Good Morning, Slovenia

In retrospect, Emma and I probably should have predicted that our travel plans were too optimistic, but they somehow seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was that I would leave Oxford at 7am and get to Stansted at 10:30, and that she would fly into Heathrow by 7am, get to Stansted by about 10am, and that we would check in before the ticketing closed at 12:35pm and be airborne for Ljubljana by 1:15. Knowing my luck and the state of the airport industry, I have no idea why this seemed like a remotely good idea.

Around 10pm, Emma left New York, approximately three hours late.

Around 8:30am, the rubber that kept the windshield of my bus in place fell off, forcing us to pull over at Luton and sit for a half hour until another bus company was charitable enough to pick us up.

Around 10am, Emma made it through immigration and customs at Heathrow, and frantically boarded a 10:30 shuttle for Stansted.

Around 10:45am, I got a voicemail from Emma saying she would be late, jogged into Stansted, and began binge-eating Mentos in a panic. This is about the time that I started ruefully looking at mid-afternoon flights to Paris.

Around 11:30am, I started pacing up and down the front of Stansted, hoping that the 12:10 bus would arrive early.

At 12:10pm, the bus arrived and Emma and I briefly hugged and then broke into a dead sprint for the Easy Jet line.

At 12:16pm, with approximately 19 minutes to spare, we walked through security and beelined for our gate. Actually, a bathroom, and then Starbucks, but then our gate.

And at 1:15, we successfully lifted off to Slovenia, where we just finished a gigantic plate of meat and a side of rood (although I still have no idea what that is) and are off to bed in our former prison cum art gallery cum hostel. We did it, although I could not find the apostrophe key on this keyboard if my life depended on it.