Arrival

It’s funny how the mind conveniently forgets things, when it is distracted by a major health crisis. I had been fantasizing about this trip for months and not once did I recollect the special kind of hell that is an overnight long haul flight. Almost three years since our last red eye, and I had come to believe the delusional idea that I would sleep from Denver to London. Rubbish! We left Denver at 8:20 last night and were kept awake most of the night. Just as I would find myself drifting off, we hit turbulence, of which, there was a lot. In those other moments, when my sandpapered eyeballs finally closed and sleep felt near, the flight attendants hit a high point in their conversation, raising voices to make a point. They seemed to talk incessantly for nine hours. Unfortunately, our seats were located right next to the galley, where they apparently were not short of spirited topics. Fortunately, we arrived in London just after noon, so we only needed to stay awake eight hours before catching up on the hours of lost sleep.

After our plane touched down on time, the flight attendant announced that portions of the public transportation system were not available, due to striking workers. Of course, it was the line that we had planned to take to our Air BnB that was not running. We pivoted to the train to get us to a different underground line and made it to the apartment in a couple of hours. We stocked up on fresh food at the nearby store, grabbed some dinner, and spent the evening watching Derry Girls. We made sure the closed captions feature was turned on, so we could get in some good practice for our visit to Derry later this week.Read more