There and Back Again: Courtney's Tale

To be honest, I've been super intimidated to update this blog since returning home from my adventure since there's just so much to tell and I don't want to leave anything out. Seventeen days is quite a long time so I've decided to write about my travels in Europe in segments just to make things easier on myself (and on you). So let's start from the beginning!

The evening of April 7th I began my journey. I'll admit that I got a little emotional upon take off but let's be real here, this trip was a BIG DEAL and naturally there were a lot of feels involved. I had really started talking about visiting Europe when I was 22 years old. My anxiety had become semi-manageable and I had quite a bit of savings so I started giving a European vacation serious consideration. However, the boyfriend at the time had no money and to tell the truth, had no real interest in traveling with me at all. I was pretty upset at the time but after my experience last month I now realize that I went at exactly the right time in my life with exactly the right person. It was all meant to be.

I'm not going to lie, the flight sucked. Don't get me wrong, British Airways did their very best to make all of us comfortable but being trapped in a plane for nearly 10 hours is never fun. I still get nervous flying so I didn't eat a whole lot before departing so around 9pm I was pure starving. I started daydreaming about macaroni and cheese but then I noticed that I smelled something that kind of smelt like macaroni and cheese (very weird). I guess I was naïve but I honestly thought that all I was going to get was juice and a cookie on this flight. Boy, was I WRONG! The flight attendant asked me if I preferred the curry chicken or pasta bake. I asked her if the pasta was vegetarian and she said she didn't know. I took a peek at it but it was hard to tell so I told her I didn't want to risk it. A few minutes later she came back and plopped the tray in front of me and said, "You better taste it just in case. I don't want you to starve." Pure angel! The pasta did in fact turn out to be vegetarian but it also came with bread and butter, a side salad, tea, water, and coffee cake! My tummy was very happy! After my feast I tried to get some sleep but I don't think I was very successful. I drifted in and out of consciousness but I don't think I got any actual sleep. Yadda yadda yadda ten hours went by and I see London out of my window and got a dash emotional again. My layover in London wasn't too bad; I filled the time with people watching. I finally arrived in Glasgow at 5:20pm the NEXT DAY! Spoopy!

As I walked through the airport the excitement started to build. I was finally going to get to see my dearest, Melissa in 3D. I navigated myself through the crowd and then I saw her! It was again, very emotional! She was just so cute and we both were so excited. It was a Hallmark moment for sure. My first impression of Scotland was that it was SO COLD! I was not prepared for it to be so cold--yikes! We took the bus back to her flat and I got to meet her sweet mum and her adorable kitty, Shadow. We had Dominoes pizza for dinner which was funny for me since I wasn't expecting there to be Dominoes in Glasgow. I slept for a few hours but woke up at 1am wide awake. During that time I made friends with Shadow, the Creature of the Night.

The next day started off good. We took the subway into town and Melissa showed me her turf. We went into a super cute shop called Primark and she bought me an adorable blue dress with a black peter pan collar for my birthday. However, while in Primark I started to feel a bit...weird. My stomach started doing funny stuff and once that happens my anxiety will slowly start to kick in. We stopped at Hill Head Bookclub for lunch (even though I wasn't hungry) and I ordered a veggie sandwich thinking that would be the safest thing for someone who's feeling sick to order. BAD IDEA. Making myself eat made everything so much worse and I had to visit the bathroom more times than I'd care to admit. It took all of my strength not to vomit everywhere. After lunch we were walking to the subway when I had to tell the truth that I was feeling super nauseated and having a bit of a panic attack. A weird thing about Europe is that there are very few trash bins on the street. For someone about to hurl, this is not the best news. The thought of barfing right onto the street or on the subway was more than I could bear.

Somehow I managed to make it back to her flat without puking though. I had been so tired in town that day but when she left me alone in her room to nap I could not sleep. I felt so bad about feeling ill the first day of the trip. All I could think was, "Well, Courtney, you already fucked it up. You've ruined the trip. This was a mistake. You're not meant to travel the world." All of these negative thoughts kept rolling around in my head. It was the worst. I truly thought that the rest of the trip was going to be a disaster and that I'd let my anxiety win.

I'm happy to report that that wasn't the case. In retrospect, I can't believe I was so hard on myself. First of all, I was super jet lagged. It should've been no surprise that I felt super ill after flying for 12 hours and getting hardly any sleep. Also, I was in a new country with a girl I had never met in person (and was worried wouldn't like me). Combine all of those things and anyone would feel barfy.

The next day and the days to follow were gold. Next stop was London but I'll save that tale for my next post. We were there for 2 days and one of those days was spent at the Harry Potter Studio Tour so I might break those into two posts as well.

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Courtney