London

The plane ride from Halifax to Heathrow was 5 hours…I didn’t sleep.  I watched a movie all night and  then still couldn’t sleep for whatever reason.  When breakfast came we all ate it.  I have to mention that I have a pact, a pact to never eat airplane food…I broke that pact.  Right after I felt nauseas and was shaking then sweating but I was freezing.   I was also worried what happened in China would happen again.  You see we went to China when I was 9.  The plane rides all together were 17 hours in the air.  I didn’t sleep for any of that.  Then once we got to China I didn’t sleep very well at all for another 2 days.  In the end I was throwing up for about 3 – 4 days, it was bad. 

So there I am with no sleep in the past 24 hours and I feel nauseas, anyone would be freaking out if they had a travel past like mine, although as it goes I didn’t throw up, once.   I took my mind off the nausea by focusing on the passing lands outside of my window.  This was the first time I had ever seen any part of Great Britain.  I hate to confirm that it was everything I had heard about it, well...in the air it was anyways.  We were flying over the country side where the dark green fields stretched out as far as I could see.  There were little farms connected together with roads like thread, weaving through the green silk fields.  Sometimes the threads led to little towns, were all the houses seemed to have the same roof.  The towns were small and layed out in the way where you can tell no blueprint was used to make it look pretty to birds.  No, the placement of these homes and businesses were decided on this conversation…

Character 1. “Jonathon got married to that baker girl down the way” 

Character 2. “Ah! He’s goin be needin a house for that one”

Character 1. “sure will” “hey, there’s that spot by the creek, no one live there since the tax collector died”

Character 2. **coughs on his drink**

Moving on, another thing that I had never seen was fog.  And don’t get me wrong I have seen fog on ground level scatter a field in PEI like steam off of coffee.  But  I have never seen fog stretch out over little towns, running through streets and running around houses.  What shocked me is that only the towns for the most part were blanked in fog.  Like another one of God's jokes, only fog resides where the people are, but step out of town and it is hazy fields with grey skies for miles, not one blanket of evaporated water to be seen, just grey.

When we got off the plane I was feeling much better, a little queasy but still better.  Although on the other hand my mom wasn’t feeling so well.  We found her a washroom and it took about an hour of pacing in an out and around the Heathrow airport with excrutiating  nausea till she threw up.

She was still feeling very very sick after. So I went back to our luggage pile and Josh who was guarding it to see if we could go get some medicine.  First I looked through all of our bags to see if I had packed the kind of medicine that we needed as it goes I hadn’t (later I found out that I had packed it, but my mom thought we wouldn’t need it so she packed it in out check in bag)….We decide to go look for some medicine.  As I pick up my backpack everything falls out…I forgot the close it after I went through everything. I knelt down and put all of it back in.  After a little bit of looking around Josh decides to go to the next floor to look for some medicine, and I decided that I should go back to see my mom, I find her wandering around looking very sick.  We start walking back to the bathroom and I tell her that I am going to contact my dad to tell him what’s going on.  I sit down and start going through my backpack looking for a little bag that I had stored my iPhone, charger, and headphones. I can’t find it.  A while passes and I have looked in every carry on bag we have.  By this time I am freaking out,  still a little sick, still haven’t slept, still worried about my mom, and now I have lost my phone in the Heathrow airport.  I go through the passes, I look around the area, I go to the information desk, I go to the lost and found, I get their number.  By the time I am walking back to where Josh is standing with our tour guide who has arrived to take us around London I am just holding on. 

I do my best to get away from them (no offense Josh if you see this)  I go to see my mom and ask her if she feels well enough to go for a tour. Once I get to my mom like a little spoiled girl I don’t ask her how she is, I cry, about my lost iPhone, in the Heathrow airport, on my way to see children who go day after day without food, it wasn’t my best moment.  Eventually we decide to go on a tour.  We get to the car, and I honestly can’t tell you my first impression of London, because for the first little bit of the car ride I couldn’t open my eyes.  It was one of those moments were you know you are awake, you know you are tired, you know perfectly well how amazing sleep would feel, and you know you should be awake.  But I am telling the complete truth when I say, I didn’t have enough energy to force my eyes open, and trust me I was trying.

The tour went for pretty much the whole day.  When I finally woke up London was spectacular.  Every home was brick with white washed window frames and perfectly clean glass windows.  The city was kept so well, it was SO clean.  We saw Buckingham palace, Big Ben, many red buses, many statues, Westminster Abbey, the Wellington Arch, The Thames, and  streets with shops that God himself must of created.  stores that looked so perfect I couldn’t have dreamt them better.  I focused on the people and as my best friend Jennee knows all about, I studied their clothes.  And what I can tell you is that the style of London is the people, their clothes were impeccable.  The cuts, the colors, the class.  The style of most people was sophisticated, classy, preppy, and classic.  I felt like I was in a dream, everyone cared about what they put on that morning.  I was in heaven.

We stopped for lunch around 2 at a pub.  We were seated in the reserved section upstairs.  Josh ate fish and chips, me and my mother had mushroom soup and salads.  We both didn’t eat our salads.  I think it had to do with still feeling sick.  During lunch as we are laughing about the events of that morning, and how horrible our luck is our waitress comes upstairs.  She in a very nervous tone tells us that a tour car just got pulled away by a tow truck.  At first I kind of laughed, worse has happened I thought, we can just get a taxi to the airport.  Then…..my expression hit the floor as I remembered what was in the car.  My passport! I was so mad at this point.  Then as I remembered Josh reminded us of something else that was in the car.  His insulin, he would get really sick really fast if he didn’t get some and possibly die if he didn’t get enough.  This trip is just getting so much better.  So we get what’s left of our lunch to go and head to the street to see if our tour guide was the one that got pulled away.  Sure enough there he is talking to a construction worker and sure enough the car is parked down the street. I started breathing again.

 After lunch we visted an art meuseum.  Soon enough we were back at the Heathrow airport in terminal 5 waiting for our next flight to Johannassburg.  For a while I lie on the floor with blankets under me and my coat over me with my backpack as a pillow.  I didn’t care if I looked homeless.  I was tired and still mad about my phone, because I had 10 hours of flying ahead of me and no music, no games, no iPhone (I have broken all records for spoiled at this point, trust me I know).  Finally they announce our gate number Josh wakes me up, we find my mom, and we head off to our gate.  We have to take a shuttle to get there and a couple very tall escalators to get there, but we do.

We watch the people in line shuffle along to get on the plane.  Honestly I didn’t want to spent any more amount of time on that plain than I had to.  So we waited till “last boarding call for flight number ***** to Johanasburg”.  We then move, Once we settle into our seats I start my pretperation.  It takes a little bit for me to relax into the seat but by the time the wheels leave the ground I am in perfect harmony with the chair.  And as soon as the seat belt sign dings I recline trying my best to no feel guilty about the person behind me, and I fall asleep for the next 10 hours…and the best thing my phone didn’t cross my mind once.

-Z