When I finished writing the previous blog I figured that I had about 15 more minutes before we would begin boarding the plane… I was about 2 hours off. They wrote that the plane had been delayed on the departure screen, but neglected to tell anybody in any way how long that delay would be. I was confused, to say the least, but everybody else seemed to be perfectly ok, and, being that a line was beginning to form, I hopped right in it, figuring that it wouldn’t be long until we left. After about 45 minutes of standing in that same place I began to doubt myself. I wanted to move, to go sit down, but the line behind me was further than I could see and there was no way that I was going to risk losing my position. So I stood there. And stood there some longer. I guessed that it was a combination of two things: Spain and RyanAir. Spain can be a very layed back country and RyanAir can be a terrible airline. So, when you combine the two, long waits with no notice may be quite common. We eventually did take off and I was pleasantly surprised to pass through customs in England in no more than 10 minutes. I got train tickets (the airport is about an hour outside of London) to go into the city and boarded the train with no problems. It was at this moment, feeling quite content with myself, that I realized I had forgot 2 magazines, a book and some traditional Spanish chocolates I had bought for my cousins. I have no idea where I left them – either the plane, the customs desk or the ticket desk – but regardless of the place, I knew that somebody else was going to get an early Christmas gift.
At about 12 that night I arrived at London Liverpool Street. From there I figured that I would simply take a metro that would miraculously drop me off at my hostel. Boy was I mistaken. Maybe I had been overconfident as I knew that I was traveling to an English speaking country, but all I had on me was the name of the hostel, “Astor Kensington”. I took a metro that had Kensington on the map, but unfortunately it went in the opposite direction and then, at “Alsgate” decided to call it a night. So now I found myself even further from where I wanted to be, in a metro that had closed for the night with almost no idea of where my hostel was. I asked a cab driver how much a ride into Kensington would cost and he told me 40 pounds if we were lucky. I decided to try to get there on my own. I wandered around for a bit and found a different metro station, read the map with a bit more care, and then, at around 1 am got on a train headed towards Kensington. Only now a new problem presented itself: there were three Kensingtons. High Street Kensington, West Kensington and South Kensington. I did a short little game of ennie-mennie-minie-moe and got off at South Kensington. From there I asked a cab driver to take me to the Marriot (it was where my cousins were staying and I figured the chances of him knowing of that were better than the hostel) and when we got there I asked him if he knew of the hostel because on google maps it was close by. We drove up and down the street a couple of times and, at precisely 2am I entered the front doors of Astor Kensington.
We would hope that the journey would stop here, and it kind of does, but you know those moments when all you want is a place to put your stuff and a bed to fall in? Well, that’s exactly how I was feeling. Only, to my utter disappointment, the floor of the hostel was covered with bags and clothes and all the beds looked like they had yet to be cleaned. I eventually decided on the top bunk of a bed that looked reasonably neat, threw all of my stuff up onto it with me and passed out. It was by no means easy (I had technically started at 9am that morning when I caught a bus to Santander), but I figure any story that ends with some sort of bed and sleep can be deemed a happy ending.
The next 3 days were exactly what I needed. Time with family, big meals, pools, hot tubs, movies, sight seeing, relaxing, long/hot showers, very little time in the hostel. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend Christmas in London any other way. Thank you Pierce family!
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