“Just touched down in London town……………”

Well, that was certainly a very-pleasant-then-very-panic-stricken experience! I am referring of course to my flight from Canada to England which was last Saturday (or was it Sunday? Hmm, being up for 30+ kind of throws off your biological clock, haha). Let me start from the beginning……

The day started out a bit rough (I felt nauseous with anxiety), but I managed to keep it together and even ate some leftover Chinese food before doing some last-minute packing changes and packing everything into the car. What was so great about my send-off was that my whole family came with me to the airport! Mom, Dad, Lizzy, and Malcolm all came to see me off, which was fantastic (AND I got to see Mom’s and Steve’ new house before leaving!). After one last meal at Timmy’s (where there was a group of hearing-impaired people who were singing a song through sign language – so neat!) and some goodbye hugs I went off through check-in and security, all of which was a breeze (seriously, the Ottawa airport is so low-key it’s great – I didn’t even have to take off my boots!).

I hung out for a bit with my awesome travel buddy Elephant, and then boarded my swift and speedy plane from Ottawa to Montreal. Me and the guy across the aisle smiled at each other when we both realized that we were both snapping pictures of the engines and the clouds, lol. The wait in Montreal was long, but I was in good spirits the whole time and managed to get some food to fill my belly (although note to self: do not eat an egg sandwich that has been sitting out all day – it’s not very tasty at all). On the plane I got cozy with the blanket and pillow they provided and searched through the (surprisingly large) selection of movies, music, and TV shows to watch (I ended up going with Invictus, the film about Nelson Mandela’s recruitment of the Springboks Rugby team to help unify South Africa – I recommend it!). I attempted to sleep but gave up after an hour since the engines were just so loud. So instead I wrote a journal entry in the little notebook I brought with me, most of which I’ve repeated here J

As soon as the plane arrived, the woman on the intercom said “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to London” and my heart skipped a little beat as I looked out the window at the foggy green pastures and quiet lakes below me. It was real! I flew across the ocean and was FINALLY in England! The feeling was awesome :D

I grabbed my stuff and exited the plane tired and groggy but filled with anticipation. My biggest fear was that I’d have to wait long for my luggage, but little did I know that I already had a whole different kind of problem to deal with……

I followed the crowd to the Immigration and Customs area, which was jam-packed and slightly unorganized. I grabbed a landing card to fill out and got to the part where it asks for my passport number. So I looked into my money wallet for my passport, only to discover that…….

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had made the worst freaking mistake I could have made:

I forgot my passport on the plane.

Needless to say, I had a borderline panic attack right there in customs, but as soon as I realized the pants-wetting-craziness of my situation, I got to work trying to remedy the situation. Soooooo……cut to yours truly running like a wolverine on crack through the Heathrow exit terminal, desperately looking for an information booth or a person in uniform, or, you know, THE AIR CANADA FLIGHT WITH MY PASSPORT STILL ON IT. Of course, Heathrow is effing HUGE, and one thing that I learned the hard way is that in England, when a sliding door says “Automatic Door” on it, 9 times out of 10 it only works from the opposite side. So after realizing my search in the exit wing was futile, I backtracked and finally ran into a Heathrow employee who thankfully advised me to make my way to the Air Canada desk (once again through security and everything) in the Flight Connections section. By this time I was sweating through every pore in my body and stumbled towards the harried British woman at the counter, who called someone somewhere who may or not be sending someone to look for it. So all I could do was sit and wait and stare at the floor and try not to pass out with fear/exhaustion.

After going into zombie mode and shuffling back towards the counter to ask if anyone was on their way, a flight attendant approached me and handed me my beautiful, amazing, never-gonna-let-you-out-of-my-sight passport. I could have hugged him right there, but instead I said thank you to both him and the lovely British ladies who watched my bags for me and hurried off back to Customs, where I waited in line with my fellow jetlagged passengers, got to deal with my first (and hopefully last) snotty British customs officer, and went off to pick up my luggage and find the Essex shuttle bus.

So the moral of the story here folks is: make sure that you zip-up your money wallets so as not to have your passport slip out into the seat pocket in front of you. Some high-stress travelling situations can be avoided if such precautions are taken.

But hey, I survived it, I learned something, and now I have a wicked airport story to tell, haha.

The rest of my first day in England included napping on the shuttle bus to Essex (the only sleep I got in roughly 34-36 hours), moving my stuff into my little dorm room, having tea with my lovely new flatmates (more on them soon!), and running off to find Amberle and Stephanie, my awesome Trent buddies who are with me here at Essex. Then, off to bed!

So that, in a nutshell, was my first day in England, and my first of many days at the University of Essex. By the end of this week I’ll have written a new blog post all about Fresher’s Week and my adventures here so far - with a special weekly feature I'll be calling "British Thing of the Week" (so clever, huh?). So check back soon!

I’ll simply end off by saying that while things have been crazy busy here, each day gets better and better. Essex has big shoes to fill – I adore Trent and Peterborough feels like home to me – but I’m starting to feel more confident that I can fall in love with this school and town like I did with the Peterpatch and Trent two years ago. Collecting my thoughts in this blog is already making me feel like I’m heading in the right direction. So a new post (and plenty of Facebook pictures) to follow soon!

Love you all! Can’t wait to talk with all of you in more detail over the coming weeks.

<3 Madalyn