My journey back from America the Beautiful started in Philadelphia, birth place of the Declaration of Independence and the most glorious of the hot sandwiches, the Philly cheesesteak (ok, let's be honest, it's second only to the rueben). I boarded my British Airways flight to London, and hunkered down for a 6 or 7 hour red-eye flight, in which I did not sleep a wink. Since my layover in Londontown was a long one, about 13 hours, I decided to hang around in the city for a while to entertain myself.
In college, I had a layover in London on my way to Kenya for a summer program. I had seen some of the sights already, so this time all I really wanted to do was walk around a bit and avoid the tourists.
When I got there, it was a Sunday, early in the morning.
I got a TravelCard at the airport so I could use the tube without having to worry about shelling out money every time. As soon as I got on the tube, however, I started falling asleep in a really unattractive manner. Mouth open, head lolling about. As much as I loved having a mother of 2 small girls across the way keep giving me the fish eye like I was some sort of drug addled fiend wearing a cardigan, I decided something needed to be done. My solution was to get off at Green Park and collapse in the grass for a few hours. Why Green Park? Because it was on the Piccadilly line, and it had the word Park in it.
I am so knowledgeable about London.
I was passed out. Like really passed out. When I woke up, I was drooling, there were boatloads more people mucking about, and someone had apparently set up chairs practically on top of me. My fellow lawn nappers had started to disperse, so I bought myself a coffee and started wondering around. I was trying to get to the Thames so I could cross over to more interesting places to eat.
I don't know why I thought I would find more interesting places to eat there, but I had myself convinced.
Within 5 minutes I found myself instead in front of Buckingham Palace and figured it would be a good idea if I bought a map.
Let me tell you something.
If you are trying to avoid touristy business, you just mustn't get on the Piccadilly line to what happened to be the center of the London. Of course, it's not that I dislike tourists. I myself was a tourist. But with tourist attractions comes ridiculously high prices and exchange rates. And that is not something I was hoping to experience.
Anyway, I finally found myself over the Thames and at a food truck run by 2 Italian guys that made legitimate brick oven pizza. In a vehicle. With a brick oven. I was impressed. Of course, shortly after, my dining experience was overshadowed when I happened upon a food market/festival/thingy-job that contained all my favorite foods. I drank a craft beer while waiting for my pizza to digest so as I could stuff a grilled sausage in my gob. There was also a multitude of Indian food stands, coffee and juice vendors, dessert arrangements, the list goes on. But I figured I could only be so disgusting for one day.
I'll tell you one thing, though, I don't understand this stereotype of London (or I guess more generally England) having a boring and/or disappointing culinary scene. Nearly every food item I ate and smelled was a delight.
I mean I wasn't eating non-food items, except maybe what was in the airport, so I'm not sure why I said that.
I got myself back to the airport and onto my flight to South Africa, unfortunately singing "Waterloo" by ABBA and imagining Colin Firth in sequin bellbottoms the whole way down. I was delighted by the fact the it was a double decker plane! It was enormous! The wing took up 4 windows, and there were 3 gangplanks, or whatever you call those tunnel things. Had I not been sitting in a cramped economy seat, I would have felt like the Queen.
Anyway, this flight was almost twice as long. Luckily, I slept. I arrived in Johannesburg with relatively little incident, and boarded a significantly smaller plane filled with a distressing number of elderly folk in what they thought to be appropriate safari garb for the last leg of my journey.
Feeling as though I was in the clear as I stepped off plane #3, I entered the tiny Windhoek airport, got out my necessary documents and attempted to enter the country.
One hour later.
I was standing off to the side of passport control, wondering if I would indeed be sent back to my native country as the officials had threatened and trying not to lose my rag (i.e. laughing, crying, staging a sit-in)
You may be asking what horrible crime I committed to deserve a denial of entrance. My crime was not having enough blank pages in my passport, ladies and gentlemen. It's true. Due to the fact that I have traveled a bit over the last several years, due to the indisputable fact that passport control officers like to take up as much clean space as they can when they stamp you into a country, and due to the fact that this little known rule slipped my mind, I did not have the required three blank pages in my passport.
And what Hell broke loose.
Luckily I got passed off to enough people that they eventually got sick of dealing with me and let me through with the promise that I would get more pages put into my passport.
For the record, I am legally in the country. Not like I would post on the internet that I WASN'T legal, but I actually am.
Also, if you find yourself in a similar sort of jam, know that you can get more pages put in at the US embassy, and maybe with a little sweet talk and patience, you will be able to handle the situation too.
