Travel Light

Welcome back to Sisterhood of the Traveling Thursdays! This might just be my favorite day as my travels are my favorite memories!

Tonight I want to talk about a very interesting experience I had in London on my third trip to Europe, second trip to London. This story includes a character whom I have not yet mentioned, so she requires some back story. Stick with me.

Her name is PeppeLaBabs.

I met PeppeLaBabs under somewhat… unusual circumstances. One of my best friends, EMoney, whom I have known since Jr. High was my roommate for a time around 2006-2007. We lived in an amazing apartment overlooking the Bay in San Diego with her twin sister and good friend of mine, Dewip.

It was during this short, but eventful year, that EMoney decided that she liked girls. Now, as a theater person, I have been around gay people since before gay people existed so I of course had NO issue with this whatsoever. But it was the way in which she decided to like girls that got my blood boiling a bit.

This part of the story is a blog for another day entirely, but basically EMoney met this wonderful guy at a bar and started dating him. He charmed Dewip and I immediately, but apparently his sister was the real charmer for EMoney. LONG, CRAZY story short, EMoney ended up with the sister instead… the sister was PeppeLaBabs.

As the best friend, I was expected to become buddies with the new significant other. I will admit, with the way the relationship began, it was a challenge for me to let my guard down and stop judging them both for being so ridiculous, but after a short time, I grew to really enjoy PLB (PeppeLaBabs is officially being shortened).

She was very funny, very outgoing, very interesting, and very much a girl. This sets up a strange dynamic. When you are becoming friends with your best friends boyfriend, the boundaries are so clearly set up, but when the boyfriend is a girl, the boundaries are not so clear. For example, going to coffee with a friends new boyfriend might be a bit odd. But going to coffee with a girlfriend, which is how I saw PLB, is not strange at all. Well, basically, it was hard to figure out what I was and wasn’t supposed to be doing.

I invited Dewip, EMoney and by default, PLB to Vegas early on in the relationship. At first, all three girls were interested, but as it turned out, only PLB committed and went. This is of course another blog too, but my point is this: When the subject of ‘Who want’s to go to Europe with us?’ came up, and PLB said ‘Me!’ I didn’t think it would be too strange to include her on the trip. She had never been after all, and EMoney and Dewip were not able to go.

Whether this was inappropriate to do or not, I’m not sure… but don’t worry, I learned my lesson.

I’m going to give you the moral of this blog right up front: When traveling… anywhere… make sure you REALLY want to be with your travel mate morning, noon, and night, and make sure you REALLY know that person well, because there are no secrets in travel.

Well, to add just a tad more awkwardness to the situation, PLB and EMoney broke up before the trip. SO now I was taking my friends ex girlfriend to Europe. But I must also say that the other girls on the trip were MacTen, Raps and my sis D’Monk, so it’s not like I was going to be alone with her. It was clearly a girls trip and we were all ready to have fun.

Yea…

NIGHT ONE!

When you travel, particularly when you kind of throw together somewhat of an impromptu trip to Europe, the funds are never flowing like you would like. Everything must be crazy budgeted and you have to be smart about what you spend. Well, PLB started her trip with $100 less than I had told everyone was the minimum they should bring with them. That was not the best start, but hey, I figured maybe she was on a different budget than I was.

Day one in London, after doing the Big Red Bus tour which I swear is the best money ever spent, the five of us ran across London (no joke, we booked it) to catch this walking ghost tour we had heard about. And even though our running had paid off and we were not more than two minutes late, we had either missed the tour or the tour was a ghost itself, because there was no one at the meeting place. As a result, we decided to drown our sorrows of having missed the tour at a pub just up the street from where our tour beginning would have been.

This pub just so happened to be around the corner from Big Ben. The sun was setting as we went into the pub so I requested that after dinner and a drink, we go take a look at Big Ben at night. I had seen the clock, but never at night. I had seen pictures and I knew it was going to be extraordinary, but the whole point was that it had to be at night. The group agreed. The plan was set.

Or so I thought…

We ate dinner and with dinner comes drinks. And with drinks comes more drinks. And with more drinks comes budget out the window kind of drinking. I had a brilliant heart to heart with D’Monk, who I had wanted to bring to Europe since my first trip, Raps and Mac were chatting about their long friendship and PLB sat in the corner rather unsociable. She didn’t talk much. She went to the bar to order her drinks instead of ordering them at the table, which we didn’t realize until later was her way of drinking more than we could monitor.

