...I hate you. Therefore, I am taking a break from the whopping 700 words I have so far managed to force out and writing this blog. (Hmmm, there seems to be a theme here in these past couple of blog entries...) Oh hold the phone- just did a word count and I've actually got 800 words- LOOK OUT WORLD. Anyway, I and the three glasses of wine I have so far consumed this evening thought it would be an appropriate time to fill in my public on the ridiculous (but oh-so-typically-Jocelyn) events of the last ten days...
Well as many of you know, I spent my Christmas here in London. Please don't start getting all pathetic and feeling sorry for me, because it was actually quite fun. It was my first 'grown-up' Christmas, and I cooked [vegetarian] Christmas dinner for myself and two friends, and it wasn't a complete disaster (a miracle by itself given the sad state of British ovens), and we drank wine and had a grand old polenta-with-goat-cheese time. I did, however, get to head to America right after Christmas to spend a little QT (that's Quality Time for you uninitiated) with my Stateside fam and friends. This was, of course, uber-fun and awesome (my parents are adorable and parent-y as ever, my sis and her husband still think I'm lovably insane, my tiny canine niece and nephew are still so cute it makes me want to cry, Stephen still puts up with me and my semi-alcoholic needy abandonment issues, and all my other Boston friends are still fun and fabulous and make me miss them when I leave), but the real adventures happened during the travels to and from London.
Now, I will give anyone ten dollars if they can guess who I sat behind en route from Heathrow to Los Angeles (I won't actually, but it's a good way to start a fun guessing game)... Anyway, it was FABIO. Yes, *the* Fabio of male-model-romance-novel fame. Naturally I had to strike up a conversation with him, but I couldn't just be one of those sad desperate people that ask 'Excuse me, are you so-and-so???' and whip out their camera and autograph pad. I am [obvi] much too sophisticated for that. So instead I lent Fabs a pen when he needed to fill out his landing card, and this led to several hours of chat. Turns out he is super-nice, and has four dogs, and gave me money so that I could call my sis from a payphone when we landed late in LA and I missed my connection. Quel gentleman! We also got talking on the subject of food (he was horrified that I'm a vegetarian), and he offered to take me to Nobu (that super-expensive Japanese restaurant that I can't afford because I'm a humanity-saving human rights student) if I was ever in LA or he was in London. So I can't seem to get a boyfriend like any other normal person, but apparently I have no trouble getting asked out by Fabio on international plane rides.
And lest you think my adventures ended with my flight to the States-- fear not! My flight back to London, while in itself uneventful, was the beginning of a 7-hour-long saga of trying to get back to my flat. My plane from Boston landed at Heathrow precisely on time at 9:00 p.m. No worries, right? I still have plenty of time to get through immigration and onto the Tube before it closes at midnight, right?? WRONG. Who knew I could be so wrong about so many things in this lifetime?? Anyway, after landing on time, our pilot informed us that we did not currently have access to a gate because of delays due to 'weather.' I looked out my window and wondered what on God's beautiful earth he was talking about because the sky was clear and there was only about half an inch of snow on the ground-- and NONE on the runway. If they thought this was 'weather', I kindly invite them to stay awhile in my not-so-well-heated loft apartment in Boston in the middle of January. Anyway, due to this supposed 'weather', we were forced to laze about on the runway for an hour and a half until the rest of the planes cleared out of the way and it was our turn to have a gate. Sweet relief! right?? WRONG. AGAIN. Upon disembarking from my aluminium bird of a prison, I walked directly into the most heinous immigration line I have ever encountered in my LIFE (and I have encountered some HEINOUS immigration lines in my little 23-year-span). This was like the Dowager Empress of all immigration lines. It snaked around and around and out the damn door and up the stairs of the corridor... When I saw it, a little part of me died inside. In typical American fashion I thought, "SURELY this isn't my line!! Surely we Americans have a special line where we don't have to wait!" Silly, over-privileged, American Jocelyn. I had to wait just like every other person on that plane (except the UK/EU nationals-- they DO IN FACT have a special line that goes about 14 times as fast as the "All Other Passports" queue). Anyway, I resigned myself to the hideous entity that is Heathrow Immigrations and proceeded to wait in queue for THREE HOURS. At one point, an immigration officer came round asking if anyone had small children-- if so, they were allowed to move to the front of the line. I and the man in front of me briefly considered temporarily kidnapping a toddler across from us just to preserve our sanity, until I realized that the line was so long we could probably just get married, get me knocked up, and birth our own child in the time it took us to reach the front (though we opted against this option as well).
What seemed lifetimes later (but was, as aforementioned, three hours), I exited Heathrow (or as is now fondly referred by me, Deathrow) and undertook the task of getting back to my flat. OF COURSE the Tube was closed. It closes at midnight, and due to my interminable wait in Immigration it was now 1:30 a.m. This meant that I had to navigate the ridiculously confusing and always unreliable Night Bus system, which naturally had no direct routes from Heathrow to my flat. Instead, I deduced that I'd have to take a bus from the airport to Trafalgar Square in Central London, and from there to my neighborhood in Northwest Central. Now, if you've ever had to take the Night Bus from anywhere besides Central London, you know it stops approximately every five feet and therefore takes about a hundred years to get anywhere. My bus was no exception. It took me an hour and a half just to get to Trafalgar, whereupon I attempted to switch to my local Night Bus which would take me home. But last time I checked I was in fact the Queen of Drama and Things Not Going As Planned, so of course my situation had to be further complicated by the fact that I had run out of money on my Oyster Card and the bus I was trying to get on didn't accept cash. Oh-- and the ticket machine at the bus stop was broken. I shit you not. Given that at this point it was three in the morning, you might think the bus driver would take pity on a poor lonely soul like myself, obviously just trying to make it home after an exceedingly long night of travel. YOU WOULD BE WRONG. The bus driver basically shouted at me to get off the bus, and the two police officers standing just outside were equally as sympathetic and helpful. I was told by all three gentlemen that I would just have to walk to the next bus stop where the ticket machine was working, and get a bus from there. NEAT. If you thought I was walking another FOOT at three in the morning and in an unfortunately sober state of mind, you had another think coming. I proceeded to step in front of the bus and hail a lovely, convenient, taxi cab which transported me home in a matter of minutes (with me weeping in the backseat due to Travel Complication Overload). Never have I been so thankful to a cabbie, and never have I been so thankful for my tiny, single-sized bed.
But lest you think all is tragic and my life a mess, worry not-- I've just gotten an e-mail from my new BFF Fabio telling me he's probably going to be in London in March and would love to see me. Clearly, my life is all glam...
