Allie Goes Global

So, here we are. I’ve spent months planning every possible aspect of this trip and have spent the last 12 hours of my life stuck on a plane. So what now? What has this all been for?

Watford, of course! The jewel of England!

No, I jest. I had plans for Watford (see the next post), but mainly, after 16 hours of travel, I needed a place to lay my head without too much effort or too much driving from the airport. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Before we even start, there’s some important backstory for this whole trip that might explain why I arrived already in kind of a bad mood. I had a root canal two days before I left, and was now fitted with truly the worst temporary crown anyone has ever seen. Full of holes, cement leaking out, and expected to last for a full three weeks. Let’s just say, with half my mouth out of commission, I wasn’t having a great time.

I live in a small town about two hours from LAX. This leaves me with a choice. I can either drive to the airport and pay the heinous parking fees, or I can drive an hour to a shuttle, and have the shuttle take me the remaining hour and a half to the airport. I opted for the shuttle. It’s very convenient, but it does make any travel day a lot longer.

I flew United from LAX to Heathrow. I opted, because of the length of the flight, to pay extra for premium economy seating. In my opinion, this wasn’t worth it. The seats are sold as “recliners,” but they didn’t seem to actually recline any more than any other seat I’ve been in. There wasn’t much to say about the flight, other than that it was cold and they fed us an insane number of times. Seriously, a snack shortly after takeoff, then dinner, then (at what would have been 2am) sandwiches, then snacks again, and then breakfast. The food was all really good, but good lord, there was a lot of it. And (as will become important later) I slept maybe 2 hours.

I got through immigration and customs quickly (thanks, e-gates!) and went off to go get my rental car. Now, when I was initially planning my trip, I intended to use only public transport because I was afraid of driving on the opposite side of the road. But as the trip got closer, I saw how much more convenient (and cheaper) it would be to have a car. So, I took an online course on driving in the UK (via Tripiamo, if anyone’s interested) and made my reservation.

And oh boy, was it a chore getting my car. I booked through Sixt, and I won’t be doing that again. The amount of upselling they tried to do on a prepaid reservation was insane. The desk agent was positive that I needed an SUV, no matter how many times I told her that I wanted the smallest car they had. I tried to decline the insurance because I have it through my credit card and they straight up told me no. Even when I presented them with the policy, thinking that was the issue, I was still refused. Finally, it came out that they just didn’t have the car I reserved.

Look, I’m painfully nice to people. The number of times I say please and thank you has been openly mocked by friends and family. I am aggressively patient with people in the service industry, as someone who was in it for a long time. But we are now 30 minutes into the process of trying to pick up a car that I booked six months ago, they’ve tried to charge me an additional $1,200 for an upgrade I don’t want (more than once), and I’m being told that they don’t have the car I booked. I finally had to get a little forceful. I just had to tell her that I would not be paying a dollar more than I had already paid, and I just needed the smallest car they had. I ended up with some kind of Citroen crossover that had about 5 error/service lights on when I got it.

I won’t tell you how long it took me to get out of the parking space in the garage. Let’s say more than ten minutes, but less than 30, just moving forward an inch, cutting the wheel, back an inch, over and over again. This is fully on me. I will say, in my defense, that I was right next to a cement pole, with further metal stanchions on each corner of the parking spot, and I felt that if anyone could damage a rental car within ten minutes of having it, it would be me.

Finally made it out of the garage, and now I just have to drive half an hour to my home for the evening, Watford. What became apparent as soon as I got onto the motorway was that the hood of the car was unlatched and was flapping around, held down only by the internal latch. There was nowhere to pull off, I was driving on the opposite side of the road (and opposite side of the car) from what I’m used to, and we were all going 70 miles per hour. I just had to hold on and pray that the latch did the same. Some men in a van did drive by and one of them basically hung out the window to let me know it was unlatched, so that was kind of nice.

I made it to the hotel (a Premier Inn) and got checked in by the surly front desk clerk. Now, I had done my research and knew that the idea of customer service is different in the UK than in the US. I just assumed that my internet research had undersold just how little customer service the UK engaged in. However, with the wisdom of hindsight and a further two weeks of traveling the country, I can say for sure: nah, that guy was just kind of a dick. But whatever. I got a room with a bed, which is really all I wanted from the exchange.

By now, I should have been ready for sleep. But no! It was only 4pm, I’d been planning this trip for months, and I was excited! So I decided to get out and explore. I promptly met a very fat squirrel, which puts Watford pretty high up in my books. I then went off to the Tesco across the street. I did need some trip snacks, but mostly, I just wanted to check out what fun things I might be able to get at an English grocery store.

Tesco was relatively interesting (and I’m aware that I sound like a gibbering idiot to anyone actually from the UK), but I started to get tired, so I headed back to the hotel. I decided to order some kind of dumplings to be delivered to the hotel so I could just chill for the evening. However, while waiting for the food to come, my temporary crown fell off and I had a minor panic attack. So by the time it came, I had no interest in eating it. And then I stubbed my toe so hard on the leg of the bed that I drew blood. So we’re off to a great start!

But I promise, it does get better. I mean, it gets worse first, but then better.