So as you all, I'm sure, know by now-- I am not home, though I should have been on Saturday night. This is due to the fact that the English are incapable of dealing with FOUR INCHES of snow. That's right-- four inches of snow completely shut down Europe's largest and most important airport for three days, and resulted in over a week's worth (probably way more) of canceled, delayed, and generally screwed-up flights. Way to go, Heathrow, way to go.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My epic disaster of a journey began in Bath. Get comfy, make yourself a cup of tea-- this is a rather long story.
I woke up at 7:30 am to the sound of my housemate yelling that the taxi that she and a few of my other housemates were taking was not going to show up, and that they would have to walk to the train station. I was initially quite displeased to be woken up so early, but then it hit me-- something is wrong with transportation. Transportation which I need to get to my flight and then get home. I bolted out of bed and looked out of the window-- yep, four inches of lovely snow blanketing everything. I grabbed my computer and checked on my flight-- all flights out of Heathrow between 10 am and 5 pm were canceled, but my flight was at 5:30, which meant that it would either make it out, or just get canceled-- but in any case, I still had to make it to the airport, because on the off chance that my flight took off, I had to be there (in retrospect-- I really wish it had just been canceled right away).
My initial plan for getting to the airport was to take a taxi from Bath to Bristol, where I had booked a 12 pm coach traveling to Heathrow airport. But after spending an hour and a half trying to get in touch with every taxi service in Bath, no companies were willing to send drivers out of the city, and only one was even operating within Bath, and with no advanced bookings. This made me start to panic. I tried to get a coach from Bath to Bristol-- no luck. I finally booked a train ticket to Bristol, which was the last thing that I had wanted to do, since I had no idea how I was going to get my 150 lbs of luggage (in three suitcases) up the stairs, onto the train, off the train, down the stairs, and into a cab. But I had no choice. 10:00 rolls around, and I called the cab company to get a taxi to the train station. No good. They have no drivers available. I realize that I have to start walking.
Thank goodness, one housemate, Alex, was left in the house. He didn't have to leave the city until later in the afternoon, and when he heard my panicking, offered to help me get my stuff to the train. I honestly don't know what I would have done without him-- he literally carried 100 lbs of luggage for twenty minutes through snow-covered streets, up the train station stairs, and put me onto the train. He was a life saver. And during my short journey from the train, through the Bristol train station to the taxi queue, I had to rely on the kindness of another five strangers who offered to help me with a bag or two for a short distance. One of the things that I love about this country-- people are actually willing to help a girl who is clearly struggling, as opposed to simply laughing at her.
So I finally got into a cab and got to the Bristol coach station, with 15 minutes to spare.... except that my coach to Heathrow was canceled. Thankfully, before I even had time to register how terrible this news was for me, they got us onto another coach, and we left only 15 minutes late. The roads were alright up until we started getting close to London, and then suddenly, we were crawling along in bumper to bumper traffic on snow-covered roads. Great. The 2 hr 20 min coach trip took nearly 4 hours. By this point, it's 3:30-- the likelihood of me making my 5:10 boarding time is slim. And the flight's still on the board, so I have to get there.
The central bus station, where we pulled in, was an absolute nightmare-- people everywhere, insanely long queues for everything, and I didn't even know where on earth to go. I dragged my stupid luggage all the way through this underground thing whilst following signs to the train which would take me to Terminal 5, only to encounter a three-hour-long queue. Well that was not happening. So I turned around and headed back to the bus station. I tried to find a bus that would go to the terminal-- no luck. Then I waited in line at the information desk to see if there was a taxi stand somewhere. The man in front of me asked the same thing, so I asked him if he was going to Terminal 5, and he was, so I asked if he wanted to share a taxi, and he did, so we set off in search of one together.
This search took us from the street outside of the bus station (no luck) to Terminal 1's taxi queue (three hours long), to several random bus stops (no luck), to the Tube station (Picadilly line closed), and finally back to the original queue for the Heathrow express train, which was now down to a 30 min queue. Long story short-- it took THREE HOURS to get from the bus station to terminal 5. It is supposed to take ten minutes. And oh, by the way-- the man that I was with (I later found out that his name was Maurizio-- he's Italian) was basically dealing with most of my luggage in addition to his own the whole time. Seriously-- if it weren't for the kindness of random strangers, I would have been toast. I probably would have just had a breakdown after about half an hour and just cried in a corner. It was a disaster. And oh, another thing-- I found out, halfway through this saga, that my flight had been canceled.
