In Heathrow Airport, travelers glided down, down, down the Escher-esque escalators while I rose up. The fact that I’d had no solid sleep, that the grey-green walls went on for uncountable kilometers, and that the luggage reclaim area was involved in an elaborate game of hide-and-seek from me, provided the real sense that home was very far away.
I felt my trip was not a good idea, no good would come of it, and that I should go home. Right now.
Then I channeled Kate, my favorite Adams heroine. She is smart, stubborn, and constantly standing up to idiots. I told myself I was being an idiot.
“It’s this way,” said my husband, Mark.
If you’re very afraid of solo travel (as I was), I recommend the following:
- Do all the research.
- Plan to travel alone.
- Arrange to bring your spouse.
That’s what I did. Mark joined me for week one of the six weeks I’d be traveling. My house, a good dog, and a bad bird were being looked after so he would be one normal, comforting thing in a foreign country. Besides, I like him, he’d never been to Britain before, and he is really good at getting cell phones to work.
He would have come along for the entire trip but there was that whole “work” thing. So he came for a week of adventure, sightseeing, and wife-calming.
Mark is an excellent emotional insurance policy. Having him join me at the beginning, to ease myself into the idea of traveling alone, helped me face my fears. If I couldn’t handle it, I could give up and go home with him. If the international phone plan couldn’t be worked out to enable me to call for help, I could leave. If the fans I’d arranged to meet seemed deranged and scary, he would be there to pick me up after my flight home.
I knew travel with him would be fun. We could eat Ford’s famous pub peanuts in The Horse and Groom, and ask each other Dent-like questions such as, “Where is my towel?” and “May I have some tea?”
My disoriented, low mood was buoyed by Mark’s unflappable nature as we sought the Brit version of a baggage claim. Then those initial doubts eased even further when the welcoming yellow text of an arrival/departures board came into view.
Nearly running to the board, I scanned the listing of city names, hoping for my first moment of literary tourism. I looked for Kate’s flight. The flight that indicated I was on the right quest, in the right place, and at the right time:
Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport, Flight EY7474 to Oslo, departing, a few hours from now, at 15:35. The flight that Kate missed:
For the time being [Kate] would go and cool off. She set off in search of first a newspaper and then some coffee, and by dint of following the appropriate signs was unable to locate either…She threaded her way back across the check-in concourse, and had almost made it to the exit when she happened to glance back at the check-in desk that had defeated her, and was just in time to see it shoot up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame.
Douglas Adams, The Long, Dark Tea Time of The Soul
In my sleep-deprived state, I giggled. I had my picture taken pointing at the airport sign, my face covered in an enormous grin that would only rarely leave my face for the next forty-one days.
I felt unaccountably lucky to have someone who loved me, someone who understood my quest, someone who did not judge my fan-insanity but instead whole-heartedly supported it, to take that picture.
Thanks, Mark!
What do you think?