After waiting so long to be able to finally leave for London, my visa finally came in on Friday, so I made flight reservations for Sunday. I thought I had it all planned out (silly me!). My flight would arrive in London at 6 AM, but I couldn't check in at the apartments until 9, so I figured I had time to eat a leisurely breakfast at Heathrow Central Terminal before catching the Heathrow Express into Paddington Station and catching a taxi to get me to my apartments.
The reality was somewhat different, and the entire trip was a frantic blur to get everywhere on time. The plane from DWF to Houston was the worst plane experience of my life. Granted, it was cloudy and windy the whole way there, but I would guess that the plane didn't stay calm for more than 20 seconds at a time, and the rest of the time was spent winding, twisting, bumping, speeding up, slowing down and all other possible un-fun contortions. I was holding onto the armrests in a death-grip. We arrived in Houston 45 minutes late and I had to run to change terminals and find my gate for London. The flight was already boarding as I reached the gate.
My aisle mates for the flight to London were a shockingly gorgeous, exceedingly polite, 20-something man with movie star good looks (married, unfortunately), and a sullen, flatulent teenage girl who kept trying to sit cross-legged in the seat, which would turn off the sound to my armrest headphones every time she tried, and who wiggled so much, and was up and down so much that she kept bumping my tray table and knocking my book, iPod, and drinks to the floor. I was grateful to finally get off that plane.
The line for border inspection at Heathrow is nuts! With all the international planes that land there, the line is massive and, given the ensuing crowds and my diminutive height, it is really difficult to see the small and badly labeled line marked "Students." I chose a line and started up a conversation with a man from India who has travelled to 50 countries in pursuit of his bucket list and has decided that 10 days is really long enough to stay in any one place before he gets tired of it. His funny stories of all of his adventures and misadventures had me in stitches!
So... after a 45 minute wait in what I though was the correct line, I finally reached the front and was promptly informed that I was in the wrong one and would have to start all the way over. :( The "Student" line was about 45 minutes, too. By that time, my flight's luggage had already come, gone, been moved to another carousel, and then thrown on the floor. After a panicked 10 minutes spent desperately searching for mine, I eventually found it propped up behind a pillar on the floor.
I made the train to Paddington Station and followed the pigeons and the cute little black line on the floor to the taxi line which stretched on for about a block. My turn finally came, and I hauled my massive mountain of luggage and bags into a black cab with a cavernous interior and and a driver on the "wrong" side, and we wound our way through central London to my apartments. On the way, we passed Hyde Park, the Houses of Parliament, London Bridge, and the Tower of London/Tower Bridge! Yay, I'm in London!
Now I'm all settled in my TINY room (See pictures, soon to come. My bathroom is hilariously small!), I've walked around the area that I'm familiar with and bought a few groceries. I'm about to go have coffee with the roommates. I guess that's all the news I have for now. I have so much to see and I'm SO excited! I finally made it!
Updated (P.M.): I just met 6 of my 7 roommates. We're a pretty multicultural crowd, all women, from Malta, England, Canada/Ireland, China, Texas, New Mexico and California. We each have separate rooms and bathrooms on either side of a long hallway with a massive shared kitchen at the far end.
I've also discovered that there is a pretty substantial list of unexpected items I need to buy, because the apartments don't supply them: towels (I had to use a t-shirt today), plates, glasses, coffee cups, pots and pans, a cheap bedside table, a tolerable duvet cover (again, see pictures), and hangers (they supply four).
I'm going shopping tomorrow and then maybe to a free concert tomorrow night.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
PANIC!
I wonder if someone could have a heart attack from sheer panic. It's Monday, my flight is scheduled for Friday, and I (in all likelihood) will not be on it.
I opened my email this morning to a message from the British Consulate. Hoping that this was good news and that I would soon have my passport and visa ready to go for Friday, I read the message expectantly- only to have all my hopes and dreams come crashing down in splinters around my ankles. "Congratulations!" it said. "Your visa is currently being processed and should be finished within 5-15[!] business days. This estimate does not include shipment time." I don't remember the next minute or so, except for a roaring in my ears followed by an overwhelming sense of shock and disappointment. And panic. Did I mention the panic?! So I emailed both my department at King's College and my apartments to explain what was going on, to be advised what my next course of action should be, and to find out what the consequences (cringe!) might be if I failed to be there for enrollment and induction weeks.
