We’re only on Day 3 of our England vacation and I’m sick as a dog.
That about sums up the past couple of days.
Let’s start at the beginning. Wednesday afternoon I picked up CootieGirl from school and we immediately hit the road for Virginia, where we were to stay the night at my sister’s before flying out of Dulles Airport on Thursday. The drive was uneventful, and we made good time since we left at a time that allowed us to miss rush hour traffic completely.
Thursday morning I went to a local nail salon to get a fill-in on my manicure. A couple weeks prior I had gotten a chrome manicure (which I LOVED) and while it still looked great, you could see the 2 weeks of growth along the cuticles and so I just wanted a fill-in. I should have known by the fascination the techs expressed with my manicure that they did NOT know how to do chrome manicures despite my asking about chrome manicures when I called to make the appointment, and by the fact that they had a picture of a chrome manicure on their website.
The tech removed my chrome manicure and started in on a redo. An hour later I walked out with a basic gel manicure with silver polish. Not CHROME, but just plain silver. Completely different things. Not only that, but once outside in the sunshine I noticed it wasn’t the most clean manicure I had ever had. I was a bit upset, but figured at least I had a fresh manicure for the trip.
We went out to lunch and then went back to my sister’s, where I took a shower in preparation to go to the airport. By the time I was done with my shower, the silver polish was already starting to COME OFF. It had been less than two hours since I left the salon! Gel polish is not supposed to come off.
I drove back over to the salon and demanded a refund. The owner said no, but that they could touch it up.
“Touch it up? I am about to leave for the airport – how do I know your touch up with permanently fix this manicure? I don’t have time for a touch-up. I just want my refund.”
“Our policy is that we provided a service and we don’t give refunds but we will fix any problems for free.”
“As I said, I don’t have time to sit for that, but what I WILL do is go online and leave scathing negative reviews at every website I can find.”
With that I stormed out of the salon, more peeved than I was before.
With that, my sister drove CG and I to the airport, where we proceeded to get through security in record time, leaving us with almost 3 hours to wait until our flight! THREE HOURS! Fortunately, the time passed relatively quickly, and we boarded our flight.
Two things worried me: 1) I saw an infant 5 rows ahead of us, and 2) we were next to a row of three young children and a mother who didn’t seem to care how loud and rowdy the kids were. It was going to be a long flight.
Fortunately, the baby never made a peep, and even the rowdy kids eventually fell asleep since we were taking a red eye.
Our flight landed at 6:30 a.m. local time in London, which was 1:30 a.m. North Carolina time. We were exhausted. We gathered our luggage found our driver, and proceeded to collapse in the backseat while he drove us the 45 minutes from the airport to the flat in Soho that my parents had booked.
It was at this time that I realized that I had a cold sore coming on. Annoying, but manageable since I always carry my medication for them. CG and an I flopped into the beds in our bedroom and took a quick 5 hour nap. Once awake again, I realized that I didn’t just have a cold sore coming on, I was starting to get an itchy throat too, and a mild cough.
But that didn’t deter us. We cleaned ourselves up and headed out for some Friday night dinner, and also to buy CG a coat, since she had left hers at my sister’s house. We went to H&M where we bought her a sweatshirt, and then hit up a Marks & Spencer where we found a really nice mustard yellow overcoat. We walked down Carnaby Street (where I was very tempted to do the Austin Powers opening dance routine) and hit up a local pharmacy to get me some cough meds.
And then it was off to dinner! We went to Heddon Street Kitchen, which is a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Imagine my dismay when our waitress told us that Gordon had been there two days ago!! Dinner was delicious (I got the pork belly while CG had a steak) and my dad was kind enough to pick up the bill.
Once back at the flat, I started to feel very tired, so even though it was only 7:30 p.m. London time (2:30 p.m. Carolina time for this keeping track), I went to bed. Less than 5 hours later I was up, wide awake, coughing up a storm and…wait for it…now I had a fever. I could tell it was high too. I tossed and turned and coughed in bed for a while, but not wanting to wake CG, I eventually got up and went down to the TV room to chat with Denis via WhatsApp, and watch TV. By 1 a.m./9 p.m. I knew I had to try to go to bed again. I headed back up to our room but an hour later I was up again. But this time, so was CG.
Unable to sleep, we came downstairs to the kitchen only to find my mother at her computer – apparently she couldn’t sleep either! She gave me some aspirin for my fever, I ate a sandwich, and CG went back upstairs to watch some TV until finally, at 3 a.m./11 p.m. I told CG we HAD to try to get some sleep.
Thankfully, pure exhaustion took over and I eventually fell into a very deep sleep, not waking again until 8 a.m./3 a.m.
Rather than take a chance, I opted to stay at the flat this morning while my parents took CG out to Portobello Road for some shopping and exploring. They will be back just after lunch time. After they left I took my first shower in almost two days, and I’m feeling refreshed. Sick, but refreshed.
This afternoon we’ll be heading out to visit Winston Churchill’s war rooms, and then CG and I may head back to H&M for more shopping – there were a LOT of clothes in that shop that she loved. And since H&M has decent prices, it’s worth going to look at what they have in case she finds something she likes.
As for our flat, it’s not as nice as the pictures implied (the pictures made this place look AMAZING). It’s very “vintage,” and not as big as the pictures implied. It’s a VERY strange layout. Bottom floor is the kitchen and a half bath. Up a level is ground floor, which has a small sitting/tv room. Up another level is the room CG and I share, which has an in-room shower. Up one more level is my parents’ room, and then go up one more level (five in total) and it’s the full bathroom. Yep, when CG or I need to use the loo, we can either go up two flights or down two flights for the privilege. But the flat is in a great location, and since most of our time will be spent OUT of the apartment, it’s not a big deal that it isn’t as swank as the pictures. I’ll not be looking a gift horse in the mouth that I’m in ENGLAND right now.
So that’s the first three days of our trip. Seven more to go!
That reminds me of the time we all went to the beach for your cousin’s wedding and I got sicker every minute I drove us to the beach. Buy the time we dot there I was sick as a dog and remained sick (and got sicker) for the full week we were there. I think it was the flue, not a cold. I soldiered through it and made it to the wedding, still sick. I finally got well, a day or two later when we were driving home. Not fun. I hope you have a better story to tell than me. Feel better.
Yeah, I remember that. And it’s possible I’ll be sick all week here. It is Monday and I’m still feeling like garbage and getting rough sleep each night. 🙁