There are things that happen in the course of our lives that are phenomenal and substantial and like it or not you're along for the ride and once it's over if you've done it right you're left feeling simultaneously washed up beat and glorious. You can try all you want to be ready for them, you can have all the warning in the world, and all that does is make you even less prepared because you start thinking you're ready and lose focus. Who's to say why these things happen, or if there even is a reason why at all, but I love that they do, for better or worse, because these things shape who we become incomprehensibly.
My father and I left at 10AM to drive the four hours to the St. Louis airport where a plane would take me out on the course of one of these things, and I hadn't been able to tell him much about it because I hadn't known much, so I caught him up on what I'd learned. I knew I was blessed, that much was obvious, being chosen with four other students from my university's hospitality program to be the guinea pigs on an overseas internship and being handed a Get Out of Jail Free card at a moment when I couldn't have needed it more. There are no words to for me to really describe what I had gone through before I left the country, and I have no desire to try, but suffice to say I jumped at the chance before I knew any of the details. Three months, I knew that much, that I would be working for three months and then have almost another whole month free before I would have to be back in the United States. I knew I would be cooking in a four-star hotel in Stirling, Scotland, where I would be paid four pounds British sterling per hour and provided a dorm room in which to live.
We got to the airport at 2:15 PM, where I went through check-in, had lunch with my father, and said a teary good-bye. My first flight, from St Louis to Charlotte, left at 4:05 PM and landed after an hour and a half. I made it to the next gate to pass my hour and a half layover, then flew out again for eight hours of pure torture. Since I knew so little about my trek north of London, I had planned on getting as much sleep time in as possible, and even popped a double dose of nighttime pain relievers as soon as I got on the plane - only to meet my neighbor in this evil seating chart who was on her way home from a romance-filled vacation that she had no intention of shutting up about. I grit my teeth, sucked it up, and prepared myself for whatever lay ahead, dreaming of the blankets and pillows waiting for me to bury myself in at the end of my journey.
I did know that once I landed, I would have three hours to get my luggage and get to the train station where a train would take me into Glasgow. I did not know that just to get from the airport to the station, I would have to take a train into London proper first, then the tube across the city, and then walk a few blocks to the station. My baggage (and I do mean baggage) included a heavy army duffel bag on my back and a large suitcase with my carry-on on top being pulled behind me - I was packing for three months of dorm life! Never mind that I had sprained my knee just before my departure saving a turtle in the middle of the road, and that the same turtle relieved his bladder all down the front of my clothes. People who had every intention of bustling their way to work were stuck behind me and my suitcase on the escalator and there was simply no way around it, now matter how many times I apologized. At least four escalators were involved, maybe more, and I hauled and sweat non stop from landing at 9:15AM U.K. time until I got to my dorm room in Stirling at 8:30 PM. I got a much needed break on the five-and-a-half hour train ride into Glasgow. A gentleman sat across from me and immediately began drinking bottles of Stella Artois. After the third, I thought it would be a good time to ask to borrow his mobile phone in order to get in touch with Bob.
Bob, Bob, dear wee Bob. I didn't know anything much about Bob either, outside of three small but significant facts. I knew he was pretty much completely responsible for our well-being in Scotland, that he had coordinated the majority of our lives for the next three months, and that you could hear his accent through his typed emails. I had his number written down and was eager to find out if he would be waiting for me in Glasgow or at least Stirling, but no matter how many phones I borrowed along the way, Bob never answered. One of the last messages I left him went something like, "Bob, I've been traveling for over 24 hours with only a couple of short naps, and you won't answer your phone, which you know is my only way to contact you. Please explain to me why I don't hate you?!" Fortune, it turns out, decided it would be a novel idea for Bob's phone to be stolen. So since I had previously thought he was supposed to be waiting for me in Glasgow, when I saw no man there with my name on a sign, I took the initiative to get myself to Sterling. Once I had gotten there, though, I found myself completely out of any initiative at all and sitting on top of my luggage, holding a sign that said,
"Please help me find:
BOB STAFFORD [incidentally, I had his last name wrong]
I have his mobile #.
I'm LOST."
