Come Back Tomorrow

I definitely prefer a non-stop flight. A flight from Dallas to London that gives you a night in a Chicago hotel is not something I want to do again. Aside from the extra expense of the hotel, you end up arriving in London around 10:30 PM. By the time you clear customs and get your car it's close to 11:30. The sensible thing to do would have been to get a hotel near the airport and order late-night room service. We did not do the sensible thing. Instead, the old git talked the old tart into driving to Essex and since the old git was doing the driving, this old tart didn't care. Although by this time, I'm pretty well hungry because the last meal served on the plane was a "snack" around 8 PM London time (which is 2 PM in Dallas and Chicago.) So I'm on the lookout for a place to eat, even a Mickey D drive-thru. But there's nothing....

So we arrived in Clacton-on-Sea, (aka the Essex Riviera) around 2 AM and went to our hotel. Our reservation wasn't until the next night, but they didn't have the "no vacancy" sign up so we thought we would just check in early. I waited in the car for Mark to check us in. He came back out and got back in the car. "What?", I said.

Mark replied, "The guy speaks very little English and he can't find our booking."

"So? Why doesn't he just get us a room and we'll sort out the booking tomorrow?"

"He says we have to come back after 7 AM when the day shift starts."

Welcome to England! We get to spend our first night in the car. We drove to the yacht club parking lot and parked so that the sun rising over the North Sea would wake us up. What we discovered is that the sun rises way before anything opens. We are now on a mission to find breakfast. But we learned something amazing. Clacton-on-Sea is a bit scruffy. We always thought it was because the people who live there take no pride in keeping it nice because there's always so much trash just thrown into the street. But what we saw in those early morning hours changed our perception. The trash bags were being opened by sea gulls! The birds were ripping the bags open and scattering trash everywhere! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

We found a wonderful little Mediterranean place serving breakfast. The servings were huge (neither of us could finish) and food was delicious.


Now to retry the hotel. The best part was that when the owner heard our sad tale, he upgraded us to a room overlooking the seafront. It was a good-sized room with a balcony big enough to hold four tables and a dance band. But that actually was the best part, because the maid didn't come to tidy up the room or bring fresh towels, or clean glasses, or any of those things that maids do when you stay in a hotel.

In spite of this, we decided to extend our stay by one extra day so I went to the front desk and mentioned this. "Come back tomorrow morning," says the young man at the desk.

Maybe not.