Bitter Sweet

Considering that it took a little over 24 hours to return to my beloved England, I'd say bitter sweet describes the day exactly. I love to travel. For a person who can never, NEVER have a job that involves driving through traffic each day- traveling is relaxing for me. I honestly don't mind the delays or the people everywhere. I love to people watch and extra wait time just means that I get to read my book that much longer. :) Today however, certainly caused a bit of trouble.

I left my home in Missouri around 5:30 on Monday to make my 7:30 flight to Minneapolis and then catch the 9:45 on to Heathrow. Everything was moving along smoothly until I made it to Minnesota. I was actually excited when my connecting flight was moved from Atlanta to Minneapolis- I thought "Oh hey this will be great! The airport won't be as busy and there will be fewer problems- HUZZAH!" Well friends, that didn't really turn out that way.

First we were delayed because some other plane was in our spot, then my connecting flight was in G concourse while I was in C and I had about 2 minutes to get there. I make it to my plane sweating and damn near close to an asthma attack but then I find out that we are delayed due to a maintenance thing. Again I thought to myself, "Oh that will be great, I can sit here and relax a bit- we've got all night to fly right? What's an extra 30 minutes or so?"

Famous last words friends.

We sit and we sit and we sit- the powers that be keep assuring us that it will only be another 15 minutes or so. Right. Almost 2 hours later, they give us the unfortunate news that the plane cannot take off and we will have to wait for a new one. This isn't the ideal situation but at least there's another plane right? :) They told us it would fly out at 3:30 AM but that friends turned into almost 5 AM. You know, there's only so much you can do in an airport in the middle of the night. I would also like to point out that those floors are not meant for anyone to sleep on.

I will say though, my spirits were still high! :) I had a great book to read and they gave us food vouchers and even gave us $100 Delta bucks in case we want to give them a second chance. Not likely boys. ;) The flight over went great (once we finally took off) there were great movies to watch and the chicken was pretty tasty.

I finally make it in to Ol' Blighty and a feeling home sweet home envelops me. I had forgotten how much this place means to me. I had a long trek from Heathrow down to Horsham- but it gave me the chance to see the city and take it all in.

I wanted to stay in Horsham because when I came here before that's where I lived. I wanted to get here early and see my old English family and get settled in. So I arrive at the last train stop in my old English town and I realize how late it is and that I have forgotten to book a room for the night. Opps! "No worries!" I tell myself- (I wish I would stop giving myself advice) "It's a tiny English town- surely there is one little room for moi!" But since today is the travel day from hell- I of course was wrong again! I called everywhere and not one hotel-bed and breakfast-or lonely shack on the street had a room for me.

So what do you do when it's midnight and you're in a foreign country and you have no where to stay?

Sit on the side of the road and panic of course!! :)

Thankfully, a cab driver took pity on me and took me around to other hotels until we found one just outside of Horsham. So here's my break down of the day:

Traveling the underground to get to the train station- $5

Train back to visit my lovely Horsham- $20

Making endless phone calls using your credit card trying to find somewhere to stay- amount unknown since my card stopped working after a while

Buying a train ticket back to Gatwick to find a hotel service only to find that there are no more trains running this evening- $6

Driving round Horsham and the surrounding area looking for someone who will take me in-$35

Finally finding a place (though I think they only took me in because of my tear stained-face and red eyes) and getting to take a hot shower- priceless.