On her way in, before I had written a sign, I stopped a woman to ask her if the university was nearby. She told me it wasn't, but that just across the way was a bus that would take me there. One glance told me that heaving my luggage up onto it would not be possible, so I thought it best to rely upon charity and hope. On her way out, she, her husband, and their friend read my sign while passing, got in the car, and pulled up to me to offer me a ride to the university and help finding where I would go. Trusting in the flow of things, I got myself and my luggage into their car and we took off.
Driving through the streets of a new city for the first time is magical. Every turn holds a new surprise, new things to take in, and you're still unsure of direction so it's never a drive or a feeling you'll be able to replicate once you've become used to the area. I saw so many quaint houses, well-kept yards, strange roundabouts, foreign signs and licence plates, boxy-looking cars, bus stops... every thing around me was foreign and electric and the people in the car chatted with me about the town. We drove up to the campus's hotel, the Stirling Management Center, because I knew they had students going to work there and thought for sure they'd give us a lead. The girl at the desk, who would later become a good friend, didn't know what I was talking about and sent us to the campus residency office. The residency office didn't know what I was talking about and sent us to a dorm office. The dorm office didn't know what I was talking about until the man driving me around slammed his fist down on the counter in front of the gentleman on the other side, who I would learn to call a "porter." "This lassie's lost," he yelled, "she's got a room here, and she's been 'shunted' around from office to office ['shunted' must be a bad word, because the porter's eyes got big as soon as he heard it]. Now you're going ot find her room, and you're going to tell us where it is, so get on the phone already, alright?!" The porter got on the phone and sure enough was quickly able to tell us where to go. We went there, and this kind older fellow who had just picked a complete stranger up from the train station helped me lug my baggage up four flights of stairs. I asked him what I could possibly do for him in return, and he said, "Absolutely nothing, thanks!" and took off. What a bizarre people, they seemed, but also so strangely kind! Then, wouldn't you know, after it all, Bob showed up. I looked out my window and saw a short, aging, balding man get out of his car from several stories up, and as I was desperate to call my father, I hollered out, "Do you know where I can get an international phone card?" He shouted back, "Ginna! Come down!" So I did.
Bob opened his mouth to introduce himself, and I don't believe it ever closed. He was full of stories about things that had been going on to prepare for us, things I would soon be doing, things past students from other schools had done, his personal history as far back as he could tell it, histories of buildings we passed including the "chippy" where he took me - if anything was there to be said, he said it. He won me over immediately, and when he bought me a fish and chips dinner, I wolfed it down hungrily, despite hating fish with every cell I've got. He drove me back, gave me some information, and then I hit the sack to wake up around noon the next day to Owen and Todd pounding on my door. Tim was due to arrive later that day, and Liz within a week or two. The three of us went to the Management Center to eat and be introduced, then I got myself familiar with the university library, and went back ot my room to settle in. I had about four days to unpack and scope out the town before training at my new job on Monday, and just enough whining about my sprained knee got me a room on the ground floor. I began to unpack, trying to make these new, cramped, foreign surroundings feel like they were my own, and set my new 99 pence clock for 2:00 PM, the local time, trying to come to terms with the fact that I was in a new time zone. 2PM has always been one of my favorite times of the day. It should feel something like afternoon - one should be just waking up, or maybe just winding down at work, but either way, 2PM should feel deliciously lazy every single day. That is to say, 2PM should not feel like 6AM, but after all my laborious travels into the new time zone it felt like 6AM after an all nighter and so much more. The travel was increasingly hectic with every turn, and my poor corpse was beat, but upon my arrival I found I hadn't felt so happy in a long time. I found myself on a ridiculously beautifufl campus, surrounded by lush green grasses and hills, framed by mountains and historical landmarks, neighboring a good-sized lake in the middle of campus, and and with enough cute furry animals wandering around to start a petting zoo. The town was beautiful, the area was beautiful, the country was beautiful, the people seemed beautiful, and even my cramped dorm room at least had a beautiful view. Plans to drink in local pubs with my classmates that evening promised to help me fall asleep and get in the right time zone. 2PM indeed.
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