Spring Break: How Not To Travel

I am so bad at travelling, especially when you consider I've travelled quite a bit.  I think maybe I'm just one of those people who are destined to fuck up a little bit with everything they do.  That's okay though, if nothing else, it entertains others and likely makes them feel significantly better about their own, comparably minor failures.  This travel experience was no different to my usual shenanigans from airport to ... well, two days in.

I guess it really all started many weeks ago when we first booked our flights to LA for Spring Break! WOOOOO SPRING BREAK.  *cough* ... anyway.  There are five of us going and we all agreed to go to one of the girl's apartment one day to plan it and book the tickets.  The plan is to fly into Los Angeles, drive to San Diego for a couple of days and then back to LA for the rest of the week.  I'd been having a messed up week, as usual, and totally forgot.  Also, for some reason I just didn't consider the fact that you need money to pay for things... Basically, I was off somewhere in me-land doing my own me-thing, being a disorganised mess with total disregard for the world around me.  Everyone else booked their tickets that day, but I was like "oh it's chill, you don't have to buy my tickets or anything, I'll just transfer the money at the weekend and then buy my ticket on Monday... It's fine."  Come Monday, the ticket price had gone from $90 to over $400.  That isn't a joke.  That is the kind of thing that happens to me (or anyone who makes bad choices).

Obviously, I don't have that kind of money because I am a poor, poor student, so luckily, we tracked down some other flights for about $100.  They were less than ideal, because they left at a different time and took much longer, but it was okay because honestly I prefer flying alone... I think people probably look at me and think I'm interesting and mysterious and independent.  Okay, no one probably thinks that but if you listen to music loudly enough on your headphones it feels like you're in a movie.

Anyway, first crisis averted, second crisis occurred right on schedule: the before night we left as I was checking in online.  This is when I discovered that Spirit is a shitty, shitty airline who want to charge $45 for carry-on luggage... EACH WAY.  Like excuse me, what the fuck? Who do you think you are?  So I reacted how any independent, twenty two year old would... I burst into tears.  No joke, I just started balling my eyes out in my bedroom because that's basically the cost of the flight again and that's just not fair. I text my friends in panic, continued to cry and not look for solutions and considered avoiding the trip altogether and staying all alone in rainy, rainy Seattle.  I think I briefly considered flying back to London, because I clearly can't handle adult responsibilities, but luckily, my very intelligent, new-found bestie came to the rescue.  We decided we could pay for extra baggage on their flight (for $25), put some of their stuff in there too (like toiletries and things you can't take on the plane), split the cost and Bob's your uncle.  Who even says Bob's your uncle?  Apparently me.  I'm sticking with it.  Second crisis solved! Not by me, but nevertheless...  So then I finished packing, because it was about 17:30 at this point, took the bus to my friend's to drop the suitcase off, went to the gym, cried a little more and came home again.

Yes, I cried a little in the gym.  I guess you're wondering why I was crying so much? Maybe not, maybe I seem like a cryer, but I actually had an essay to do and it was mighty stressful.  It was technically due earlier in the week but my professor was chill and said she didn't really need it until the following Monday... so I guess that's why it wasn't much of a priority.  Clearly I just wanted to leave it until the beginning of spring break to make the holiday less enjoyable.  I actually wrote half of this post in the airport when I should've been doing my essay, but instead, I chose to document what a catastrophic mess I am, further demonstrating that I am a catastrophic mess.

The morning of the flight was just as inconvenient as you might expect it to be.  I stayed up half the night trying to do my essay, then watching Netflix, then trying to sleep, then realising I couldn't sleep and starting the whole thing over again.  I think I finally went to sleep at about 4:15am, with my alarm set for 5:40am.  I slept through that because I left the ringer on my phone really low, but somehow woke up at 5:50am anyway.  I got dressed and grabbed my handbag, took my vitamins, checked what time the bus was leaving and left my flat.  At this point it was 6:03am, the bus was a three minute walk away and scheduled to leave at 6:10am.  I was crazy, ridiculously early - albeit by my standards - but nevertheless, at the bare minimum I was running on schedule.

The bus left at 6:06am.

I missed it by seconds.  Then I nearly cried again, questioned whether I should be going at all, sat on the stairs in my building and messaged my friend because the next bus wasn't going for 30 minutes, and then I wouldn't get to the airport on time and I thought I was going to have to Uber the whole way which would cost like $50 and I didn't understand why this was happening to me.  It felt like a personal attack.  Luckily, my main bae has more sense than me and reminded me that I could just get an Uber to the train and save myself $40.