Before we left the states I specifically asked the girls to always keep a low profile. If you have ever traveled abroad, you know that it is never in your best interested to be American. And of course being polite and respectful should have gone without saying, but I guess I should have said it anyway.

When it came time to leave, Mac did something that I will never forget. She had been doing a ton of babysitting leading up to the trip so she had a good $1000 more than the rest of us had to spend and she offered to cover the entire bill. She said that she had had such a great night and she didn’t want anyone to feel stressed or regret spending the money the next day, so she paid the tab of five very drunk girls. That is the kind of girl she is.

PLB, however, was about to show us just what kind of girl she really was.

We walked out of the bar and headed around the corner towards Big Ben as planned. I tell you, I was so excited. I had been mentioning it through out dinner and drinks and making the girls re-promise that we would in fact go see Big Ben at night, no matter what.

‘No matter what’ did not include PLB not being able to walk and shouting obnoxious things and being all around RUDE to passers-by on the street. I pulled the plug so fast on our excursion out of pure embarrassment. I could not believe she was acting like that. The rest of us made a quick decision to go ahead and spend even MORE money we didn’t have on a cab because we knew PLB would either puke or be thrown off the tube. This was of course right around the time that we were piecing together her ‘bar trips’ and counting the glasses on the table in our heads.

The cab takes us to the street where our hostel is, but there is still a block or so walk. Mac and I quite literally had to carry PLB down the street. Now keep in mind that London is not like Isla Vista in Santa Barbara. There was no one else being carried down the street. There was no one else screaming and making a scene. And I promise you, no one else on that entire street puked on someones doorstep… but PLB did. Mac, bless her heart, stood right there with me while I nearly cried out of hate, embarrassment and shame for my favorite city. Usually I am a good friend during these moments. Usually I am the girl who holds your hair back and scoops the puke out of the sink with my hand, but not PLB. Not when she had just thrown up on London!

We finally made it back to our hostel, and let me just remind you that hostels are usually shared. We had a six person room with only five of us, so there was an Asian gentleman, who spoke no English, who luckily had somewhat of a sense of humor about the situation. He could have easily complained to the front desk and had us kicked out.

Of course I was trying to explain this to PLB, but she was busy being a raging bitch. Oh yes, once we got back to the hostel, she went from crazy American girl on the street to rabid beast with a drinking problem. And most of her fury was aimed towards Mac and I, her rescuers. Raps and D’Monk… yea, they went to bed. Sorry guys… but ya did.

Mac and I, put PLB in the bathroom to finish what she started on someones doorstep and what does she do? She absolutely insists on takeing off her shirt. Lucky Asian guy, more aggravated me.

After about 20 mins of trying to convince PLB that she could not sleep in the bathroom, we decided that we were both about to strangle her and we needed to step out for a moment to gather our sanity. I put D’Monk in charge of the raging girl in her bra. We went downstairs and sat on the front porch of the hostel in our favorite city and talked about how people take us for granted. How we are the friends to have and how we really shouldn’t have invited that crazy bitch.

We were gone maybe 10 minutes. We returned to find Raps and D’Monk sound asleep in their beds. PLB was laying on her back with a mouth full of puke. Lovely. So we sat her up and of course more curse words and accusations and full on swings was all we got as a thank you.

Finally we drug her out of the bathroom and put her on the bed, despite her pushing, swearing and fighting us all the way. I have to say that at this point, I had joined her in the curses and violence. I had had it. I was crying, I was screaming, I was telling her in all seriousness that I would be taking her to the airport if she kept it up. And I meant it too. This was NIGHT ONE guys! I couldn’t even imagine another day with her, let alone 10!

But throughout all of this, Mac stayed very calm, cool and collected.

That is until PLB said and I quote: “THis is your fault anyway [Mac], you shouldn’t have bought all of those drinks.”

Remember how we all ordered everything before Mac offered to pay? Well, Mac remembered because she lost it and literally I had to grab her and pull her off of PLB. I had never and have not since seen Mac attack someone like that. It was like she had just been pushed too far. And it was amazing.