Meanwhile, pneumonia week three continues, undaunted by the thousands of medications currently coursing through my veins. On Friday, after ten days on one strong antibiotic and four days on another and distrusting the medical advice and competence of Brownwood Regional Medical Center (with good reason- a patient of my mother's friend recently died of a hemorage after being sent home TWICE and being told that the blood coming up out of his mouth must be a bitten cheek!) I went to Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo. After four hours in the exam room, an x-ray, and a CAT scan, it was decided that I have a slow-growing pneumonia that's just going to take its own sweet time in going away.
I did my very best to make those poor nurses work for their money. After searching my inner elbows in vain for a usable vein, the nurse took blood through the back of my hand, but the radiology technicians demanded that an IV be inserted in a certain vein and only in my inner elbow, so then I had two more nurses on either side of me, thumping and pressing at my arms, competing to find that elusive vein. When the nurse on my right side finally got it, he was so surprised that he let it go, and it sprayed blood all over himself, me, and the hospital bed. Fun and eventful day, I would say!
Then, after a round of IV antibiotics and steroids, I was sent home and told to have a new x-ray in a month in London to make sure the pneumonia was clearing up. In total, I've had three sets of antibiotic pills, two injected antibiotics, an IV antibiotic, three forms of steroid, albuterol, and hydrocodone. As I think about it, maybe all these drugs are a positive thing. After all the antibiotics I've had, my body could probably kill all the London bacteria in a five mile radius- like a superpower. And I have enough steroids in my system to supply a major-league baseball team for an entire season, so I should be all beefed-up and ready for all that walking I'm going to be doing.
In better news, I quickly received a reply from the Classics department at King's College that set my mind at ease again. They apologized for the inconvenience I was having, and assured me that, should I miss any part of enrollment or induction, the department would be happy to accommodate me in an individual meeting and induction at the Classics office upon my arrival. Thank God! Cheers, KCL!
I opened my email this morning to a message from the British Consulate. Hoping that this was good news and that I would soon have my passport and visa ready to go for Friday, I read the message expectantly- only to have all my hopes and dreams come crashing down in splinters around my ankles. "Congratulations!" it said. "Your visa is currently being processed and should be finished within 5-15[!] business days. This estimate does not include shipment time." I don't remember the next minute or so, except for a roaring in my ears followed by an overwhelming sense of shock and disappointment. And panic. Did I mention the panic?! So I emailed both my department at King's College and my apartments to explain what was going on, to be advised what my next course of action should be, and to find out what the consequences (cringe!) might be if I failed to be there for enrollment and induction weeks.
Meanwhile, pneumonia week three continues, undaunted by the thousands of medications currently coursing through my veins. On Friday, after ten days on one strong antibiotic and four days on another and distrusting the medical advice and competence of Brownwood Regional Medical Center (with good reason- a patient of my mother's friend recently died of a hemorage after being sent home TWICE and being told that the blood coming up out of his mouth must be a bitten cheek!) I went to Shannon Medical Center in San Angelo. After four hours in the exam room, an x-ray, and a CAT scan, it was decided that I have a slow-growing pneumonia that's just going to take its own sweet time in going away.
I did my very best to make those poor nurses work for their money. After searching my inner elbows in vain for a usable vein, the nurse took blood through the back of my hand, but the radiology technicians demanded that an IV be inserted in a certain vein and only in my inner elbow, so then I had two more nurses on either side of me, thumping and pressing at my arms, competing to find that elusive vein. When the nurse on my right side finally got it, he was so surprised that he let it go, and it sprayed blood all over himself, me, and the hospital bed. Fun and eventful day, I would say!
