Reasons not to envy a traveller

My main purpose in writing this is to kind of bring you all along with me on my journey, but to some of my more stationary readers who wish they could be more mobile, these are some reasons why not to envy a European traveller.

Crowds--you have to wait in line for everything--to eat, to see, to get in--and then in small stairwells and hallways--and you're standing with people from all over the world, so they all have different...standards, shall we say, of personal hygiene. And then, after you've made an effort to be patient, and wait your turn patiently, there will be two dozen people from cultures that are more of the mob the door as quick as you can mentality as opposed to the line up and wait you turn way of thinking.

Public transportation--So the underground rail system in London is extensive as well as quite thorough. But it's only a pleasure to ride when the crowds are down. When they're up (tourist season and rush hour for instance) there is no breathing space, let alone sitting space on a tube car. Even when there is a wall of solid people already on the train, people will climb in and push their way through to three inches of space which they will cram their two feet of body into.

And as efficient as the tube is, it isn't open all the time. For instance it wasn't open before five, like I needed it to be to get to Heathrow to catch my 6:30am flight. So I had to get up at 3:30, leave the hostel at 4am--to find a bus stop. I was highly incensed when the bus I was waiting for drove passed me. I then realized I was waiting on the wrong side of the street, and proceeded to the correct stop. I took this bus (which was driven super fast around the corners, since there was no traffic at that time of morning--and of course I was standing, with luggage and half asleep) to Trafalgar Square (which I didn't recognize at night), to catch another bus to Paddington Station (though they dropped me at the underground station, which of course was closed, and I needed the rail station around the corner) to buy a ticket and get on a train to take me to the airport to check in and then get on another train to get to my gate to get on a plane, to arrive in Amsterdam to meet my friends and get on another bus to get to the conference center.

Money--the dollar is so weak, everything I bought in London was double the price on the price tag. I started thinking items that really cost 12-14 dollars--whatever it was, were cheap, because this meant that they were under 10 pounds. I had started keeping track of the amont of money I was spending, but it got too scary.

Rain--every time you turn around in London it's raining. Soaking, drizzly rain. And the more you're optimistic and think it might stop, the more it persists. And just when you're almost soaked and you think it's never going to lighten up, and you finally get your raincoat out, it will stop. I was in London for a week. There was one day that I had sunshine all day.

Hostels--These are strange places, where the bathroom might be clean, your stuff might not be stolen and the kitchen is always a mess. You have those roommates that don't realize what it means when there are other people in the room that have their heads under the covers and are laying quiet, and they insist on having loud conversations in foreign languages. You have doors that have key pad locks that don't work, so when you're tired and worn out and homesick, you also can't get into your room to the little bunk bed that awaits you.

Londoners--And finally, there are millions of people in London, and I passed hundreds. And I can count on one hand the number of returning smiles I got a day. They don't make eye contact, and they don't acknowledge your existence most days. You already feel small, and then you feel invisible.

So there are some reasons to be glad you're at home.