A Dress Code Will Be Enforced

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, ‘as pretty as an airport.’ I’d like to add that it has never produced the phrase “as comfortable as an airport.”  Maybe if it had, I wouldn’t have this story to tell.

Situation: Spending a semester in England and hopping ponds on the weekends to see the rest of Europe.  I had the unfortunate idea of taking a Psychology class that was pretty laughable in its own right at 10 on Monday morning, so most of these weekend jaunts were bookended by me hurrying back Sunday night.  There’s a good story about that too but I’ll wait.  This one’s all about Friday when we were heading out.

See, we had the bright idea of saving some money and catching an early morning flight out so we’d have all day in Dublin to walk around and do the typical tourist business.  So the night before, we said ‘hey, let’s just catch a bus into London, walk around until about two in the morning, then catch a few winks at the airport until our plane?’  Why not?  Because that’s a stupid, painful plan, that’s why.

First of all, it’s cold in London.  Really cold.  For a while we staked out a table at McDonald’s in Queen Victoria station, but around 11 they came around and started doing the patented Dance of You’ve Been Here Too Long.  You know, the one where the waiter/waitress stands off at the bar with a mop and bucket, gazing at the window behind you.  Or they put the chairs up on nearby tables and maybe lock eyes with you for just a moment.  The employees at the McDonald’s didn’t have anything so subtle–they just hung a “Dining Area Closed” sign right behind us and frowned rather sternly.  We left.

Now, about that cold.  London has quite a bit of it, especially in November, and I’m right in the thick of it.  An hour outside, everyone in our group has dug into their luggage for extra clothes and starting to consider lighting a fire.  Time for the Stansted bus.

Except the bus is two hours late.

So by the time it rolled up to the stop, I was already feeling about an 8.5 on the refugee scale.  I had been kicked out of McDonalds, forced to wear five layers of clothing to stay warm, and spent the last two hours huddled at a bus stop rubbing my hands together.  I guess it’s lucky on my part then, because trying to sleep at Stansted completed the transformation.

I don’t know if everyone knows this, but there’s a million airports in London.  Okay, maybe five.  And anyone who’s been penniless and traveling around Europe will tell you: You never fly out of Heathrow.  No, you get Stansted, the red-haired stepchild airport of London.  The place looks like a gymnasium that had to take in some makeshift WWII hospital patients and occasionally a plane lands outside.  It is one huge, echoey hangar with more bodies on the floor than Tarantino can even count.  It’s a carpet of people who looked just like me at the moment, wearing hastily unpacked clothes to stay warm, bath towels pulled up to their chin, carry-on sufficing as a lumpy pillow.  Dress rehearsal for the apocalypse.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep at all.  When we did make it to Dublin the next day, we all fell into bed at about noon.  That was the best sleep of my life.  (Actually, that distinction probably goes to the 15-hour jetlag fix I had after flying over to England, but it’s not like I’m keeping a notebook of these things.  Give me a break.)

On the plus side, I know what to wear for the apocalypse.