Then, after a round of IV antibiotics and steroids, I was sent home and told to have a new x-ray in a month in London to make sure the pneumonia was clearing up. In total, I've had three sets of antibiotic pills, two injected antibiotics, an IV antibiotic, three forms of steroid, albuterol, and hydrocodone. As I think about it, maybe all these drugs are a positive thing. After all the antibiotics I've had, my body could probably kill all the London bacteria in a five mile radius- like a superpower. And I have enough steroids in my system to supply a major-league baseball team for an entire season, so I should be all beefed-up and ready for all that walking I'm going to be doing.
In better news, I quickly received a reply from the Classics department at King's College that set my mind at ease again. They apologized for the inconvenience I was having, and assured me that, should I miss any part of enrollment or induction, the department would be happy to accommodate me in an individual meeting and induction at the Classics office upon my arrival. Thank God! Cheers, KCL!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
What Doesn't Kill You...
Ten days from lift-off finds me on my couch, literally gasping for air like a grounded fish, cursing my own stupidity, and racking my brain for where I had left my passport. What (you might ask) could have possibly left me in such a predicament? Well, apparently, double pneumonia and panic attacks don't go well together.
I imagined that at this point I would have nothing left to worry about except making sure that I had packed everything I needed, washing all the clothes that I'm taking with me, and boxing up everything I'm leaving behind. Instead, two weeks of bronchitis culminated in a stabbing pain in my ribs on Friday evening, which escalated overnight until I was sure by Saturday morning that I had broken a rib from coughing. A quick examination by the doctor at the walk-in clinic got me an immediate referral to the emergency room where (four hours later) I was diagnosed with double pneumonia and pleurisy. The pleurisy is caused by inflammation and fluid in the lining of the lung, causing it to scrape and slide against my chest wall- hence the pain. So I'm supposed to take it easy and not move or exert myself for the next ten days. I'll be on a plane ten days from now, so I'm hoping that's a conservative estimate.
Additionally, I received my rejected visa application in the mail today because I forgot to include my original passport. That brought on the panic attack, which was compounded by the fact that I couldn't FIND my passport (it was still in a briefcase in my car from when I had my fingerprints taken in Austin last week). I've shipped it by overnight airmail and (fingers crossed) I'll have my visa and my passport safe and ready to go next Tuesday. I'm trying very hard not to think of the alternative. Instead, I'm going to thank my mother for her foresight in suggesting flight insurance, and to remind myself that I still have two weeks leeway from my departure date to the date that school actually starts.
I'm sure that someday these will all just be bumps in the road that I can laugh and reminisce about, but until then, if you're reading this, keep your fingers crossed and send a little luck my way. I'll be here nursing my broken chest. I used to be a fan of the phrase, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Now it just serves as a reminder that this just might kill me after all.
I imagined that at this point I would have nothing left to worry about except making sure that I had packed everything I needed, washing all the clothes that I'm taking with me, and boxing up everything I'm leaving behind. Instead, two weeks of bronchitis culminated in a stabbing pain in my ribs on Friday evening, which escalated overnight until I was sure by Saturday morning that I had broken a rib from coughing. A quick examination by the doctor at the walk-in clinic got me an immediate referral to the emergency room where (four hours later) I was diagnosed with double pneumonia and pleurisy. The pleurisy is caused by inflammation and fluid in the lining of the lung, causing it to scrape and slide against my chest wall- hence the pain. So I'm supposed to take it easy and not move or exert myself for the next ten days. I'll be on a plane ten days from now, so I'm hoping that's a conservative estimate.
Additionally, I received my rejected visa application in the mail today because I forgot to include my original passport. That brought on the panic attack, which was compounded by the fact that I couldn't FIND my passport (it was still in a briefcase in my car from when I had my fingerprints taken in Austin last week). I've shipped it by overnight airmail and (fingers crossed) I'll have my visa and my passport safe and ready to go next Tuesday. I'm trying very hard not to think of the alternative. Instead, I'm going to thank my mother for her foresight in suggesting flight insurance, and to remind myself that I still have two weeks leeway from my departure date to the date that school actually starts.
I'm sure that someday these will all just be bumps in the road that I can laugh and reminisce about, but until then, if you're reading this, keep your fingers crossed and send a little luck my way. I'll be here nursing my broken chest. I used to be a fan of the phrase, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Now it just serves as a reminder that this just might kill me after all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)