Or just make sure you have clean pages in your passport in the first place. That's probably the better idea.
But I'm back, folks! Back to the home that has not quite excepted me as an inhabitant yet, but, again, with a little sweet talk and patience, perhaps I can worm my way in.
In college, I had a layover in London on my way to Kenya for a summer program. I had seen some of the sights already, so this time all I really wanted to do was walk around a bit and avoid the tourists.
When I got there, it was a Sunday, early in the morning.
I got a TravelCard at the airport so I could use the tube without having to worry about shelling out money every time. As soon as I got on the tube, however, I started falling asleep in a really unattractive manner. Mouth open, head lolling about. As much as I loved having a mother of 2 small girls across the way keep giving me the fish eye like I was some sort of drug addled fiend wearing a cardigan, I decided something needed to be done. My solution was to get off at Green Park and collapse in the grass for a few hours. Why Green Park? Because it was on the Piccadilly line, and it had the word Park in it.
I am so knowledgeable about London.
I was passed out. Like really passed out. When I woke up, I was drooling, there were boatloads more people mucking about, and someone had apparently set up chairs practically on top of me. My fellow lawn nappers had started to disperse, so I bought myself a coffee and started wondering around. I was trying to get to the Thames so I could cross over to more interesting places to eat.
I don't know why I thought I would find more interesting places to eat there, but I had myself convinced.
Within 5 minutes I found myself instead in front of Buckingham Palace and figured it would be a good idea if I bought a map.
Let me tell you something.
If you are trying to avoid touristy business, you just mustn't get on the Piccadilly line to what happened to be the center of the London. Of course, it's not that I dislike tourists. I myself was a tourist. But with tourist attractions comes ridiculously high prices and exchange rates. And that is not something I was hoping to experience.
Anyway, I finally found myself over the Thames and at a food truck run by 2 Italian guys that made legitimate brick oven pizza. In a vehicle. With a brick oven. I was impressed. Of course, shortly after, my dining experience was overshadowed when I happened upon a food market/festival/thingy-job that contained all my favorite foods. I drank a craft beer while waiting for my pizza to digest so as I could stuff a grilled sausage in my gob. There was also a multitude of Indian food stands, coffee and juice vendors, dessert arrangements, the list goes on. But I figured I could only be so disgusting for one day.
I'll tell you one thing, though, I don't understand this stereotype of London (or I guess more generally England) having a boring and/or disappointing culinary scene. Nearly every food item I ate and smelled was a delight.
I mean I wasn't eating non-food items, except maybe what was in the airport, so I'm not sure why I said that.
I got myself back to the airport and onto my flight to South Africa, unfortunately singing "Waterloo" by ABBA and imagining Colin Firth in sequin bellbottoms the whole way down. I was delighted by the fact the it was a double decker plane! It was enormous! The wing took up 4 windows, and there were 3 gangplanks, or whatever you call those tunnel things. Had I not been sitting in a cramped economy seat, I would have felt like the Queen.
Anyway, this flight was almost twice as long. Luckily, I slept. I arrived in Johannesburg with relatively little incident, and boarded a significantly smaller plane filled with a distressing number of elderly folk in what they thought to be appropriate safari garb for the last leg of my journey.
Feeling as though I was in the clear as I stepped off plane #3, I entered the tiny Windhoek airport, got out my necessary documents and attempted to enter the country.
One hour later.
I was standing off to the side of passport control, wondering if I would indeed be sent back to my native country as the officials had threatened and trying not to lose my rag (i.e. laughing, crying, staging a sit-in)
You may be asking what horrible crime I committed to deserve a denial of entrance. My crime was not having enough blank pages in my passport, ladies and gentlemen. It's true. Due to the fact that I have traveled a bit over the last several years, due to the indisputable fact that passport control officers like to take up as much clean space as they can when they stamp you into a country, and due to the fact that this little known rule slipped my mind, I did not have the required three blank pages in my passport.
And what Hell broke loose.
Luckily I got passed off to enough people that they eventually got sick of dealing with me and let me through with the promise that I would get more pages put into my passport.
For the record, I am legally in the country. Not like I would post on the internet that I WASN'T legal, but I actually am.
Also, if you find yourself in a similar sort of jam, know that you can get more pages put in at the US embassy, and maybe with a little sweet talk and patience, you will be able to handle the situation too.
Or just make sure you have clean pages in your passport in the first place. That's probably the better idea.
But I'm back, folks! Back to the home that has not quite excepted me as an inhabitant yet, but, again, with a little sweet talk and patience, perhaps I can worm my way in.
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