So we finally made it to Terminal 5, only to discover that all of the British Airways employees had disappeared. They literally all abandoned their posts (or were told to do so), probably out of fear for their safety, because there were mobs of very angry people in that terminal with canceled flights who couldn't get through to the BA help line (because it was so busy that it actually wouldn't even put you on hold, it simply hung up on you), and had to deal with the BA website, which kept shutting down from the amount of traffic that it was experiencing. So here I was, in the terminal with no way to book a new flight, and no way to leave (because the trains stopped running, I would have to wait six hours for a cab, and the hotels were all booked).
There was only one option open to me, really-- sleep on the airport floor for the night. Maurizio and I got ourselves some dinner at the Marks & Spencer's To Go, chatted with some other stranded people, put my luggage into temporary storage (what a relief!), had a drink, killed time with idle conversation, found a blanket, pushed some chairs together, and attempted to sleep. This plan was going fairly well until the heat was shut off. Then the downstairs was simply too cold. So we relocated to the floor in the upstairs section, which was incredibly uncomfortable, but at least somewhat warmer. I have to admit, this is one of the strangest situations that I have ever been in-- sharing a blanket on the floor of an airport with a stranger whose native language isn't even English.
I managed to get a few hours of sleep, and in the morning, we reassessed the situation. No flights were leaving (it was below freezing, and they couldn't remove snow under such conditions. SERIOUSLY?!?!). Great. So then I decided to head to my aunt and uncle's flat in East London (thank goodness they live there now!). Of course, the Heathrow Express was shut down, because of "weather" (IT HADN'T EVEN SNOWED THAT NIGHT), and the Tube lines were all a mess. Maurizio and I had some breakfast, booked him a hotel reservation for the night, and waited to see if the train situation would clear up, which of course it didn't. So we decided to just get on the Tube and hope for the best. Thankfully, the train was not terribly delayed, and after parting ways with Maurizio, I made it to Liverpool Station, met my uncle on the walk to his flat, went back, showered, and slept for four hours.
We went out to dinner that night with a friend of my aunt's (who is also stuck in London) who is the CEO of something important, as well as his CFO. We had a lovely dinner in a Belgian restaurant, during which these business people called up their travel agent and got me booked on a flight home on Thursday. There are some serious advantages to being rich and powerful (and being introduced to the rich and powerful). When we got back after dinner, I found another Thursday flight to Newark (this one in the afternoon), and booked that too-- just in case.
I slept for another 10 hours that night, and spent the next day sort of lolling around the flat, being unproductive, sleeping a bit more, blogging, playing britishairways.com roulette trying to get an earlier flight, checking to see which of my ASE friends were still stranded (nearly all of them), etc. Nice quiet day.
Today was a bit more exciting-- I navigated public transportation all by myself to meet Tom (from ASE) at the British Museum, where we spent several hours (it's a pretty cool museum--I mean, it's kind of "The Museum of Stuff that Britain Stole From Other Countries in the Name of Preservation and Education", but it has some great stuff, including the vast majority of the PARTHENON FREIZES. Serioulsy-- wow). Then we went to a pub for a late lunch, had an epic disaster of a trip back to the flat (the five minute walk from the tube stop to the flat took at least half an hour because the streets here are absurdly confusing), where we hung out for a little while before Daniel got home and we had Vietnamese for dinner, which was lovely. Hey, if I'm going to be stuck in London, might as well make the most of it, right?
And that, my friends, is part one of the epic saga of the Snowpocalipse. Stay tuned for part two-- the last of my time in London (hopefully that only includes tomorrow), and the final journey home, which I'm sure will prove to be similarly absurd and annoying as the initial part of the journey, but will at least hopefully actually occur. Goodnight, my friends, from London-- keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll be home by Thursday!
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