Death of a Virgin

The first time I left the states for overseas was a trip to London when I was 19. The events of that day have given me the courage to face all traveling nightmares.

I packed this huge duffel bag with my clothes, camera, some food, and a new tripod (i was into photography heavily then). The bag weighed about 50 lbs. The plane ride was fine. Came into Heathrow about 1pm. Grabbed my luggage and made my way to a phone. Booked a reservation for a youth hostel in Earl's Court of London.
"I'd like to reserve a bed for tonight".
"okay, what's your name, and when will you be arriving."
"I'm at Heathrow, and going to head over straight from here."
"okay, that's pretty close so I'll keep your reservation till 4:30, just in case."
"Great, thanks. See you soon."

I check the time for the next train into Victoria Station. It leaves in 5 min. I'm getting hot carrying this duffel bag around so I decide to put my jacket in the bag. I zip the bag open. My mother had put a glass jar of beef jerky in there, in case I got hungry. Glass is everywhere. Stuck in the clothes. Beef jerky is everywhere. I look at the tripod I bought a week ago. Head is snapped in two. I drag the bag over to a trash bin and start picking the big pieces of glass out. Running out of time to catch the train, I hobble over to the train and ride into Victoria Station.

Once in the station, I spend some time looking at the subway map. At 19, I was a subway virgin. I see that I need to take the green line four stops. I pay for my token and put my wallet in my chest pocket. Then I hobble over to the green line. I get on the train. After 6 stops, the virgin realizes he's going away from Earl's Court. I get off the train and spend some time trying to figure out how to get on the opposite side of the green tracks. Keep in mind I'm still carrying a 50 lb. duffel bag. I'm shuffling/crawling over the line and see the train coming so start to rush over the pass and down the stairs, sweating profusely. I make it into the train. Great! I'm headed in the right direction now. As the doors shut I feel for my wallet. Not there. It has my license, credit card, and about half the money I brought with me. I'm freakin by now, but of course I can't do anything until the train comes to the next stop. Like a wounded, fat bat out of hell I explode out of the train at the next stop, going back over to the other side, and ride back to the previous stop. I retrace my steps and look for the wallet. Not finding it, I go out of the stalls up to report it missing. I have to fill out some paper work. I pull more money out of my money belt, buy another token, go back on the green line, this time making sure it's heading towards Earl's Court. By this time I'm swollen, aching, and perspiring a nervous sweat that stinks like piss, and I'm still carting a 50lb duffel bag around with little pieces of broken glass occasionally pricking into my back. Arriving at Earl's Court, I have to walk about 4 blocks from the subway to the hostel. I arrive utterly exhausted at 4:34. The attendant tells me he gave my reservation away 2 minutes ago.

I'm in a stupor and shock. I end up finding a B&B close by and book the room for 2 days. I slept for 28 hours.

Traveling always has it's surprises. Like having your visa to enter Russia taken by the Latvian inspector and not given back, or having a drunk Russian bang on the door of your new apt. at 1:30 am with a lighter, taking chunks out of the door, until you convince him in broken Russian that you aren't in there with his ex-girlfriend, whom you've never met... or getting up at 3 a.m. to catch a flight out of Milan only to realize you're leaving out a different airport than you arrived in. All of these things happened, but after the first experience of overseas travel, I could handle these things, if not with class and dignity, humor and experience.