Part 3: Fire, Ice and Foam

Part 3 of 3: This time fire of the stomach and foam of the mouth.

Up until this point the 18 hour flight to South Africa had been my longest travel time, but overnight at Newark had already blown that one out of the water. I’d known a long trip was going to hurt and I’d been expecting exhaustion. I never sleep much on flights and I didn’t feel so good on the flight to London, but I wasn’t that surprised after the last 2 days. When I got to London, I had of coursed missed my connecting flight and had to stand for almost 2 hours in the flight connections line to get re-booked. We’d landed around noon London time but there wasn’t another flight until 9:30 that they could get me on. The guy at the desk was very nice and he upgraded my seat to World Traveler Plus and gave me a 10 pound voucher for the airport. Unfortunately, all of my Newark buddies had either earlier connections than me or had left the airport, so once again I was alone. I walked around the whole airport looking for a quiet place to try to sleep. I slept for a bit but when I woke up I was really starting to not feel good. I used my 10 pound voucher (“You must spend this all in one place”) and tried to get myself to eat some food. But shortly after I ate I ended up in the bathroom vomiting. Of course now it was only an hour till the flight. How sick was I? Should I get on the plane and risk being sick on the plane? Should I stay in London and be sick in London? They called for my plane to board so I made the journey across Heathrow to my terminal. By the time I got there I knew I was in trouble. I vomited once more as they called boarding but I didn’t even know what the protocol would be to get off the flight. So I boarded and settled into my nice upgraded seat. And proceeded to vomit for the entire 8 hour flight. As I clutched the porcelain throne I remembered my Newark buddy telling me at the airport  “Traveling alone is very liberating and self-fulfilling.” Well I’m here to tell you there is nothing liberating about choking on your own vomit on a dirty bathroom floor. Turns out getting sick on a plane sucks just as much as you would think, even though the bathroom is set up with tissues, vomit bags and paper towels all within easy reach of the toilet. It took the flight attendants a while to realize just how sick I was. When they finally did they gave me some electrolyte drink. The first one went the way of everything else in my body, but the second one stayed down.

When I stumbled off the plane I could barely stand upright after spending 8 hours bowing to the porcelain god. When the customs official told me I’d missed filling out a line on the form and sent me to the back I burst into tears, but he was unsympathetic. I finally stumbled through to the baggage claim where I sat on the floor watching the carousel go by. I think I might have blacked out for a bit because I suddenly realized the sign said all baggage was on the track and naturally mine was nowhere to be found. When I went to the BA rep to report my bag she said “We don’t have a report of a bag missing.” “Right, that’s why I’m here, to report a bag as missing.” I had to fill out all these forms while she reassuringly told me “We don’t have any record of what happened to your bag.” It was December 29th by the time I got there, and I didn’t get my bag until the 31st. Of course the first time I called for the status on the 30th I was told “Call back tomorrow, last we scanned it was in London.” But when I called back that afternoon they said “You should have called yesterday, we found it in London today and we’re putting it on a plane tonight.” British Airways customer service, you can expect my call.

While I was filling out paperwork my friends were arranging for someone to pick me up. They wanted to know how they should look for me and my response was “I’m the one who looks like $#%@.” Who should my friend have sent to pick me up? A friend from high school who is currently a doctor in Delhi, with his fiance who works at the airport. He went to a pharmacy and got me some anti-vomiting meds, and she called the airport to double-check on my bag. If I’ve ever looked bad before when I traveled, the mess they delivered to my friend’s doorstep was probably closer to something you’d see on Halloween.