Of course at that point, D’Monk thought that it would be wise to involve herself and so she kicked Mac and I out. But on all accounts, that was fine by us. We took off down the street at a crazy pace that was more floating than walking really. We moved so quickly, crying and laughing with no destination in mind. But we knew once we saw it where we had been heading: McDonalds.

There are only a few times in life where McDonalds is a sight for sore eyes, but this was one of those times. Literally, my eyes were sore from crying. I can’t imagine what the other late night diners were thinking when they saw these two American girls burst in the door, make up running down their cheeks, laughing, gasping for air. But we couldn’t have even explained PLB given the chance.

To this day, I still CAN NOT BELIEVE a grown person could act that way. Swinging and cursing at the people who were just looking out for her. The people who invited her on this trip to begin with. Ever play that game ‘which of these things are not like the other?

‘

Well, if you would have played that with the five of us, PLB was clearly the odd one out that was just kind of a tag-a-long that we had included because we wanted to show her the world.

The next morning she acted like all was well. She even made a joke about how crazy the night had been. But the jokes ended when they were not well received. And then they really ended when we realized that Raps had lost her PassPort in the cab ride which we never would have taken had it not been for PLB.

The rest of the trip we all kept our distance from PLB. By the end of it, we even stopped going sight-seeing together. PLB ran out of money early on so she spent her days hanging around the hostels while we went on our adventures.

I did get to see Big Ben at night on that trip. It was breathtaking.

My favorite part of the whole night, looking back, was after we got back to the hostel and PLB was going crazy. The Asian dude got his English translation dictionary out and got our attention. He looked at us, looked at PLB and said:

“She Cwazy”.

I really couldn’t have put it better myself.

Foggy London Town

I got a text this morning from MacTen about the rain, which in turn, inspired this blog today…

I know rainy days for most are dreary and depressing. But for MacTen and I, they remind us of some of the best days we’ve ever had in our entire lives.

I am introducing the category: Sisterhood of the Traveling Thursdays because I count myself among the lucky ones who have had the privilege of traveling the world. I have been to Europe on three separate occasions, visiting Spain, Portugal, England, Holland, Ireland, France, Italy, Czech Republic, and I stopped once in Austria.

I have also visited the Bahamas, Mexico, and many other US states and travel destinations. I love traveling. It’s one of my passions. I can’t wait to get on a train/plane/bus/tube whatever and head out on my next great adventure, which of course, always leads to a great story…

But for today, I will tell you only about my very first trip to England. Although it was my second trip to Europe, it was the first time I’d stepped foot in the city that would become my favorite city in the entire world (at least what I’ve seen of it):

London.

I will never forget the day MacTen changed my life. It was early 2005 and I was nearing my college graduation date and MacTen- only a great friend at that time, not a best friend- told me of her plans to go to the British American Drama Academy; Pretty much the most amazing program an actor can be so lucky as to attend.

MacTen is a brilliant actor. That is how we met. We were cast as women who fall in love in a brilliant play called Stop Kiss (which will also come into play later).  She was only a freshman then, and I a junior, but her talent was undeniable. It made perfect sense for her to audition for the BADA program. I, on the other hand, did not see myself the way I have now come to see myself at that time. I didn’t see my own potential, as so many of us fail to do.

So MacTen was telling me more about BADA- which I was already very familiar with- and about her plans to travel before and after the month long summer program. I have to tell you, I was crazy jealous because I knew she would be accepted to the program and I knew that she would go to all of these places that she was telling me about.

And then the real life changer came into play.

MacTen said: ‘You should come.’

And I said: ‘Okay.’

And so it was done. I would definitely describe myself as very indecisive, but when it comes to huge, life changing decisions, I tend to make those very quickly and with finality. I knew that whether I actually got accepted to the program or not didn’t matter, I would be going on that trip. It was just that simple.

If MacTen had not suggested it, who knows where or who I would be right now. I look back at this moment as one of the more pivotal moments of my life. I would have never considered going. I would have never thought that I was good enough if it were not for MacTen. But let’s not get too mushy here…

Long, brilliant story short, MacTen and I auditioned for the British American Drama Academy and were both among the 170 students world wide who were chosen to go and study at Oxford University. No big deal. We ate burritos after the audition.

So it was done. The plans were in the works. MacTen and I, with the help of our campus travel agent, had planned out our entire 2 month and some change journey from who we were to who we would become.

