Days 1-2 of 188: Colorado to London
This post will be picture-heavy because pictures are the only way I could possibly remember the blur of the travel day. Our morning started with two of our amazing friends - one making us the most extravagant bon voyage breakfast (of course, I was so nervous I could barely eat any of it) and keeping our doggo for the first couple of days, and the other trekking us to the airport. I don’t know how we’d be able to do any of this without so many wonderful people in our lives. I won’t list them all here, but I hope they (yes, you!) know how much we appreciate them.
Consider this our BEFORE photo.
We opted to get to the airport very early. This was in part because travel is crazy everywhere these days. My newsfeed is full of stories about lost luggage and canceled flight disasters. But also, I knew I just needed to be out the door and on the road before I could breathe a little. It worked out well because we decided to use our Priority Pass to get some food before the flight and jesus christ why does it always take forever to get food when we use that? Priority Pass is extremely misnomery. But anyway, we got food. And then our flight got delayed, so we had even more time.
All our worldly belongings for the next 6 months are in this photo.
Our first flight took us to Calgary. Evidently Canada is taking its sweet time dropping mask mandates, so we masked up from that point on. (I know, I know. I’m not an anti-masker or anything. But ugh. After being so good for a couple years, I’ve finally gotten re-spoiled by not having to wear them all the time. So this was a bummer.) I had decided to try the anti-jet lag diet my neighbor recommended, or at least an anti-jet lag diet lite. (I did not do the multi-day version and basically just stopped eating after we left the Denver Airport.) That trick might be worth a separate post, but the very short version is that a) I did not want anyone else in my family trying this because I’m the only one that doesn’t get hangry, and b) I think it did help me a decent amount. Certainly worth trying again in the future. I also avoided sleeping on the first flight, unlike these dummies….
We’d agreed to stay awake, you jerks!
The delay back in Denver made for a very exciting layover in Calgary. We ran through the terminal, made it through the most cartoonishly inefficient customs system ever, and continued running, to be the very last people to board our on-time flight to London. The gate agent actually congratulated us on making it, as other agents pulled the rope barriers closed right behind us. It would have made for a dramatic movie scene. It definitely made for a great cardio workout.
The rest of the flight was nice and boring, as it should be. We watched some parts of movies and got terrible sleep in terrible chairs. I skipped eating overnight for the jet lag diet thing but did eat at breakfast (cucumber sandwiches and oreos, I think? #breakfastofchampions). We landed at Gatwick and went through customs. The usual questions about “how long are you traveling” were kinda weird to answer. We tried to keep it simple but eventually explained that we’d be traveling for a long time. The guy said in an approving voice, “There’s life outside the U.S.” I said, “Yep, we (Mike and I) know that. We’re trying to show that to these two as well.” And we were on our way.
Gatwick is about as well-marked for signage as DIA, which is to say it was a bit of a clusterf**k getting to the proper train platform to head into the city. We went up lifts and down lifts and were directed from Platform 4 to Platform 2 and then at the very last second to Platform 1. But eventually we got to the right train and headed to Victoria Station. The announcer was so amazingly British that I could only picture the check-in clerk at the British hotel in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation.” So hard to understand that at first I really thought he was messing with us passengers. Uploading a video here takes more steps than I’m willing to do at the moment, but trust me, it was silly.
Train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station.
We opted to uber the last bit, which in hindsight was a waste of time and money. We could have taken The Tube very easily, but we were tired and disoriented, so we went with what felt more familiar. It got us to our apartment, where our AirBnB host greeted us and gave us the (very short) tour. I was feeling awake enough to explore, but in the end we all caved and took a nap. We Randalls know we’ll always lose a day to jetlag, despite our best efforts. But wasting the 4th of July in these current regressive times, not to mention being in the last place folks would probably celebrate America’s independence (haha), felt pretty appropriate.
