A very angry vegetarian

I must say that I definitely have mixed feelings about travelling in Europe at this point. I’m really excited on the one hand to be heading to countries that I’ve never been before, but I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the dint it is going to put in my savings (I guess I really should rename my account ‘spendings’ at this point). I suppose it’s lucky we spent so long in South and Central America. Not only did we get to see a lot more there, it means that Europe is limited to just over 6 weeks, unlike the four or so months that we’d originally planned.

So our Europe stint didn’t get off to the best start…

We weren’t at all late to the airport for our flight from JFK to London but I must say we were pushing it for time having just missed the shuttle from Port Authority but a split second, and having to wait around another 30 minutes for the next one. By the time we arrived and checked in the only seats remaining were stuck in the middle of a row. ‘We can deal with this’ I thought to myself, ‘the flight is only 6 hours.’ My optimism quickly vanished when the odd man I’d seen wandering through the waiting lounge sat down right beside me on the plane. Though he rudely took up more than his fair share of my seat and armrest with his elbows overflowing well into my personal space, I let him be, knowing that dinner was on the way when I could steal it back as he lifted his elbows to cut his veggies with his knife and fork.

Soon however, he began very rudely demanding tomato juices, serviettes and headphones from the flight attendants and getting generally agitated. I could tell the flight attendant was weirded out by his behaviour. And I began to feel more than slightly uncomfortable as he huffed and puffed but with ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ playing on the movie channel, I tried to tune out and ignore him.

Things soon escalated however when I got my chicken, vegies and rice dinner. He had been served his vegetarian meal a good ten minutes before everyone else so was sitting there twiddling his thumbs by the time mine arrived. He did not like one bit the fact that I was eating chicken and, having serious issues with the smell, he proceeded to shove his napkin up his nostrils as he glared at me out of the corner of his eye. By the time the trolley came around to collect the trays, he was more than slightly agitated that he was sitting next to a carnivore. As I moved to pass my tray to the hostess, the ‘odd man’ slammed his arm down into mine. The air hostess, shocked at his behaviour, reprimanded the 30 something year old, and then quickly asked if I was travelling with anyone before disappearing. Not a minute later, the air host, Phillip, was back, scooping up my bags and escorting Claire and I to spare seats in business class where he left us with a fresh glass of red wine, having noticed that we’d carried our crappy plastic cups up from economy - ‘there’s no plastic in business class’ he said. A few minutes later he reappeared apologetic that he’d just assumed that we’d wanted more red wine – ‘would you like a glass of champagne?’ We spent the rest of the flight to London in luxury, sipping on flutes of French Champagne as we watched movies long into the night.

When I woke up I was in a London summer – the thermostat hitting just 20 degrees. I spent the whole time in a hoodie – much to the laughter of the locals I was staying with, who thought the weather was ‘positively warm.’ I don’t understand how people call that a summer. Bring on the beach and 35 degree days! 

Anyway, the main purpose of a stint in London for me was to get my visa for India. This was one of the only things I could not do before I left home because Indian visas are only valid for six months, and start running from the date of issue. Being the extremely organised person I am, I electronically completed my form, and even emailed the processing centre about my application prior to arriving in London and, as soon as we landed, Claire and I headed straight to the processing centre to make sure we had ample time for them to be processed. Everything went smoothly for Claire, who has a British passport thanks to her mum – it took 3 days to get her visa. For me, everything blew up in my face. Luckily I wasn’t so organised that I prepaid for it. I left the processing centre, Australian passport still in hand, having being told that it would take 15 working days for it to be processed, though the person I had emailed had said it would take four. Hanging around in the UK for 15 days was not something I wanted to do. I was so mad and upset! I didn’t want to spend a week in London, let alone three. I spent the next few days ‘googling’ every place we were heading to see if they could do it any faster. In the end, I had to settle on getting my visa processed in Spain, forcing us to cut short our time in Portugal. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

London in pictures:

     

From top: Westminster Abbey; Tower of London; Buckingham Palace; Greta and I at the
Electricity Showroom; London Eye; Buckingham Palace guard; British Museum; ‘Chip buttie’ 
– ie. Chip sandwich that I ordered by mistake; and catching up with Aussies in London - Clauds and I.