Eurotrip: The Beginning

I have never been to Europe before, excluding the longest flight ever where I flew for 24 hours with tons of layovers getting on and off of the plane on my way out of the Navy stopping in various cities.  That doesn’t really count in my opinion because my experience with Europe was getting a 125 mL bottle of some Greek red wine while at a layover at an airport.  I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time, and you would think that since I had been, that I would have planned things out better.  Planning is not one of my strongest points, and come the night before my trip I had that sudden moment of oh crap I’m going four thousand miles away to some nations where I’m nowhere near fluent in the nation for a couple of weeks of my life.

I only have a few things set in stone.

1. Various hotels, for a couple of reasons.  To find out if that expensive hotel is worth the money, to supplement the cost of the expensive hotels with cheaper ones and to get myself enough stays to work myself up to Hilton Honors Diamond this year.  The downside is going from hotel to hotel will be annoying but it gives me a reason to wake early in the morning and see different parts of the cities I’m going to.
2.  Muse Concert.  I’ve seen Muse live a couple of times before and I’ve been a huge fan since the first time I’ve seen them live.  They are an amazing live band.  Their London show, according to their interview is supposed to be bigger and better than their US Tour according to their interview.  I have no idea how it can be bigger and better than the concert I saw.
3.  Take lots of photos.  I am so bad when it comes to taking pictures and I am really going to have to make mental notes and force myself to take more pictures but it will happen.
4. Enjoy myself, don’t push myself to see everything and make sure I get some relax time in.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, so I don’t expect to see it in two days.  I definitely want this vacation to be a vacation which means I’m going to have some chillax time.

Going to the airport turned to be a little bit of a stressful event.  I had ordered some extra batteries and a mini tripod for my digital camera that was due to arrive the day I left on Amazon.  I totally forgot to place the order.  Then I just decided to go without them.  Then as I get about 15 mins away from home, I realize that I might have forgotten to pack belts, and my spare battery charger for my phone, so I doubled back.  Then I get about thirty minutes away from home and I find out the package just got delivered and doubled back home again.  I finally made it to the airport in well enough time considering that it took me about 45 minutes to work my way through security.  Friday’s before a three day weekend right after work is not the most convenient time in the world to travel.

I hadn’t eaten anything but that was fine because I was just going to have something to eat at Tortas Frontera.  The one in Terminal five is not that great by comparison.  The service was slow and they were out of nearly everything.  Still I enjoyed my food.  I made it over to the gate just a few minutes before boarding started and as I walked by the upper class seats and premium economy seats to my seat in economy, I can see why thy charge you so much more.  Those seats look sick.  Still my seat is comfortable enough and though I don’t exactly feel like I have a ton of space I don’t feel cramped in either.  I was thankful that I had My Bose QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones though.  They are pretty much essential if unless you are a huge fan of airplane noise and crying children.  It’s uncanny with those headphones.  You look over and you can see the child visibly crying but all I could hear was the laid back melodies of The Neigbourhood.

One creepy thing about the flight was the older gentlemen that felt the need to pace up and down the aisle.  I understand it is a long flight but I feel like you should be able to sit down for 8 hours.  Or sleep it was a night flight after all.  The dinner I had on the plane wasn’t exactly as good as the dinners I’ve had in first class on Virgin America flights, but it was still pretty good for airplane food.  I enjoyed the beef stew which was very thick and hearty.  There were more potatoes than anything but you could definitely taste all of the ingredients very well.  There was peas, carrots and mushrooms in the stew as well.  Also there was a Caesar salad.  They provided a dressing packet that was probably big enough to dress three or four salads of that size.    The croutons were approaching staleness and there was a small bit of bonus lettuce that was just a little bit wilted.

The plane landed and I made it through customs and was off on the train to my hotel.  I took advantage of the free wifi you have for 45 minutes while at the airport in order to gain my bearings and be able to get off the train.  Funny story about that train thing too.  So I get off at my stop and I see everyone is taking the lift, and I’m like no way I’m waiting on that.  So I start up the stairs.  It must have been like 5 or six flights and there I am with my 20 kg suitcase and my backpack huffing and puffing it up the stairs.  A good Samaritan offered me a hand with my backpack that I initially refused but accepted after another two flights of stairs.  After what felt like a scene from Rocky I finally made it up a little more tired. 

I was a little confused at first about where to go because London doesn’t put the street signs on posts like they are in the US but in seemingly random places on the sides of buildings.  It was alright after I got the hang of it.  One downside of being without a phone is that my phone essentially turned into an old fashioned map. It’s uncanny how much I depend on it on an everyday basis.  I made it to the hotel without too much trouble though.  I went to check in but my room wasn’t ready, which wasn’t surprising considering that it was nine in the morning.  I had all of my maps downloaded, but my mind was still blown by London.  Reading a map ain’t too easy when you have three fore five six curvy streets coming together.  It has to take quite some time to learn how to navigate that city.  Quite some time indeed.