We left at the end of June 2005. June 22 if I am not mistaken. Our summer in Oxford was planned to start around the 2nd or 3rd of July, so we planned to spend a few days in New York (which we figured we should probably check out since we had been accepted to a program in Oxford and had never even been to New York), then onto London for a day or so. After a stop over there we were headed to Ireland for a weekend and then onto Amsterdam to meet up with the six other brilliant students from SDSU who were also accepted to the program (we had the largest amount of students accepted out of all the schools represented at BADA).

I would like to take this time to remind you that we were leaving San Diego for more than two months and visiting countless towns and countries, with no more than a backpackers backpack each. It is impressive enough to me that two girls were able to pack for two months with only one bag each, but just wait how impressive this story gets…

The morning of our departure, we dressed in ‘comfy’s’ as we call them (aka pj’s). We would be flying all day and we had a lay over and we were not anticipating landing in New York until nearly midnight, so what was the point of wearing anything but comfys?

Well, our first flight was delayed, which at the time we saw as a blessing in disguise. MacTen had her parents and boyfriend there and SinkinShip (my boyfriend at the time) was also there, so we were happy to have the extra time with them before leaving for what felt like forever.

Once we said our tearful goodbyes, boarded, and were in the air, we realized that we were officially on our own. I had her back and she had mine and that was pretty much all that we could really count on from that point forward. I have to tell you it was slightly terrifying, but also very exhilarating. That is until we realized that our first flight’s delay had pretty much eaten up our entire 3 hour lay over in Dallas.

Now I don’t know if you have ever been to the Dallas Fort Worth airport in Texas, but we had not. This airport, we quickly realized, should come with an instruction manual. I’m pretty sure it is it’s own town, with it’s own zip, maybe even it’s own country, I can’t be sure. The thing just goes on and on in all directions, and there just seems to be no rhyme or reason. But it was only mid day and we had slept some on the plane so we were not too out of it to find our way. Find our way… quickly I should add. We had all of 20 minutes, maybe, to get from one end of the airport to the other. We ran, RAN, the entire way… all the while hearing them announce our flight boarding and not able to do anything but run like the wind.

We made it, don’t worry, but it was quite a feat I promise you!

So MacTen and I continue our journey across the country to the city that never sleeps. We land there, as expected, around midnight.

From the air at night, New York sparkles. It was so neat to see it from the windows of the plane, knowing that this was the first step of our incredibly long trip.

From the ground, New York smells like pee and looks like a place people don’t feel guilty peeing. Well, at least the airport did at midnight that night. And now, MacTen and I are exhausted. The adrenaline all day and the running through city/airports and just traveling in general; it does a number on a person.

MacTen and I stumble our way through the thinning crowd to the baggage claim. Not that this is necessarily a problem, but we were pretty much the only white people there. Not to mention the ONLY white girls in comfys. But at this point, we just didn’t care.

We waited at the baggage claim, too tired to even talk to each other, and far too tired to try to think about how we were going to get to the hostel that we had booked only a few days earlier after our other plans had fallen through. So we just waited in silence. And we waited…. and waited… and then we just waited.

I couldn’t help but notice that the only three bags left circling the carousel had been circling it for the past ten rotations, but I was too tired to talk about it. And I mean, what are the odds that BOTH of us would lose our luggage?

The carousel comes to a stop.

Suddenly, it occurs to me that although we ran like the wind to make our connection in Texas… I can’t imagine someone else caring enough to make sure our bags got on the plane as quickly as we did.

So MacTen looks at me, and I kind of smile at her… and I suggest what I think is a perfectly logical thing to suggest when something like this happens.

“Let’s get some food.”

City never sleeps huh? I’m gonna call BS on that. No food. Not anywhere. Not in an airport that is open all hours of the day and night. Nope, all employees home asleep. Finally we find a vending machine that offers us sandwiches. It does the trick, but I have to say at this point, I am very unimpressed with the infamous New York City.

We enjoy our vending machine sandwiches and inevitably find ourselves at the baggage claim desk. I am absolutely certain that our bags are in Dallas. They have to be. It just makes sense. But the lady at the desk saw it differently. She tells us that there is no way of knowing where our bags could be or how long it might take to figure that out. Let alone how long it will take them to get the bags to us. Great help lady. The baggage claim desk must be where they send the doctors who FAIL the bedside manner exam.

