There was a
big sign lit and it said “Marble Arch station closed, ask stewards for
directions”
Oh nice, we
didn’t even have a clue where to go, how can we ask stewards how to get there?
We quickly
decided to go to Victoria Station, and not to Liverpool Station, as I seemed to
remember the first one was open all night, or the busstation was open all
night. I’ve been in London
quite a few times during the years, but the last time has been 4 years ago
already.
We didn’t
want to go the airport because we feared it closed at night.(and our traintickets
were for Sunday)
So we asked
the stewards how to get to Victoria, and one
said “you can walk, its 20 minutes that way” and he waved his hand towards Hyde Park.
Ah great,
we didn’t have anything to do anyway, and as the rain stopped again, we decided
to walk “that way”
I
desperately tried to remember where Victoria
was located compared with Hyde Park, but
couldn’t make anything of it, and Alessio went to ask at least 3 times again
before we left the park.
We took a
little break and sat down on a bench. Felt so good. We realized we could have
maybe stay in the park the whole night if it would have been better weather! Up
again, every muscle hurt, onto Victoria.
We reached the end of the park, and I started seeing nice things again. There
was a big arch and the ports of the park were really pretty. I wanted to take a
closer look, but couldn’t do that to the others, and just followed them. On the
street again, I saw a map and as soon as I poined my fingers on it going “we’re
here, and the station is there, so we have to go…” a guy, maybe a steward or
one of the street sweepers I was standing next to, came to me and asked me
where I wanted to go.
We told
him, and he said “just that street, a good 15 minutes walk!”
Wait,
ANOTHER 15??!!! Noooo… yes! Sigh. At least it wasn’t raining.
We crossed the street, very scary in London, looking to the right when you’re going to cross a street feels so unnatural, like you’re turning your head away while waiting for that car to hit you. I just kept looking right, left, right, left, right left, run for your life!!
We crossed the street, very scary in London, looking to the right when you’re going to cross a street feels so unnatural, like you’re turning your head away while waiting for that car to hit you. I just kept looking right, left, right, left, right left, run for your life!!
Safely
crossed the street, I kept looking around me, another desperate attempt to
absorb as much of London
as possible.
Then, just
like that, A GREYHOUND BUS PASSED US!!!
I started
screaming and pointing at it, the others acted like they didn’t knew me, hehe,
accept for Robert who went “yep, I saw it too”
Still I
think it was maybe a delirium, a GREYHOUND BUS in LONDON??? I know Robert saw it too, but maybe
that was part of the delirium :-P
It was very
confusing! I’ve been to London
many times, but never ever saw a Greyhound bus!! Didn’t even know they operated
there?
If you
didn’t know yet, I love Greyhounds, just because, and everytime in America isn’t
complete until the first Greyhound. But now we were in London. Weird!
We walked
pass Grosvenor Place
and we didn’t even knew we were this close to Buckingham Palace!
(I just found out now)
After a long walk, we reached the station, and we were
so tired, we couldn even stand straight.
Plan was to
find a MacDonalds that would be open all night, we found a Mac, but it was only
open till 11. We went in, ordered something so we could SIT DOWN, the cute kid
behind the counter talked me out of the chocolate Sunday to the chocolate
toffee Sunday “because its better, because theres toffee in it, that’s why its
better!” with the coolest London accent. He added extra chocolate and extra
toffee and I still think he’s the best ever. I don’t think he realized how he
put a smile on my face and in my heart the rest of the trip and how he was one
of those little highlights you have when you go out on the road.
Sitting
down with our snacks was another highlight.
We stayed
until the place closed (=10 minutes) and went back to the trainstation again.
All that icecream with choco and toffee gave me a sugar rush and I went to
explore the station, while the others sat down. Also, I thought it was way to
cold to sit down.
First thing
I ran into was a CLOSED KRISPY KREMES!!!!!! booth! And ever since when do they have KK’s in London??? Seems like I need
to go back there soon.
I started
to feel a bit like I was in New York,
also because of the truckloads of weirdo’s that were running around there. Guys
in dresses and such. Hey please go ahead if you feel like it, but don’t mind if
I look twice! And lots of party people, half drunk girls in ultra short dresses
and ultra high heels, with extreme make up. I felt like a hillbilly looking at
all those people :-D
Crowds of
people covered in mud and wearing springsteen shirts ran into the station, and
we still didn’t know what to do.
Wouldn’t
the station be packed with REAL strange people in the middle of the night???
Would we be safe here? We wouldn’t be warm here for sure.
If it
wasn’t raining outside we could maybe walking around, but we didn’t know what the
neighbourhood would be like at night, and it was raining, and we were too tired
to walk around.
