Pre-London Denial

I'm twenty years old, and I had never been out of the United States of America, except for a brief jaunt through Canada to reach New York. I'd never flown on a plane due to my father's intense dislike of flying. Yet this summer, both of those things changed.
Ever since I was introduced to Harry Potter in second grade, I've held England in my mind as this ideal utopia, this magical place where everything is just simply better. As recently as a year ago, I remember watching along with the rest of the world as England prepared to host the Olympics. "I don't even care about the Olympics," I recall saying. "Just fly me to London." At that time in my life, England was about as possible to visit as Narnia to me. Last spring, I started looking through the study abroad programs available during the summer on a whim. I had realized that this summer was my last free summer available to try and fit in a study abroad, because I didn't have any obligation to stay in East Lansing, as I would next year. Immediately, my eyes focused on "English Literature in London." It sounded too perfect to ignore. I was put on the waitlist, and notified of my acceptance a month later. It never once felt real to me.
It would never feel real to me, I decided, until I was on that plane. Funnily enough, I would find out that that wasn't even enough. I spent the remainder of my semester and start of summer as I would have without knowing that I was going to England: I packed my meager possessions into my small car, drove myself home, and went back to work at my summer job.
"London? You must be so excited!" My coworkers would say whenever I explained why I was leaving early.
"Yes," I would laugh, and continue working. What more could I say, really? Of course I was excited. But not just excited; I was terrified. I was terrified to board a plane, and then spend six whole weeks ( which only sounds like a long time when you're trying to pack clothes into one suitcase and a carry-on ) in a foreign country. Mostly, I felt guilty. How could I leave my family, my friends, my job?
I worked every day up until two days before my plane, trying to avoid thinking ( and thus panicking ) about leaving. On the day of, I met up with a few girls from the program at the airport, and we lingered before security to say our goodbyes to our loved ones who came to see us off. Stubbornly, I held off from posting any kind of goodbye on my social media until I had touched down on English soil. I didn't want to jinx myself.
Of course, my avoidance of social media didn't stop my first experience with airports from spiraling into disaster. I didn't actually make it to England that day, or even that weekend, for that matter. I had a flight from Detroit to Boston on June 28th, with a layover in Boston of about an hour and a half. Announcement after announcement for delays came on the loudspeaker in the airport for our flight, and my group of four English Lit program girls steadily expanded to include several other students from other MSU study abroad programs. We were all waiting on that plane to get us to Boston so that we could get to London, but severe thunderstorms in Michigan had other plans for us.

Maybe I'll just stay home.

In retrospect, I don't know if there was more that my fellow students and I could have done. There was no room on later flights that day to London, and the airport staff were unflinchingly adamant that there was no way that they could influence Boston to hold that flight. The best thing to do, they said, was get on the plane and hope that Boston would hold it themselves: supposedly, they could look at the roster for the plane, and hopefully they would see that there were so many empty seats because so many people were coming from Detroit for that connection. Well, after finally boarding the plane, we started crawling to the tarmac when we heard yet another announcement: due to the weather, planes had to depart from the other end of the runway than they were in position to, which meant that there was a whole line of planes waiting to take off, and we were number sixteen in a line of twenty eight. Great. Looking at my watch, I saw that there was now no question that we would miss our flight. Trapped in the plane, I focused on preparing myself for my first take-off.
We pulled into Boston an hour exactly after our plane left. Our group of disgruntled students milled about in line around the Delta clerks, despairing about what we would do now. Orientation was a scant eight hours away, and we were no closer to another flight. Oh, did I say clerks? I meant clerk. There was exactly one representative at the Delta station in Boston to help all ten of us find new flights. It was a nightmare. We stood for three hours in the same spot, just waiting for someone to come help us, since the sole clerk was already helping another customer. Finally, more employees arrived, and we spent another two hours trying to find flights that left sooner than the next Wednesday. Since there had been two planes from Detroit to Boston, within a half hour of each other, some of the students had already been accommodated, but that just meant less space for us. Finally, my friend Megan's uncle called Delta himself, as a frequent flyer Gold card member or some other haughty title, and managed to squeeze us on a Sunday flight to Manchester. It was better than anything Delta could offer us, and since it was still covered by Delta, we gratefully accepted it. However, that meant that the two of us were left in Boston for two days, in a city that neither of us had ever been to, and without a place to sleep. Luckily, since it was the airline's fault that we were left in Boston, they gave us vouchers for taxis, hotels, and food, and put us in a taxi themselves to our hotel. This was the only bright spot of our experience with that airline: they put us in four star hotels both nights, so at least we were accommodated in style. The only bad thing about our first hotel was that it was England-themed, and everything inside of it was a snide reminder of where we should have been.

Also, this. C'mon. 

Since I had never been to Boston, it was fun to explore and see new things, but I feel like it ruined my first impression of London. Let me clarify that: the awe and wonder of seeing a new city was wasted, in a sense, on Boston, when it was meant for London. It might just stem from my bitterness that my plans went awol, but it felt like my appreciation for London was diminished a bit, because some of it had gone to Boston.
That Sunday, Megan and I checked out of our hotel, and settled in to wait for our five pm flight to Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia? Yes, Georgia. We had another small layover in Atlanta before Manchester, and we were understandably apprehensive, especially when we caught the announcement that our flight was delayed for "cleaning." I kept checking and rechecking the times for our flights against my watch, both before and during the flight. We had exactly forty minutes, if our plane ride took as long as they promised, to make it to the gate for our Manchester plane. When one considers that they close the gate a half hour before the plane departs, that isn't a lot of time at all. After the plane landed, I grabbed my carry on and left, collected Megan, and then guided us toward our next terminal. I had looked it up on the flight over; it was three terminals over. I'll never forget the exhilaration of literally running through that immense Atlanta airport and finally boarding a plane bound for the island across the pond. Finally, I was en route to my life's dream!