Monday, April 16, 2012

{part 22}

{parts 12345678, 9 10,  1112 1314, 151617181920, 21}

it was the morning of day 11. my socks were soggy and there was sun in my eyes and i wasn't awake enough to know where i was, but not asleep enough not to care. without looking, i flailed an arm out to either side to make sure i hadn't lost barclay. my left hand connected solidly with something wooden, and my right found the side of his bearded face. oh, good. ouch, too though.

i was wearing most of what i'd been wearing all day yesterday minus my jacket which, with a bit more arm-flailing, i discovered lying in a puddle by my head. i cracked open an eye and stared up at the sky and the birds in it.

the night before had been long, just almost past the point of being adventure and right on the verge of being a royal pain. after finding the bus stop closed for the night, we'd dragged our baggage further down the street until we thought we might be close enough to uncle stephen's house to pay for a taxi with our last two bills. the next disheartening thing of the evening was the call to the taxi company.

"hi, can i get a taxi? i'm at the corner of granton and ferry."

"yes sir, what's the address?"

"well, we're not at a house. we're just at the corner of granton and ferry. in front of the {name i can't remember} church."

"that's not an address. we need a real address if we're going to send out a taxi."

*click*

that made me mad. few things make me mad, but one of them is being hung up on by taxi companies when i'm lost in a foreign city in the middle of the night. i just didn't know it until that moment.

in the dark, we wandered along until we found a house that didn't have vines covering the already-hard-to-see house numbers, called the taxi people back, gave them "our address."

we didn't know stephen's address either, which the taxi driver didn't love. of course {sorry}. but we didn't have enough money to get all the way there anyway, so we had him drop us off at a bus stop in the general vicinity, and walked some more.

it might have been 2, or 3, or 4 in the morning when we arrived at our destination. we fished around in the designated key hiding spot and let ourselves in to the darkened house. we'd been told we could have the attic and that there would be beds ready for us up there any time we needed, so we tiptoed through the hallway, up stairs, around a corner, and up a ladder to a small room where we crashed into the nest of blankets like a couple of airplanes with our wings chopped off beneath the glow of the moon through the skylight.

10 comments:

Caitlin said...

Ugh what a crazy situation! In Russia we got into a cab and the guy totally screwed us money-wise. We were so angry but couldn't really express our anger in Russian so we just gave up and gave him the money. Oh, foreign travel.

I love you and your writing, FYI.

Suzy Marie said...

"we crashed into the nest of blankets like a couple of airplanes with our wings chopped off beneath the glow of the moon through the skylight." - gorgeous! Also, I'd have been totally panicking, well done you for remaining so calm.

Suzy Krause said...

taxi drivers are ridiculous. i can't think of a good experience with one. sigh. if i was a taxi driver, i'd BE NICE TO PEOPLE.

{and thanks. :) you're fantastic.}

Suzy Krause said...

hahaha i don't know if we were really all that calm. i mean, we were, but at the same time, we were a little unthrilled about the prospect of maybe sleeping on the front steps of a church.

Unknown said...

I can't believe you need an address for the taxi people.

Glad you mananged to get back safely though.

Sarah Rooftops said...

Urgh, what a nightmare. Glad you got there safe and sound.

kalie brynn. said...

so when you publish your first book, i want a signed copy. calling it!

oh - and silly taxi service. i haven't used taxi's many times in my life, but EVERY TIME it is an adventure. and by adventure i mean fiasco. oy.

Suzy Krause said...

I KNOW. and we had the name of the church we were in front of and were on really main roads too, so how hard could it have possibly been? sigh.
:)

Suzy Krause said...

meeeee tooo...

Suzy Krause said...

hahahhaa oh you. :)

and for real. once, in california, we had a taxi driver take us an hour out of our way because {we're assuming} he didn't think we knew where we were. we kept asking him to go straight back to our hotel and he kept saying he was. but he wasn't. and we paid for it. boo.