Dizzying Disasters - Day 2

September 6, 2010 (Day 2)

Continued flying the remainder of the night and, just my luck, the brief 15 minutes I manage to fall asleep is the time when they come around with breakfast and I MISSED it.... 

So, having a maple bar before I took off and some very unpalatable dinner in my stomach, I arrived at the Heathrow airport where I got to feel like a celebrity looking for Erin and a pink sign that said, "Croughton," which would be my driver. Seeing only a pink sign, I tapped the guy on the shoulder and asked if his sign said, "Croughton." Indeed, it did, but Erin was nowhere to be found, so Keith (my driver who makes my name sound so beautiful with his old man British tongue) and I spent the next 2 1/2 hours trying to track down Erin... Finally, giving up on finding her after several pages and checking different terminals, we headed towards Croughton (even though I told him she wasn't the type to just leave the airport) when we got a call that said she was back at terminal three waiting to be picked up.

Keith flipped a bitch (yes, correct term) and we went to get Erin, but having very little in my stomach, being exhausted from no sleep and being subjected to some very twisty driving (straight spirals up and down the garage to get to the other levels), I took off to the bathroom before getting Erin (under the guise that I was going to check the bathroom for her, so that I wouldn't have to offend poor Keith) and threw up what little remained in my stomach. Feeling much better, however, we FINALLY proceeded to the car and headed towards Croughton where I managed to sleep a scant 10 minutes. Grr...

Met up with Jo, our Point of Contact on post, who showed Erin and I our rooms and, naturally because we had to get out of the car, the rain started dumping... They did say that this morning marked the last of summer for England, so let the rain begin!  The highlights of our room can be summed up in the following list: Heated towel rack for toasty towels each morning, a walk in closet (my first ever), a beauty station with a sink in our individual rooms, AMERICAN outlets, so we don't need all converters, a mood lighting lamp (wont be needing that, but it's nice to have), close proximity to the washer and dryers (Babe, it's art!) and a nice location on the bottom floor, so Erin and I can jump rope without disturbing our neighbors. The low parts of our living situation can be summed up as follows: a bag of potatoes with sprouts and mold, which has attracted an insane amount of bugs and no internet unless we want to pay 35 pounds for a month! 

After managing to unpack and get everything situated, I was going cross-eyed from trying to keep myself awake, so I took an hour snooze when I overheard Erin talking to the two neighbor girls who said that they travel every weekend (Did someone say travel buddies??) and then Erin and I chowed down on about 3 bowls of cereal with watered down whole milk. Delicious. We'll have to go to the commissary tomorrow after we get our base passes and everything, but we've settled in pretty nicely.

About to watch The Holiday and settle in for the night, so that we can start work tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. Whoo hoo!

Things I learned today:

1. Heathrow airport has very windy/twisty parking garages, which can lead to nausea. Especially with a driver who has the automatic prescription glasses that change from light to dark and who, upon entering the garage, lets you know that he can't see and, therefore, to warn him about any pedestrians. Oh, now I feel safe!

2. Potatoes stored in a forgotten cupboard for God only knows how long will attract an assortment of bugs.

3. Too much time on a flight with socks and boots on will give you kankles. Just a snapshot of how they'll look when I'm prego someday. Oh joy. 

4. People who drive cars with the driver's seat on the left side (like we do in the states) have to compensate for parking meters, ticket stamps, etc., which are all located on the right side of the car. Lucky me, as the passenger, I got to get all the parking tickets taken care of.