So we do the only thing we can think people might do in NYC; We hop in a cab. All the while we are telling ourselves that it will all work out. We are using up our bad luck right up front and the rest of the trip will be smooth sailing… It will all work out tomorrow. etc etc etc.

We give the cab driver the address to our hostel, which I have to remind you again, we had only booked a few days earlier because our other plans had fallen through, and we had not had the opportunity to do any research on the place. The address is right around 100th Street… If you don’t know what that means, read on.

Harlem. That’s what it means.

So MacTen and I are looking out the windows of our cabs, clinging onto our belongings (well, what little we had) thinking ‘what the hell is the big deal about New York? This is disgusting!’ I had never felt more naive.

When the cab let us out on the street, we pushed our way past the cat callers that were perched on the porch of our hostel. We walk in the front door…

This place looks like a horror movie. No joke. Cockroaches, dripping, discolored walls that looks splattered in blood, floors that feel like they could give out at any moment, dead bodies, hookers… Okay not the dead bodies and hookers, but almost…

So we check in.

The man at the desk gives us a room key and points us up the stairs that look like they lead to an attic. I swear a step gave out under me on the climb up. We head upstairs, literally waiting for someone to jump out and stab us or shoot us or worse, and I would not joke about this. I am dead serious… no pun intended.

The room that matches the number on our key is essentially a closet with a bunk bed shoved into it. When MacTen and I squeeze into it, we have taken up ALL the rest of the room in the space. We try to close the door behind us… and it won’t even shut all the way, let along lock. NO go.

SO we go back downstairs, request another room and repeat the process. This next room is painted the most peculiar shade of lime green, and the white-ish bed spread is stained, and so are the towels that lay on top of it. The window is stuck in the open position and so all the sirens and the yelling and often screaming is right there for us to experience. LIVE.

At this point MacTen and I are delirious. We are trying to make the most of it (aka trying not to cry) and I am doing everything I can to make jokes. Our travel agent had given us a ‘travel sheet’ which I had stuck in my carry on for the plane. And thank goodness, because we ripped it up and placed it on the bed JUST so we could sit down on the nasty thing, and try to make a better plan.

I know it sounds drastic, but seriously, we could have died that night.

I had to pee so I made it down the hall to the bathroom and decided I didn’t have to pee that bad. As a matter of fact, I will never have to pee THAT bad.

It’s now nearly 2am in New York. We call MacTen’s parents to get them on the search for a new place to stay in New York. Of course the Plaza is pretty much our only other option with such short notice and on day one of our two month trip, we just can’t throw down that kind of cash.

About this time I remembered that my friend in California had mentioned that he had a friend in New York that we could call if we needed a tour guide or anything.  So I call my friend in California. Let’s call him JC (not just because those are his initials, but because he WAS our savior). He gives us the number of his friend who we will call: NOtsocoolnoAH.

Miraculously, NOtsocoolnoAH answers his phone at 2 in the morning to a number he does not recognize. I tell him who I am and who we know in common and he says that he remembers JC mentioning a friend of his who would be in town! Wonderful. Great start.

I start to explain to this stranger whom I have never met that we have found ourselves with no luggage, in hell on 100th or so street and desperate for rescuing. As soon as I say 100th street he literally says:

“Go outside, get a cab and have him bring you to this address…”

Just the way he said it made me recognize just how dire the situation was. I mean I knew we were in shit and could die, but he made it sound like we WOULD die if we stayed.

So we did what he said. We trusted that his place HAD to be safer than where we were, got in a cab and drove all the way down to Water Street. On the cab drive down there, I have to mention, that NY was making a come back. Manhattan should never be judged by Harlem as it turns out.

NOtsocoolnoAH was a champ. He had the futon laid out for us, a toothbrush for each of us, and some new comfy’s laid out in case we wanted to change. He made a great first impression and truthfully, he rescued us. I can’t thank him enough for that. But as our few days in New York went on, he revealed his true, strange colors… but I think I am going to skip ahead at this point and save NOtsocoolnoAH for another time…

Skipping ahead: We got our luggage on the thrid day. The last day we were in New York. And yes, don’t worry, we did not let the fact that we were in comfys keep us from sight seeing. Check out the pics if you don’t believe me. And we were given a hundred bucks from the airport for being inconvenienced which means we were at least wearing fresh undies.