I slightly
got the idea how homeless people must feel, but at least we kept stuffing ourself with snacks and food.
We decided
to go to the busstation to see if it was warmer there, it was raining again,
and being there felt very familiar. If you go to London
by bus you end up at Victoria, but even if you
don’t go by bus you end up at Victoria,
and this wasn’t the first time that happened! The busstation was nice and warm,
but there were also some creepy people. We looked around for a safe place to
sit and sat down near the gate for the bus to Leeds.
I realised we could have easily booked the nightbus to Amsterdam, but we didnt think of that when we booked and we didnt know by then that we would be in time to make it. Just the thought that we could have been warm, safe, and moving towards home at the same time, made me a bit grumpy.
The bus
waiting for the gate at the end said “Glasgow”
and “over night sleeper” or something and we thought “ef it, lets go to Glasgow”
I kept
staring at it for a long time and when it was about to leave, the driver came
inside and yelled “Glasgow!
Glasgow!
Passengers for the overnight sleeper to Glasgow!”
His
Scottish accent was so fantastic and thick, it almost made me cry. Hell yeah we
were in the United Kingdom,
and not in New York!
I just loved everytime he came back to yell “Glasgow!”
Well, he
left without us. Alessio went online and looked for cheap hotels in the
neighbourhood, but all he could find was 80 pound a room, and we didn’t have
that, and we already spent quite a lot.
We just sat
there not knowing what to do, and getting out of mood quick.
You can
guess what happened at 12 o clock, after all the buses left? Yeah, the station
closed, and we had to leave.
We went
back to the trainstation and we assumed this would close too. I saw a map of
the neighbourhood and it had some info about and a small picture of the
Westminster Cathedral on it. (Westminster is the
district in London
where we were) It looked like it was just around the corner of the station and
I REALLY wanted to take a look, we didn’t have anything better to do anyway!?
The building was beautifull (if you didn’t know, I like churchbuildings just as
much as Greyhound busses ;-) I never saw a church like that before.
I didn’t
say anything to the others though, and we started talking about what to do
again. I was pretty sure the airport was closed, but we decided to go back to
Liverpool Station at least and see. And maybe it was open all night. We went to
the Underground station, and found out our last train to the Liverpool
station was about to leave right now, so we flew downstairs with me in the back
going “we’re never going to make it! We’re never going to make it!” Thinking
about it, I don’t have much faith in catching trains. I kept on yelling this
the whole time everytime we had to catch a train. But we did make it, the
Circle Line back to Liverpoolstreet.
In the
subway I noticed on a map, that Liverpool
street station would be more or less close to a
good and cheap hotel we knew. But we didn’t know if they had rooms. If we went
there without checking, and we couldn’t get a room, we would be stuck in that
nasty neighbourhood, and if we went online first to check, we would miss the
last train there.
On
Liverpoolstreet station we checked the timetables for the airport, and the first train
in the morning was only at 7 something. It was not even 1 o clock now, and if
the trainstation closed, it would mean that we had to spend 6 hours in the rain
on the streets of a neighbourhood we didn’t know. We were getting desperate,
and irritating.
A man in
uniform heard us shout and walked up to us and asked if we needed assistance
finding our train, as he was going to … close the station.
We looked
at eachother, Fogerty was far away, I felt like I could cry.
Out of curiosity,
I looked at the LAST train, that was going to Southend, and it was leaving at
0.50.
“what time
is it, the last train leaves at 0.50”
…
“IT IS
0.50!!!!!” panic, panic, as we didn’t have any other options, though I thought the
airport would be closed, as we were desperate, we started screaming at
eachother, and running around looking for the platform. Alessio found it, we
were passed by running people, I was screaming “we’re never going to make it!!!
And the airport will be closed!!”
More screaming
to eachother, and the final decision to take the train, or at least try to take
it. We just didnt have ANY other options left. We started running like crazy, and only because of some drunken bimbo’s
standing in the door, we made it. We all dove in it at the moment the signal went.
The doors closed behind us and the train left within 5 seconds we were in it.
The drunken
bimbo’s were still screaming at eachother and I yelled at them “hou je bek!!!”
geezz glad they didn’t respond to that! Smart move.
Other
drunken bimbos were stretched out over 4 seats, so we were forced to stand,
causing slight irritations. I was so annoyed that I didn’t even wanna go over
and ask if we could sit there (maybe they were just to drunk to realize they
were taking up all the space) because I didnt want to sit next to them. Anne was about to start a riot, but was way to
exhausted to get over there.
