England.
In the afternoon we topped off our research by visiting her grave in the nearby Winchester Cathedral. Little did I know then that all good things come with a price.
25th March 2019
Edinburgh
I hadn’t been feeling well after dinner the night before and I woke up at 1am with a heavy pressure in my gut.
I used the bathroom and hoped to get a few more hours of sleep before we had to catch our train to Edinburgh. 20 minutes later I ran full speed into the bathroom to throw up everything I had eaten in the last 24 hours.
I felt cold and clammy all over. I shook terribly and my stomach threatened to empty itself of more by whichever exit necessary.
My mother had messaged me two days earlier, telling me she had gotten sick and described the same symptoms B– showed. This was not food poisoning, this was a very nasty, very fast acting stomach bug.
Obviously, I would catch it, too. I shared food and water bottles and kisses with B–. And, of course, it had to be on a travel day.
“Sweety, you need to take over today. I’ll try and stay conscious.” I told him while hugging myself.
I also apologized for my less than sympathetic behaviour towards him during his illness. This was truly awful.
I made it to King’s Cross station in London, our transfer station, without further incident. There was a long line of kids and tourists waiting for their turn to have their picture taken with the Harry Potter Platform 9 ¾ prop.
Well, while unassuming fans alike pretended for a few precious minutes that they were off to Hogwarts, I was running to the bathroom with bile was rising up in my mouth.
I may have cut the line and bumped some people; I certainly did not close or lock the bathroom stall when I threw up the bit of water and tea I had drunk. There was no time.
I could now add London to my growing list of European cities I had thrown up in – the others being Berlin and Paris, and neither my fault.
24 years ago, my hamster had died in my hands. My mother demanded I accompany her to the post office right after. Why she wanted her 10-year-old daughter, who had just experienced the death of her hamster, come with her to the stupid post office, is still beyond me. All I remember is running out of the building and straight for the bushes before losing my lunch.
In 2007, during the trip with my brother, I reacted to my medication and broke my record of throwing up four times in less than an hour. One of those times was on the quiet street of Paris on a Sunday morning at 7 o’clock. Nobody saw me, except for one woman, who stood right behind me.
Thankfully, the train ride to Edinburgh was uneventful. I slept like a bum with an open mouth and head rolling from side to side for most of the 6 hours.
We spent our 6-day stay in Edinburgh recovering from that awful stomach bug, taking small walks and shopping for souvenirs. Nothing really out of the ordinary happened…except for one event:
27th March 2019
At around 8:30pm B– happened to be scrolling through Facebook when he looked up at me and said it looks like he is going to miss his grandmother’s funeral.
His aunt had posted a notification on her page with the details of the service, which were planned for Saturday, March 30th, 2019, two days before our return.
I walked over to my phone and checked my text messages, online messages, emails and possible missed calls. B– had called his mother from my phone and left a message the evening we found out about his grandmother’s passing, but we never heard anything back.
At this point, it was too late to arrange any travel plans to make it back in time. It upset me greatly that nobody had the decency to inform him. We have had some difficulty with his mother and hadn’t been on speaking terms since last year. Taking her son’s chance to say his goodbye to his grandmother was a low blow.
8th April 2019, 2:06pm
I just finished filling 76 pages of handwritten notes in my travel journal, turning my hand into a cramped-up claw. The aftereffects of the stomach bug kept me from using my laptop, since my nausea made it impossible to focus for longer than two minutes on the screen.
Upon reflection of this trip, it has occurred to me that no matter how much research, planning, organizing and experience one has traveling, there are factors that will always be out of one’s control. And that’s the beauty of traveling.
It reflects life, while teaching us lessons about ourselves and the people, with whom we surround ourselves. There is only so much control we have and I’m a true believer that traveling, regardless of how ridiculous it can be at times, helps us obtain a broader understanding of how to deal with life’s challenges.