So now, we are back on the plane, heading to London. Got our luggage, praying that it is still on the plane with us, and ready to check out a new city.

We land in London, head to the baggage RE-claim (which may I point out, is a more correct way of saying baggage claim. You are RE-claiming it after all), and then we find our way easily to the tube station in the airport. I will say that customs was a tad stuffy and crowded and annoying, but we HAD been traveling pretty much our entire life at that point, so give us a break. But truly, we loved London and we had not even been outside. The announcements were all in a cute British accent and all the signs made sense and it was so nice and clean and inviting. Drastically different from our first impression of NYC.

We hop on the tube (subway in London) and we are sure to ‘Mind the Gap’, all while smiling ear to freakin ear. We are just humming with excitement.

We find a seat and the tube starts moving and after a short time, we emerge from the underground tunnel and we are spit out into the English Country side.I could have cried. It was stunning. Stunning in such a random, quant way. Not stunning like NYC was stunning from the air; Stunning in the sense that London is exactly what I thought it would be. It was amazing. And it was raining, as it often is in London, which brings me full circle at last!

MacTen and I again found ourselves in silence but this time, unlike NYC, it was for an entirely different reason. We were simply mesmerized. There just were not words. Their are no track homes. The houses are not on top of one another. They are all unique and old and so British. And everything was so GREEN compared to the red brick buildings. The rain washed everything clean and it was just beautiful.

I can’t remember if we changed trains or not, but eventually we were let out in Earl’s Court, which again, would become one of my favorite area’s of London. With our backpacks on, rockin the comfys, there was no mistaking us for tourists, but at that point we didn’t care. We felt welcome enough.

We weren’t sure which way to head so I approached a gentleman who was sitting on his bike, reading a map. We asked him for directions, he smiled and immediately began his directions is the most thick British accent I’ve ever heard. I could hardly keep my face straight. I wanted to tell him how cool I thought he was, but I figured that would have been strange.

We found our hostel… which was nothing like the hostel in NYC. This was what you picture hostels to be- quant dorms with young people. Not whore houses with murder victims waiting to happen. They had our reservation, all was well, and we found our two person room. The room again was a small space with only a bunk bed and a desk in it, but it was so incomparable to the NYC hostel, that it’s not even worth describing the difference. Night and day, there you go.

At this point it was round 8am London time, and somehow we had lost an entire day. We only had about 4 hours of night on the plane, only 30 minutes of which we actually slept, and now, in London, it was a brand new day. So we gritted our teeth and headed out to explore Hyde park (which is another story entirely as well). After Hyde park, we came back to Earl’s Court and ate lunch at a pub down the street from our hostel. We were pretty much the only one’s in the pub, and the bar tender/owner, an Irish gentleman, took quite a liking to us. He was very curious about American’s and considered us some sort of authority on the matter. Let me tell you, we are not. Turns out I don’t know much about what it means to be an America.

Now in a food coma, and still trying to shake off our travels, MacTen and I decided that we would just lay down for an hour or so to catch our breath. We had been warned about doing this. We had been told to do whatever we could to try to conform to the time change as quickly as possible, but we were exhausted and we were only going to lay down for an hour or so.

We did not set an alarm.

We woke up at about 1030pm. We had slept an entire nights sleep. SHIT!

So we got up, took some Dramamine to get drowsy again in an attempt to get us back on schedule, and headed down to the internet. We sent out a few emails about our somewhat bumpy start to the trip and then headed out into the rain to the nearest pay phone. Again, we were taken aback by London. All we did was walk down the street in the drizzle to the phone, but there was just something so wonderful about it… almost as if London is meant to be seen in the rain. It’s meant to be overcast there because it makes the colors so much more rich and vibrant. I don’t know what it is.

We were in Europe for two more months and it rained a lot that summer. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I would not trade in one rainy day for a sunny one. Not one. And for that I will always enjoy the rainy and overcast days more than most. The rain reminds me of the hope and the relief and the majesty I felt when we came out of that under ground tube into the rain of London. It was brilliant. It was life changing… and I will never forget it.

I associate the rain with London. And London with life. If you’ve never been there, go. And bring an umbrella.

This is my ode to Foggy London Town.