My U.K. Adventure – Part One, Getting There

I’m back from my gallivanting around the United Kingdom. As mentioned in the previous post, a friend and I decided to do a Scottish adventure. And in the midst of planning how to get there, I decided that I really needed to finally experience London. Long story short, I ended up booking a frequent-flyer award ticket from my hometown of Austin to London to start my trip. I really lucked out on finding the ticket, because I thought originally I was going to fly to another European city and then fly directly into Edinburgh to start the girls’ part of the trip. With a ticket to London, arriving the week before I was set to meet up with Natasha, I was able to finally cross a long-awaited city off my list. But I added an extra wrinkle into my plans.

You see, I love going to concerts and seeing live music. And one of my all-time favorite artists was on tour in the U.K. while I happened to be there. And if that wasn’t a sign from the heavens that I should, you know, take advantage of my geographical proximity, then I don’t know what is… So I snagged a ticket to see Adam Ant in Bristol the day my flight landed at London Heathrow. Because Adam Ant is one of those artists that when I have a bad day at work, or I’m really sad about something, or when I need to just cut loose and remind myself that life isn’t supposed to be serious all the time – that’s the playlist I put on Spotify, blast the volume, and dance around my living room. In the same way that Ricky Martin and Duran Duran get me through hard times, Adam Ant is actually the artist that is bound to be the one that works when nothing else can. Maybe because he’s suffered more than any artist from my era and has managed to pull himself through dark times – well, he’s an inspiration to someone who has had some weird stuff of her own happen.

Anyway, back to my trip… I had an early morning flight from Austin to Washington DC where I spent my 5 hour layover in the United Global First lounge, which was a disappointment actually. For a first class lounge, it was nothing to write home about. Maybe I was spoiled at being in the Emirates Business Class lounge in Dubai recently, but the only thing that United’s lounge had was a lack of people. The food (if you want to call the two small chaffing dishes food) sat out for hours under a heat lamp; I had to go to the desk for them to replenish the empty bottle of Ketel sitting out; none of the wines were decent; and there was really a lack of feeling like First Class was going to be anything worthwhile.

Fortunately, on the airplane, the service was wonderful. The flight attendants working my aisle were very attentive and personable. I spent most of the time sampling the wines, eating whatever they put in front of me, and finally getting about 2.5 hours of sleep in a lay-flat seat. Before I knew it, we were descending into Brussels airport, where I had an hour and a half layover – I spent most of my time trying to remember what my password was for the email address that I keep basically for foreign airports to send me a code to access the wifi. I had a lesson in diplomacy in using Google Translate to try to explain to a Russian lady how to use her tablet to read something. I also discovered that trying to explain technology to someone who’s my mom’s age in a language that I can’t even begin to guess the alphabet is really an interesting proposition…

Finally, I boarded a Brussels Airline flight over to London. At this point, I was just ready to get there and get my feet on British soil. The flight took only an hour but I lucked out on having a clear-ish day when we flew over London itself. I admit that I was a bit giddy gazing out of the window and seeing Tower Bridge and Big Ben. It’s hard to describe the joy someone like me – who’s spent most of her life memorizing photos of iconic landmarks – gets from seeing these in real-life. It’s slightly surreal and very satisfying in a way that I’m not sure I can ever articulate accurately.

Landing at Heathrow and pulling into Terminal 2, the Queen’s Terminal, was really cool. There are so many different airlines that fly into Heathrow and you see planes from airlines that you’ve never ever heard of before. Standing in line for my passport stamp to admit me to the U.K., I was deeply grateful that I got to finally do something like this. And glad that melanoma didn’t rob me of this chance to have what turned out to be one of the best trips of my life (so far)…