Sunday, September 25, 2005

In Limbo Here in London

I thought I would sleep the rest of the day yesterday and try to get over this cold, but our roomate at the hostel was determined to keep me up. She was making so much noise that I'm surprised Jessica or I got any sleep at all.

We woke up at 6:30am, packed up our stuff, and headed down to breakfast. Jessica got yelled at again (yesterday she took too much cereal, today she used the wrong kind of cup for her orange juice), and today she figured we were about to leave, so she yelled back. Really, how important is it that she used two coffee mugs instead of a coffee mug and a juice glass.

We were running a bit behind, but we made it to the airport 15 minutes before they closed the check in for our flight. Took off at 9:30am, landed at 9:15am. Nope, that's not a typo. England is an hour behind the rest of Europe, so we are getting a head start on adjusting to the time change. I know it's just an hour, but whatever.

Arrived at London Luton at 9:15am, but didn't make it to the hotel until 1pm. We had to take a shuttle, to a train, to the Underground (subway/metro/whatever-you-want-to-call-it), to Heathrow where we got on another shuttle that finally left us at the hotel.

Had quite a scare when we the shuttle from Heathrow to the hotel took off. Jessica apparently left her purse on the cart we were using to transport our bags (yep, her purse, with her passport, debit card, drivers license, AND birth certificate - she can be pretty stupid sometimes). She jumped off at the next terminal and ran back to where she left it. The gods must have been feeling sorry for her today (they have not been on her side quite a few times the last month) because when she got there, there was a little old lady keeping an eye on it for her.

Our hotel is around the corner from the airport, and quite a ways from central London, so we decided to get something to eat here and just rest the remainder of the day. Partly because we are both sick and partly because we are just tired. Unfortunately the only thing we could find to eat around here was McDonald's.

We finally caved, and ate at McDonald's. Jessica was disturbed by the fact that they didn't offer mustard. But then she got her hamburger and it had two tiny dots of mustard on it, so she knew they had it and went to ask for more. They said no, so instead of just accepting, she begged and they caved.

Jessica. She was so interested in food when we left for this trip, but she has been disappointed in the fact that a) there is no plain, yellow mustard to be found in Europe (they have the good, high quality mustard she has no interest in), b) when you order a salad, you could be getting any kind of mixed vegetables, likely not including lettuce, and if it does include lettuce, it probably doesn't have any kind of dressing on it, and c) they don't serve bread and butter before meals (sometimes you get bread, but almost never with butter). She's been experiencing some culture shock. She thought that by eating at Mickey D's, she would have something that reminded her of home, but again, she realized she was far from. Don't worry Jess, you can have a mayo and mustard sandwich at home in about 36 hours.

We've decided to just hang out here at the hotel the rest of the day, and enjoy our first decent shower in a week.

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