We're getting a lot of help and support from everyone, which is awesome, at least. I now have the numbers for United London, a travel agent in Portland dedicated to the students in my program, my trip leader and his wife, the flat we're staying in, and both the United Airlines and Heathrow airport websites.
The Heathrow airport website updates every few hours about how much longer they're going to delay/cancel flights. United's actually added a feature to theirs where you can log in as a "guest" with your flight confirmation number and last name and view what's going on with your flights (usually reserved for the premiere people, at least from what I can tell, so...that's awesome)
I checked it a few minutes ago. Heathrow's website is saying that all flights are now cancelled until 1pm tomorrow, but my flight leaves at 2pm. United airlines (or someone, I really don't know) seems to have manged to book me for a "confirmed" flight tomorrow at 2pm, and also a new flight has appeared on my itinerary which is "confirmed" for Friday, April 23. Yeah. Either I get out tomorrow, or I stay a full extra week in London. I won't know until either 3am tomorrow, or possibly 1pm tomorrow, though I'm pretty sure they'll have a decisive update before that last in the afternoon. Still, booked on two flights? That's how bad the situation has become.
I can't even imagine. The UK (England + Scotland + Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and France and Germany...I mean, just look at the photo:
I don't even know the names of all of those countries!! They're saying that this is the worst disruption Europe's seen since World War II, and it's affected everything and everywhere since busnisses can't run and everyone who are on cancelled flights from around the world are trying to get places using other methods of transport. Will, Jon, and Ethan have successfully made it to Amsterdam by overnight bus, along with a few other people who made plans to travel earlier in the year that didn't involve planes. Most of my housing is full with other students like us who were supposed to go home, but can't anymore because of flight issues.
This is crazy, this is historic, I don't think I've ever felt as much sympathy for so many people, or such an outpouring of...compassion, I guess. I don't know what the word is for "your situation sucks, I'm stuck in the same sucky situation, we'll cut out all the bureaucracy and help each other out because there's nothing else that any of us can do until nature's done having it's little demonstration that Global Warming is alive, fully underway, and the world is changing to compensate, and we're having to sit tight and compensate with it."
Yep. No word in the English language can cover that entire thought, except maybe "weird."
But its not all sad and depressing!! I promise!! I actually had a super amazing day today. As in- an AWESOME CRAZY AMAZING DAY. I got to spend the entire day not worrying about a single thing. I had a place to stay, food to eat, money to spend, a full city to explore, and nowhere to be. It was really, really cool.
Cat, Erin and I decided to go eat Dim Sum for breakfast. After unpacking part of my suitcase looking for my oyster card and then discovering it in my purse, we went down to Chinatown. Erin and I went through a little pastry shop which had THE MOST AMAZING CAKE EVER. It was in the shape of a chinese lion! Made from pastry- PASTRY!! How freaking cool is that? It even had the eyes and tufts of fur and little horns made out of frosting. I totally want that for my birthday. I would eat a chocolate cake that looked like a legitimate chinese dragon. For sure.
So after that awesomeness we wandered around, and I discovered that there's "pocky" and "men's pocky." Because, yunno, women don't like dark chocolate on their pocky, or something. Silly. Then Cat and I had a creepy mind-meld and decided that bubble tea would be an excellent way to pass the time (we literally voiced the words "bubble tea" simultaneously and then stared at each other in surprise for a good minute while Erin stood confusedly) I bought a chocolate milk bubble tea and Cat and Erin split a taro bubble tea. Surprisingly, the taro was way better, all sweet and tasty and a hint of coconut. (The surprising being that I liked the taro/coconut combo) By the time we finished the dim sum place had opened, and we ate delicous delicous foods.
After that we wandered. I tried for a matinée ticket to Priscilla: Queen of the Desert: The Musical buuuuuut tickets were 20 pounds for the worst seats ever, soooo I voted no. We kind of wanted new pictures with the Trafalgar Lions, so we headed down to Trafalgar Square...
...only to find out that it had been completely changed!! There was some kind of Holland House Festival going on. Between the Trafalgar Lions was a huuuuge tent where they were having an outdoor concert (I was greatly amused that they tried to use stage lights during the daytime)-OH! Which reminds me!
It was freaking 80 something degrees today!! I KNOW!! I was outside in jeans and a t-shirt, sweating like crazy. In London! It was weeeeeeeeeird! But back to the story-
the Festival was free to enter, and it was basically amazing. Trafalgar, a place I had gotten used to as a sort of quiet tourist-y place was crowded. Tents were everywhere with everything ranging from Dutch foods to merchandise to an area where they were giving pole-jumping demonstrations. A huge LED screen was erected to display the goings-on. There was even two jugglers, on stilts, RIDING BIKES. STILT BIKE RIDING. How freaking cool is that?! Also- everyone was wearing bright orange, and I bought a t-shirt. Why? Because it was required:
It was much too punny for me to NOT buy it. (Ha ha ha, see what I did there?)
There are other photos, but sadly I forgot my camera, so I have to wait until my friends load the pictures so I can show them all to you. Here's what happened in short:
- Pole-jumpers
- Mini pancakes, waffe foods, ice cream, cheeses, beerses, other stuff
- Women in dutch dress, drunk men conga-lining, bright orange everywhere
- Two old men in clothing from the 60s doing dance moves from the 60s, complete with glittery gold pants.
I will finish this later, I have places to be.
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