Around
01.50 we arrived at the airports trainstation, and when we saw a guy laying on
the floor sleeping next to his suitcase, all our hope went down the drain.
The
stations ward (?) was waiting for us and welcomed us. Never saw anything like
that. Only in the UK
I guess! He started talking: “the airport will open at 4 o clock. You can stay
here for the night, if you go upstairs it will be warmer, and if you don’t come
near that door, it wont automatically open. I will close all other doors, but
leave that one open so you can go to the bathroom if you want too. It also has
warm water and drinking water. You will be safe here, cos I got you on camera”
He pointed
to one of the many camera’s, and walked us back up stairs.
The only
thing missing was that he didn’t come back to bring us hot tea!
There were
no benches, but the floor was extremely clean, I’ve never seen such a clean
floor on a trainstation before, I pulled on all my extra clothes, rested my
head on Roberts leg, layed down, and thought “this isn’t bad at all, this is
pretty good” and felt asleep, until I woke up completely frozen.
I think I
slept maybe one hour, and after that I was so cold I couldn’t sleep anymore.
The guy who had arrived with us, was sleeping like a little princess :-) in a
sleeping bag, hmpf! Time can go so SLOW!! It took ages before it was finally,
finally 4 o’clock. We stood upstairs looking at the airport, there were people
waiting outside, 4am passed, nothing happened, was it maybe all a lie??
Then, the
doors opened. Salvation!
The airport
was warm, and clean too. We went upstairs and found a spot, I stretched myself
out on the floor again, earplugs in, eyemask on, gone! Robert woke me up later
to say there was a line of people standing next to me waiting for departures.
Downstairs then, a bit colder, no cosy corners, just slept on the floor again,
until a security guy came to check if I was still alive.
I gave up
and sat on the bench with the others, and we all fell asleep on and off, with
our heads bouncing in every direction.
In between
I looked at what was going on on the airport.
Not much!
On our left
was the coffeecorner with a young boy waiting for customers, in front of us two
car rental desks with a man and a woman waiting for customers, and on our right
a guy with a funny hairdo in a moneyexhange booth, waiting for customers and
playing pacman on his computer (we assumed).
How can I
ever describe the longest, most boring, most exhausting morning EVER??
Our flight
was at 13.00 hrs (you don’t have that much choice last minute) and we still had
hours and hours and hours to go, and there was nothing to see here exept for
those 4 people.
Spectacle!
The coffeecorner boy went to the money guy to change coins!
More
spectacle! The money guy left his booth and sat down in the coffeecorner for
breakfast!
We wondered
if he’d ever get customers, especially because there was an ATM standing right
next to his booth. Who exhanges money these days? We hoped he would ever get
enough customers to get a haircut :-D
It might
have been after 8 allready when the first customers for the car rental desks
appeared. Fantastic, something to look at for at least 15 minutes!
Later a
flock of people came in dressed very sunny; on to their flights to Spain. They all
looked at us, as we looked like slobs, our shoes covered in mud and everything.
I was in desperate need of a shower, but I expected to be able take one at home
on Saturday.
We
collected our last coins and bought a lot of snacks and coffee in the coffeecorner,
(the guy asked Robert why we were sitting there all the time) and finally
people started walking in and the feeling that I was stuck in some weird movie
ended. Went to the bathroom to clean myself a bit up, and finally, finally,
finally, it was time to go upstairs and through security. We waved our newest
best friends of coffeeshop, car rental, money booth farewell but they didn’t
even look up :-(
I probably
slept 2 minutes in the airplane and woke up just in time to see the costal line
of the Netherlands.
And a windmill park in the sea, pretty cool!
 |
| Admit that this is one of the weirdest things you've ever seen :-D |
I looked at the cities down there
and tried to guess wich ones, and we were back in Schiphol airport already
again.
Now as we
were flying Easy Jet, the budget airline, we touched down on a runway closer to
London then to Amsterdam!! Robert looked at his watch, we
had to “roll” to the terminal for nearly TWENTY MINUTES!!
Ofcourse
now it was beautifull weather, we collected our car and drove home. Fell
asleep, try to never do that as I am the one next to the driver, but it was
hopeless.
We got our
stuff at Alessio’s mums house, quick visit to the supermarket and went home,
where my mom waiting for us, she looked after the house during the tour.
Felt funny
and good to be home again! I opened kitchen cabinets just to look at my
collection of food and stared into the fridge for moments. You cant believe how
much you’re going to appreciate those things when you’re on the road for a few
weeks!!
Then my
bed, my own, nice, warm, soft, clean, fantastic, comfy bed.
