What follows is a short travelogue, recounting the adventures I was somehow forced into while trying to get back to Germany…
Everything seemed to start really smoothly. Matt printed all the tickets and stuff and also showed me, where the National Express coaches would pick up their Lufbra passengers. After acquiring some of those little travel-toothpaste-stuff, I got to the town centre thirty minutes early. Luckily, the coach arrived just before it started to rain and as there were not so many people getting on the coach, I easily found myself a comfortable seat and spent some time on More’s ‚Utopia‘. There’s nothing more to be told about this part of my journey, except for the fact that the driver must have thought winter had arrived and therefore turned up the heating to the maximum. Anyways, scheduled arrival at London Victoria Coach Station: CHECK!
That meant there was plenty of time to find the place my next means of transport was to depart from. A task, that turned out to be not as easy as I had hoped, imagined, wished… In fact I ended up running around the area surrounding Victoria Rail Station, asking some 100 people (okay, maybe it was only 20 or so) about what became known as „The Mysterious Line 741 to Harlow“. Unfortunately, nobody had ever heard about it nor had anybody the slightest idea where it could be found. At this point I would like to thank the great city of London for being such an unexpected and undescribable help…
As a result I had to call the hostel at Harlow and tell the manager I would not be able to get there for the night, which was not so easy because there only was an Asian woman on the phone who tried to convince me that the manager would be around a few minutes later. Guess what! He wasn’t. But an hour and – according to the circumstances – a nice and relaxed talk later, as well as a few pounds lighter (haha!) this matter had proven itself settled. All that had great influence on how I was to spend the next hours: First I had to figure out how and when to get to Stansted Airport. Secondly, I had to buy another bus ticket and last but not least, I had to brace myself, for Winter was coming there were different things coming my way…
I used the travel from Victoria to Stansted to finish the first part of the before mentioned Utopia. Then, suddenly, I found myself at the airport, approximately eleven (11!) hours before departure. I don’t know why, but I had expected to find some place to charge my smartphone and thus being able to chat around a bit. Guess again! Right! No chance. Left alone, without any connection to the rest of the world, I dived deeper into the one, that is said to have been discovered by Raphael Hythloday many years ago. Some time later, after having finished the whole second part of the book without any longer interruption, I was once more facing the question what was to be done next. In the very moment I had decided that resting and maybe also getting some sleep were the best alternatives, a bunch of incredibly noisy Italian women decided to settle right next to what I had seen as a quiet and peaceful place up to that point. I sought shelter from the annoying situation by turning up my iPod’s volume to the max, but even that would not help…
I shall summarise the rest of the night: Pain-in-the-arse-Italians, much-too-expensive-Burger King and thus hunger-all-night-long and somehow-not-so-bad-first-hundred-pages of another book, called ‚White Teeth‘. Of the difficulties I had with the boarding pass, Matt had printed back at Lufbra, I won’t talk much, neither of what Ryan Air dare call ’service‘. Last shock for the new born day came at the end of this very unpleasant journey: Because I had finally fallen asleep on the plane, I thought some really bad things were happening, when I woke up and heard the alarming screams of asphalt being hit hard by an army of tyres…
Conclusion: Next time I will travel differently. Also, London will get another chance, possibly even next week. Really lookin‘ forward to it (: As well as to the wedding tomorrow! (: (: (:
That’s it for tonight!
Simon
P.s. Big ‚THANK YOU!‘ to Stefan, who picked me up at Baden Airport and is – as always – a very kind host.