When I got to the airport, I got confused about where to go several times (I'm actually usually really good at airports, but this one was just a mystery to me).  Sidenote, you know what's super weird? Checking into an airport without luggage.  I was low-key worried that I'd get stopped by security because maybe it's suspicious to board a plane without luggage... apparently not.  Then again, maybe it's because I look about as threatening as a heavily sedated goose and I'm blonde at the moment, they probably just thought I was so dumb I left my luggage at home.  Also, has anyone else noticed that American security/general airport people are either the happiest fucking people ever - I'm talking Lush employee level chipper - or like the scariest motherf****** you'll ever meet?  I feel like in England they all just seem super bored and unmotivated, but here you just never know what you're gonna get.  Will they love me? Will they make me wish I wasn't born? Who knows?  It's probably a bit like being friends with me, to be honest...

The beginning of the flight was actually quite horrific.  When I first arrived at my seat there were two people in the seats next to mine and one person sitting on the lap of the lady in the aisle seat and I had no idea why.  It was weird.  These were fully grown adults, it was bizarre.  Anyway, I just took my seat next to the window, took a snapchat of rainy, rainy Seattle, continued listening to my podcast and at some point the lap lady (probably not the best nickname) disappeared.  THEN she got replaced.... BY AN INFANT.  She was actually super cute as children go, but the thing is with young children is that it's not just that I don't like them, it's that I'm actually kind of afraid of them.  I think they're weird, they freak me out.  Like cats, cats freak me out. I don't like it when they move and I'm always scared they're gonna throw up or cry or dribble or something (the kids, not the cats... cats just seem like a generally bad omen, I'm more worried they're going to curse me or hypnotise me and take me to their leader).

Nevertheless, I tried to be a grown up and not freak out and it was actually tolerable to some extent, until the family started eating fried food, which just smelt really bad and who gives fried chicken and chips to an infant?  Give her a smoothie... Who even takes fried food on a plane? It was so weird.

AFTER THAT the girl clearly needed her nappy changing, but for some reason it took the family about seven minutes to notice this themselves and do anything about it.  The girl started crying, I wanted to start crying.  Instead, I just sat there, a little bit frustrated but too tired to put any real effort into caring.  Luckily, at the absence of the crying kid wanting to nap, I apparently wanted to nap and slept the whole way through my podcast.  Did I mention I listen to podcasts now?  They make me feel like a better human, like an intelligent individual and insightful member of the community.  The problem was, I didn't actually intentionally fall asleep and I was at an awkward angle with my head tilted forward and I kept semi-waking up and hearing a bit more and then falling back asleep.  It all felt very out of my control, so by the end of the flight I had 27% battery on my phone, a sore neck and major spoilers for when I re-listen to that podcast.

When I got to LAX, I sat by the baggage control and kind of wrote my essay for a while, kind of listened to music, kind of didn't do very much as I waited for my friends.  I think I was only waiting for about an hour and I'd seen them all a couple of days before, but when they arrived I decided to run at them and cause a scene like I hadn't seen them in months because I thought it would be really funny.  It wasn't that funny.  We got our bags, mine had a huge dent in the side and for some unknown reason I found it completely hilarious.  I still find it completely hilarious.  I've known about my squashed bag for over two days, but every time I look at it I laugh.

Anyway, after those fuck ups, I was returned to some responsible adults for the week ... all of whom are at least six months younger than me and six times more sensible.  We took a shuttle from the airport to Sixt for our car rental and got a car.  I don't really know what that entailed, someone else sorted it out, I just know it was expensive as hell, especially considering we're all under twenty five.  Then we got in the car, couldn't work out how to adjust the seats or connect our phones to the bluetooth and made our way to Wholefoods for lunch before a long, long drive to San Diego.  I semi-badly navigated - luckily it's mostly highways (or freeways, I still don't remember the difference) - and we couldn't go too wrong as long as someone noticed the right exit.  I also figured out how to get the bluetooth working, though I shortly regretted that after hearing Meeri's playlist.

We didn't really see much on the first day, but we stopped off at Huntington's Beach on the way to San Diego to take some beautiful, beautiful photos and use one of the worst toilets I have ever used in my entire life.  It was so disgusting that even though I don't remember touching anything, I still felt disgusting and gross afterwards.  It was the drunk one night stand of toilets. TMI? IDC.

Don't worry, I know these people... I haven't just started taking aesthetic pictures of strangers.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful... I had to pee again at one point so we had to stop - you'll be happy to hear the toilets at the rest stop were far more pleasant! They had soap AND running water.  About an hour later, we arrived in San Diego in the evening and we were all pretty tired so I don't think we did much.  I don't actually remember though, I don't remember eating, which is weird because we'd only had a salad for lunch, but I think we just chilled and planned the next couple of days.

Maybe next post I'll write about some of the actual holiday stuff we've been up to... Who knew you could write so much about transport and fucking up?