London Calling Part 1

We pushed through the crowd and got on first. Pressured to make up for the lost time of the delayed arrival of the plane. Everyone had their instructions, grab a row and spread out. We must save four extra seats for our friends. They were near the back of the line. Finally we saw them and flagged them down, we arranged and rearranged the seating of all six kids until they were content, we buckled in and were ready for take off. London, here we come.

There is of course a story on how we decided to go to London. There is always a funny back story. You can find it here here . So after I bought the tickets and was telling my friend Claire about my awesome steal of a deal to England, guess what? Right, my steal of a deal was not a steal of a deal. But, the other thing is, coincidentally she also bought tickets for the exact same time on the same flights. Awe-some! So, we got together to make plans, which never actually got made because we just started chatting about other stuff and totally got distracted from the planning. Whatever. We'll figure it all out when we get there after all we've got a whole week to fill.

We crammed into our vinyl seats with our knees jammed into our chests. Cause we're flying Ryan Air, the deep airline discounter, which fits more seats into a smaller space than your average airline. And yes, that's totally possible. Trust me. Cause this is way crappier than your average airline. They cut a lot of those pesky corners like that pocket in the seat back that has magazines, a safety card and a barf bag. Really, that stuff isn't important right? But of course, it really is. Because by the time you know, like really know, you need to barf you're probably beyond time enough to hit the flight attendant call button to get them all the way from the back of the plane where they're talking about how short the other flight attendants skirt is and how she may or may not have stayed in the pilots hotel room last night. No, by then it's way too late and way too messy. And that's exactly what happened to at least 10 barfers, I mean passengers, on the plane. That does not include the pukers who miraculously made it to the airplane lavatory which is miraculously free. Note to Ryan Air: We can endure your chaotic open seating policy, your lack of leg room, your charging for everything in the cabin besides the air and the toilet (thank you for that by the way), but for the love of god can you charge and extra Euro with the price of a ticket and include a bag to hurl in at every seat?

This British guy behind us is incensed and he gets up and starts taking pictures of the vomit. But the thing is, he's loud, argumentative and obnoxious and his British accent isn't making him sound like any less of the jerk that he is. The flight attendants intervene and ask for his boarding pass, which he won't provide. Now you might way hey, isn't Ryan Air the only airline to have bikini clad calendar girls as flight attendants who pose on tropical beaches which Ryan Air doesn't fly to? Do they really take their job seriously? Yes. Yes, they do. When we land jerky British guy is escorted off the plane by the boobies, I mean bobbies.

The whole barf incident makes me want to rush to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I can't wait to get the the amazing apartment we rented for the week and scour my mouth with some industrial strength hygiene products, but I can't remember putting the toothbrushes into the luggage. And now it's midnight and the last thing I want to do is try to find a store that's open that sells toothbrushes and toothpaste. We file off the plane, go through customs and head to pick up our luggage at the carousel. We say goodbye to our friends who are headed up north for a few days to visit other friends. Then we step out into London or rather, the cow pasture way east of London that is Stansted Airport.

One of the following are true.

Did we forget the toothbrushes....

or was the apartment we rented a scam?

What's your vote?

To be continued...