London, London, STOP

 June 30, 2017

Day  -1

I’m having a crazy day at work. We’re at a day long workshop, trying to understand two probably super big ticket solutions to a large looming problem. I receive a text from the airline (Norwegian, if you must know), which I missed. Subsequently I get a text from the husband that says “We can’t reschedule our tickets now and other airlines are too expensive to re-book.” I panic and call him as soon as we break for lunch. Turns out our flight is overbooked and the airlines is offering to rebook volunteers on another flight and 400 euros as compensation. That’s 400 euro’s each. Long story short, the husband has managed to get us tickets on a flight that leaves earlier the same day, but reaches Gatwick around the same time as our original flight. The flight is from EWR (Newark), which suits us so much better than the original JFK (New York). The only catch is there is a stopover in Iceland. We don’t care. We are super elated.

July 1 & 2, 2017

Day 1 and 2

We’ve boarded the flight and are waiting to take off – for the next three (3) hours. All flights out of this region are delayed due to bad weather.

Result – we miss our connecting flight from Reykjavik and are forced to spend more than eight (8) hours at the airport. We can’t get out because we don’t have Schengen visas. We can’t even get to the only lounge here because it is on the other side of passport control. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. the terminal is deserted. The airlines staff has disappeared. We have food vouchers but the only two delis/shops are shut and will reopen only at 1400 hours. There are two other stranded passengers ( one desperately looking for a Dunkin’ Donuts!!) and occasionally, some cleaning staff. Thankfully, there’s free wifi and we can book our stay in London.

That, dear reader, is the story of how we’ve lost an entire day and ended up with half a dozen bars of Icelandic chocolate.

We reach London pretty late. By the time we get dinner and reach our hotel, it’s almost midnight. We’ve had to rearrange plans in the interest of making the most of our limited time here, so we won’t be staying with the boys as planned. This remains my only real disappointment.

London Dreams

May 2017

I’ve made Scotland/ London/ London-Scotland plans so many times and not followed through that people don’t even take me seriously about it now. Classic case of the boy who cried wolf. Honestly, it’s a little hard for even me to believe this is actually happening. It’s feels unreal.

We’ve hatched a plan. We’ve blocked vacation time and applied for our visas. We’ve sent the embassy our passports and with great trepidation, our green cards. Our passports come back, green cards securely taped to the back, single entry visas stamped inside. It still doesn’t feel completely real. We book our tickets, and now I know we’re really going – YAAYY!! We still need to figure out our itinerary details and make reservations, but we’re going for sure.

I plan and re-plan, and drive everyone around me generally crazy. That’s too much you’re trying to do in too little time, they say. Slow down. You’ll be seven (yes 7) months pregnant, have you taken that into account? You’ll be big and slow, your feet will hurt and you’ll constantly want to pee…

To my credit, I did cut myself enough slack. Even though we were one day short (more on that later) and started much later than planned on other days, we did do 90% of what was planned. For everything that we didn’t do, there’s always a next time.