A bad start to my Christmas

**Continued from the beginning of December 18th.**

I left the house and hauled my suitcase running all the way to the bus stop to catch the bus. The bus was going pretty slowly, so I was worried I might not make it to the train station on time. Once I got to town, I went as fast as I could all the way from the bus stop to the train station. I got there a few minutes before the train was supposed to leave, but the train was running late because of bad weather (it had been snowing the night before, so I had some time to wait. The train took a lot longer than normal. Then I had to get off in Manchester and switch trains to get one that would take me to the airport. It was running really late too, so I had to wait around again.

I finally got to the airport terminal and had to spend some time figuring out how to get to my hotel. I could see it, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there without just making a mad dash across the middle of the street while dragging my suitcase behind me, so that’s what I did.

There was a bug line to check in at the hotel, but I checked in and went to relax in my room. I was looking forward to a nice, long sleep in a big comfy bed. 

A nice big bed!

I decided to use the Internet to check the status of my flight to London for the next morning and I found out that it had been cancelled! All the flights going to London had been cancelled!

I freaked out a bit and phoned my parents, trying to figure out what to do. I tried seeing if I could find someone to ask, but by that time the lobby was filled with people looking for rooms, and the only person I could get a hold of on the phone was only able to tell me that my flight definitely cancelled. Eventually I decided that I should catch a train to London and try to make my flight for the next morning.

I went and bought a train ticket, then packed up my stuff, and lugged it all the way back to the station. I was about 10 minutes early, and trying to figure out which platform I was supposed to be on, when a conductor who was hopping to go yelled at me that I should hurry up and get on the train because it was leaving, so I did. I was a bit worried that I was on the wrong train, but then I realized that it didn’t matter since they would all go to Manchester Piccadilly anyway.

I got off at Manchester Piccadilly to find out that the train to London Euston had been cancelled. I got in a line hoping I could get a refund or something, but got distracted by hunger, and went to find food. While I was eating I saw a couple guys get into a bit of a fight, so that was my classy dinner entertainment.

At that point, I wanted to just take the train back to my hotel, sleep for the night and deal with everything later, but then I heard them say that there would be a train leaving for Euston at 8:30, so I decided to catch it. I waited on the platform, and it was a long and cold wait. Then they said that the train would be 20 minutes delayed. A train finally came to the platform, but then they said that we couldn’t get on it. 10 minutes later, they relented and let us on.

After sitting in the train for a bit, they came on with an announcement saying that it would be at least another 45 minutes before they could leave. At that point I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I basically just passed out.

The train finally started moving at about 10:10, and I spent the ride trying to sleep, and partially listening to the conversations going on around me. Of course we ended up arriving in London incredibly late (around 12:30), so the tube had already stopped running, and of course there was no one around to help everyone figure out how they were actually supposed to get to wherever they were going with their train tickets.

Arriving at London Euston.

I decided that I needed to try and find a way to get to the airport, so I tried to figure out the bus schedule, and then I went looking for the bus stop so I could catch a bus. I caught a bus and headed off to Paddington Station.

Once I found my way in, I just sat down on a bench and started crying. I was exhausted, upset, cold, trying to find my way around a huge city I had never been to in the middle of the night, and alone. I was sure that my Christmas was about to go horribly because it was off to such a bad start. I needed to find a way to pass some time, so I started writing in my journal, and I wrote until my fingers were cold, then put on my gloves and wrote some more.

Cold, dark Paddington Station.

There were some workers there, but not many other people.

Eventually I had to get up and start walking because I was far too cold. By that time, it was a little past 2 in the morning. I got to the other side of the station, and an elderly man came up to me asking if I was on my way to Heathrow. When I told him yes, he asked if I’d like to share a cab with a nearby couple. It definitely seemed a little sketchy, but I was too cold and tired to care anymore. I just wanted to be somewhere warm, so I said I’d share the cab to Heathrow with them.

He took us out to his car, and I was surprised to see that it was just a regular car with a “cab” sticker in the window. It seemed sketchy, but I figured that I would probably be safe with the random couple. It turned out that they were from Romania and had been visiting Cardiff. It turned out the driver had moved to London from Morocco 40 years ago, so he spoke French.

We got to Heathrow Terminal 1 safe and sound, and as soon as we walked in, all you could see everywhere were people lying on the floor with tin foil blankets. So many flights from the day before had been cancelled due to snow that the airport was filled with people sleeping on their luggage. Someone had even set up a tent. I made my way to terminal 3 to find the Air Canada counter.

Tent in the middle of the airport.

Water bottles and tin foil blankets were about all the help anyone got.

I found the Air Canada counter, and a space on the floor nearby so I could sit down and write in my journal. By that time it was about 3 in the morning (on Sunday), and I had only slept about 6 hours total since Friday night.  I wrote for a while, but I was sitting rather close to a door, and rather quickly, it became too cold for me to stand.

I headed back towards the Air Canada desk and ticket counter, and that was when I found the People’s Republic of Canuckistan. The people in front of the ticket counter had draped their tin foil blankets over the queue posts, making a fort, and had erected a sign that said “The People’s Republic of Canuckistan” on a piece of newspaper. It made me proud to be Canadian.

The fort in all its glory.

Close-up of the sign.

Next - The adventure continues at Heathrow.