Well I made it.
The flight was pretty uneventful except that I upgraded to business class and went from dreading the flight to anticipating it. I sat next to German man who had been in San Francisco on Business and was now flying to London on business as well. That was pretty much the end of our conversation and at that point we both put on our noise canceling headphones and ignored each other for the rest of the flight.
I arrived at London Heathrow Airport on Thursday morning and was forced to go through security AGAIN, which meant consolidating down to one bag and throwing away my water. I am just glad I didn't buy anything liquid in the duty free shop or I would have had to throw that away as well. Once I was on the plane to Edinburgh me and another man found out that we both were assigned to the same seat. Luckily the plane was not full so they found him a new seat and all was well. Upon arrival in Edinburgh I went to pick up my luggage and, of course, it was not there. After watching every last, lonely piece of luggage slowly ride past me on the belt for the tenth time, I gave up and went to the lost luggage department. The lady was very nice and informed me that my suitcase was still vacationing in London and would be sent up on the next flight and would be delivered to me at my flat that afternoon. Never trust the nice lady when she tells you everything will be OK!
After that I went to catch a cab to my flat. I asked to go to 7 Dalry Gate (7 Doll-Ree Gate) No, it is pronounced (7 Dal-Ray Gate) Thanks cab-man now I wont look like an asshole every time I try to get home.
Driving through the neighborhoods to get to my flat I remember saying to myself more then once; "oh, no, don't let this be it!" But when we finally did arrive I was very pleasantly surprised. It is in a nice courtyard cul-de-sac with modern apartments, I'm sorry, flats, all around. I arrived at 11am. I was supposed to be met by Lorraine, on of the people from Shortbreaklets. By 11:30 she had not shown up and I began to panic. It is at this point after traveling for twenty-four hours and having your luggage lost that paranoia starts to set in. All the worst case senarios start flashing through your head. The worst being that I was scammed by these people, who took my money and are now off in Spain while I am stuck, homeless and luggageless for my whole vacation! After a few cleansing deep breaths I called her and left a message on her mobile phone. Only about one minute later she replied all apologies and saying she was caught behind an accident on the motorway and she would be there in about 10 minutes.
The apartment in gorgeous and I want to live here forever.
My friend Sharon and her boyfriend Alex arrived about 1pm and we settled in to talking and cathing up (or in the case of Alex and I, getting to know each other).
By 8 pm my bag had not arrived the BMI office had closed, I was angry to say the least. At 9pm I received a call saying the driver had tried to call me, but had not been able to get through and that they would have to deliver the bag the next morning. ARRRGHHHH!
This morning I woke up at 9:30 am and started my vigil all over again, staring at my cell phone, looking out my window and silently cursing BMI for "ruining" my vacation. At 10am I got the call and my bag arrived at 10:15. Yeah, I have never missed a piece of luggage so much.
Well today is Alex's birthday, so we are planning on going out and doing some sight seeing and then having a nice dinner followed by a night at the pub. I'll let you know how it goes.
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