So my flight from Newark Airport to Heathrow was canceled a few days before it was supposed to take place. That forced me to scramble and place a call. In fact, the agency through which I did the booking had taken me off of the first two flights, which meant that they took me off the London to Johannesburg flight the first evening. I asked them why and basically demanded that they put me back on the flight, which they did.
Then, it was a matter of getting to London. They initially wanted to put me on a flight to London on the morning of Wednesday, September 25th, which likely would have made it tight for the flight to Johannesburg, and never mind a visit to London. But again, I insisted on better options, particularly for a flight on the 24th, as originally planned. Ultimately, they gave me a flight out of JFK that evening. My original flight was supposed to leave at about 9:15pm (21:15), but this one left JFK at about 11:30 (23:30) at night. A lot less convenient, and for multiple reasons. JFK Airport is much more burdensome and expensive to get to. Also, this left less time in London.
Still, I took it, and was grateful. This easily allowed me some time to visit London, and to make it comfortably on time for the flight to Johannesburg later that evening. So I made the switch, and then made the adjustments necessary for the change of flight. That included informing my ex, who had agreed to be the ride to Newark, and was okay with this new drive to JFK in the city.
Of course, the drive to JFK was burdensome. There was a ton of traffic, which was reminiscent of the trips that my family took when my parents set my brother and I for trips to France to visit family when we were kids. I remember those rides feeling long and always filled with traffic. It felt like nothing had changed.
However, we left in plenty of time, and so we got there not just well on time, but comfortably early. That meant a couple of hours extra wait at the airport, but this was okay. Especially when I was able to charge my brand new phone, which I luckily had gotten just before leaving for the airport. That meant that it needed to get charged, Also, that I needed a chance to sit down and really look at the phone. The extra long stay at the airport allowed me to fully charge it, as well as test some things out. So it actually worked out well.
After a while, it was time to get ready for the flight. Luckily, I had a window seat. In fact, as it turns out, I had window seats for all of the flights on this trip, save for the final one, the return from Heathrow to Newark. That was good.
Of course, the portals on the plane allowed me to keep the phone fully charged, as well as to play around with the phone a bit more. To get a bit more acclimated with it. Also, I slept. After all, this was an overnight, red-eye flight. Not much sleep, but it helped enough so that I was not particularly tired during the day visit to London.
For this first day of this trip, I thought that it would be best to go to Wimbledon and pay that place a visit. I am still a fan of tennis, and have always wanted to go to the grounds at Wimbledon. So I bought my round trip tickets, and then went about going the way that I had learned would be best, according to workers of the London Underground.
Unfortunately, there were problems. The signals were not functioning properly. So that meant that the trains were not going all the way to Wimbledon. It only went as far as Parsons Green.
Damn.
One of the workers at the station instructed me to go to the bus that was being provided and that it would take me to Wimbledon. After making sure that I knew how to get there, he sent me on my way. Then I got to the bus and....it was not going all the way to Wimbledon.
Damn.
A woman right behind me told me that I was just as well taking the bus, because it would take me to another bus which, indeed, would get me to Wimbledon. But looking at my watch, I was alarmed to see how quickly the time was going. I had maximum about three or so hours before the time that I felt I should head back to Heathrow in order to get there comfortably on time and not risk missing the flight to Jo'burg. Catching this bus to take another bus, then surely needing to take two buses back, and still needing about an hour to get to Heathrow just seemed a bit too tight. It was time to admit that Wimbledon just was not going to work out for this day.
Again, damn.
So I decided to make the most of it, and visited the neighborhood around Parsons Green. it was not too bad. Had a kebob for lunch, visited the library and a little bit of the neighborhood. Then, it was time to head to Piccadilly Circus, and pay a famous part of London a visit.
Walked around a bit, and then visited a charming little park called Golden Square Gardens. Sat down for a bit, and pulled out the book which I was carrying with me. Just read for a few minutes, and took some nice, long breaths, savoring the moment. Before long, however, it was time to head back towards Heathrow.
Still, I wanted to see if I could catch a glimpse of Big Ben, the most famous landmark in London. So I went past Piccadilly Circus and headed towards the stairs which I remembered from the first trip here a couple of years earlier. We had stayed right by Piccadilly Circus, so it was one of the few neighborhoods in London which I had some familiarity with. Not enough, however, because Big Ben was not visible.
Also, it was time to go.
Headed back to Heathrow, feeling that I had made the best out of a disappointing situation, keeping in mind that the main part of this trip was, of course, South Africa. That was to be the highlight, and long layover visits to London were just to be the icing on the cake. Also, I had seen a bit of London, even some things that I had not seen on the previous trip.
Boarded the plane after a surprisingly long security check, and then another unpleasant surprise when I learned how far away the gate was, and how tight on time it was getting (even though I had arrived at the airport fully three hours before my flight).
Still, I got there with some time to spare, and boarded my flight to Johannesburg.
One last thing: I kept the window open as we flew over France, then the Mediterranean (which of course was not visible, because it was night). But I did see the lights of cities in northern Africa (I believe it was both Tunisia and Algeria), before we hit a major stretch of pure night once we were over the Sahara, and then Sub-Saharan Africa.
The first day of the trip was now pretty much over.
JFK Airport:
.heic)
No comments:
Post a Comment