I’m too exhausted to even be angry anymore… I just feel like some evil power sent this whole day to hurt me as much as possible.
My rebooked flight was canceled. I was already on the train to London when I found out, and so I continued on. I rang Morten, and my mother, who came up with the brilliant idea to take a train to Paris and then get a flight from there instead. Morten booked a flexible ticket for me from Orly, and I arrived at London Euston with fresh hope.
However, when I got to St. Pancras, I learned that all Eurostar trains were booked full for days. That just about killed me and I broke down in despair. Morten found a couple of Norwegian flights from Gatwick that would get me via Bergen or Stavanger, and then a morning flight from there to Oslo, but while I was checking with my mum if I had anyone to stay with in Stavanger those flights had both been booked full.
So I got on the Piccadilly Line out to Heathrow after all, as I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. It was crowded, and impossible to find help at first, but in the end some lady at the airport information desk understood what it was I needed and sent me in the right direction. In the meantime, Morten found me a flight with SAS tomorrow at noon to take me home, via Stavanger. Pray to God that it’ll fly…
I got a hotel voucher from the very friendly ladies up in the departure hall and got back on the Piccadilly Line, headed this time for Holiday Inn Regent’s Park.
The room is nice. I’m waiting for some tea-water to boil now, and listening to music in bed. The Internet is slow, and cost me £15, but it’s better than no Internet at all. I had some dinner (also paid for by BA) in the restaurant, which was also perfectly all right though in no way divine.
I have never wanted to go home this badly before. I want my bed and I want my family and I want Morten, most of all. Makes me all weepy, just thinking about it all… So please, whatever deity can possibly exist, if there’s any fairness and mercy in this world just get me home!
EDIT: An after-thought… I’ve spoken to a lot of strangers today. I talked to a girl on the platform in Birmingham when the train was delayed. I talked to a lady on the train to Euston, after I thought I’d be getting home tonight and was feeling giddy. Then I talked to a girl named Jessica who was flying to Hong Kong on the tube to Heathrow (she’d been talking to this poor man who was waiting for his wife to come home from Germany and hadn’t heard from her in two days), who was very friendly. Then I talked to a man who heard me talking Swedish on the phone and had lived in Sweden when he was a teen and had a Swedish girlfriend, while I was waiting for the tube back into the city. And finally, I chatted with an Austrian man who lived in München and had been stuck for two days.
So, while I hate my life right now, I guess hard times do help shape us. I usually never talk to strangers, at least not if they didn’t talk to me first. Could be worse.