After my UK alarm had inadvertently woken me up at 1 AM, I didn't sleep much, so finally at 5:30 AM I just decided to give up, and get up to take a shower. I had to rush a bit to make it downstairs by 6:50 AM (in time for the 7 AM shuttle back to the airport), but did so in time to have a doughnut and some juice. The front desk then told me that I was the only one taking the shuttle, so I was good to go at any time I was ready.
I made slightly awkward conversation with the shuttle guy for the 15-minute trip to the airport, at which point he dropped me directly at the train station. I went to the ATM to get some US currency (I had only 50 cents to my name), and then on to the train station to buy a ticket. Then ticket machines don’t take credit cards, only cash, and they don’t give change. At that hour there were no attendants on duty to just sell a ticket to me (or perhaps there never are any), so lest I end up spending $20 on a ticket, I walked until I found a little souvenier stand, bought a postcard for $1.10, and used the change to buy myself a ticket with the exact $2.25 value I needed. Although the postcard was over-priced, it was a bargain to save money on the ticket!
I took the train downtown, and arrived early enough to have time to stop in at Walgreen’s to buy mascara, more postcards, Diet Coke and a chocolate muffin for breakfast. I contemplated buying an entire box of Cheerios (how I've missed them for breakfast!), but thought that impractical. Then I saw a woman with an individual-sized bowl package of Cheerios and a small container of milk, but no matter how I looked, I couldn't find where she'd gotten the bowl. At last, I gave up and just went with the muffin, but how I miss my Cheerios!
When I got to the office, I vaguely remembered that I needed to get an access badge from the downstairs reception office (rather impressive when you consider that I was last there three years ago). As I was standing on line waiting, the woman ahead of me looked quite familiar, so I took a stab at it and asked, "Liz? Is that you?" Indeed, when she turned around, it turned out to be the woman from the Human Capital Strategy team who had interviewed me right after I was made redundant. With a small bit of prompting, she remembered me, and we actually had a nice chat about how glad she was that everything had worked out, that it seemed I was in an even better role than the Human Capital one would have been. I was once again reminded how relieved I was when they turned me down for the job, once again proving that sometimes things really do work out for the best. Nonetheless, it was kind of nice to have the closure of seeing her and having her wish me well.
When I got upstairs, somebody had taken the desk I had booked, but I found another one nearby without too much difficulty. I answered a few e-mails, and then met Dana at 10 AM in the 40th floor cafe. He seemed like a really nice guy, a middle-aged man with three kids. Probably a bit different from my current boss given how freely he mentioned his church affiliation (my current boss and I on the other hand have had way too many Manhattans together), but I still just had a positive overall feeling, like this guy will be good to work with. Interestingly, he kept asking me why I live in the UK, I guess because it's strange that I didn't move there for a man or any particular reason, but just because I love England. People seem to be confused by how you can love a country that is not where you are born.
After a couple of hours of review and talking, we went for lunch at a local sandwich place, where we ran into two more guys on the team. It was a nice lunch, although I was kept talking so much that I had difficulty finding time to actually eat my sandwich!
After lunch, my new boss went back to catch a train out to the suburbs of Chicago, and I returned to my desk to work. I was supposed to meet my boss' boss immediately after lunch, but he kept pushing the meeting back. Eventually I just decided to go upstairs and work in the cafe, as he was on the 40th floor and I figured he could just pop out and meet me when he had a chance.
This plan didn't quite work, but I did randomly run into a Senior Executive who had been a huge help to me when I was first looking for a new role a few weeks ago, so once again it was nice to see her and share our mutual delight in how well everything had worked out in the end.
Finally at 2:45 (when the rehearsal was supposed to start at 3 PM), my boss' boss finally showed up. So we had a brief chat, but at 3 PM I really had to run, as I was going to be late as it was. I quickly changed into my dress in the bathroom (cleverly grabbing a paperclip from the supply closet to pull my bra straps together so they'd hide under my halter-style dress), and then raced downstairs to grab a cab.
Perhaps showing how long I've lived in London, I just told the guy the address of the place, and immediately expected him to just drive off. After all, every London cabbie has to pass "The Knowledge", an exam where they have to memorize every single last street in London. It usually takes about three years to do it, but in the end they have an internal sat-nav in their head. So you can imagine my surprise when after I barked the address at the cabbie, he turned back to me and asked, "Where is that?" Are you kidding me?
Inspiring even more confidence, after I told him it was in Hyde Park, he then drove off WHILST READING A BOOK of street locations in Chicago. Jeepers, where are the seatbelts in this cab?
Still, I couldn't actually buckle up, because in my haste to change I didn't have time to put on my stockings. So I found myself squeezing into weird contortions in the back of the cab, trying to work my stockings onto my legs. Eventually I managed it, but it's quite a difficult feat, to change in the back of a cab (another thing I miss about spacious London black cabs!)
Once we got near to the location of the church, my cab driver once again proved his idiocy by driving past the right turn, forcing me to pull him over, show him where we were on the Google map I'd printed out (thank goodness for that foresight!) and eventually as he continued to make wrong turns, tell him we were close enough, threw $20 and jumped out of the cab to walk the rest of the way. At least if it was nowhere near as good as a London black cab, it was also nowhere near as expensive!
I got to the church, where it turned out everyone else was late too, so I turned out to be right on time. Got a chance to talk a bit with the bride's parents, who seemed a bit nervous but super-nice, and weirdly interested in instantly bonding with me.
After the rehearsal, the bride's parents drove me to the rehearsal dinner, where we had a lovely drive talking about what I do and how I'd arrived, as they seemed genuinely interested in my stories. Also just talking to them, I found them to be really interesting and genuinely kind people. Always a pleasure to discover you like your friends' parents!
We got to the restaurant, and I sat with the other “young singles not in wedding party”. It turned out that one couple at my table, Shannon and Nick, I had previously met at a Halloween party in Chicago at the groom's house about three years ago. (Probably the last time I'd been in Chicago!) We had a spare seat at our table, as Nick’s mom didn’t let my dear friend Jess sit with me (she had to go sit with bridal party instead, being the maid of honor), and as a result all sorts of older folks kept coming to sit down with us. At one point the bride's father even came over and was talking to our table, and at one point even gave me a kiss on the forehead, a very affectionate paternal gesture, although somewhat surprising for someone I'd met only a few hours previously! I guess he was feeling somewhat emotional on such a momentous occasion, but it was also sweet to see how instantly he had bonded with me. It was very cute.
It was an excellent dinner, all shared platters of Greek food (the groom is Greek), hence it made me understand how easily I'd been added to the guest list at the last minute. Our table had a good time, as we seemed like a nice mix of personalities. Finally when I nearly ready to collapse with exhaustion, the bride's parents offered to drive me back to the hotel. I checked into my room, got up to my room, and just flopped out on the insanely comfortable bed. Jess (my friend from college and old roommate who I was rooming with) came back, and we chatted for a bit. It was the first chance I’d had to catch up with Jess in a while. Hadn’t realised how much I’d missed her, it was good to finally hear a bit about her summer internship in India, her MBA program at Wharton and everything else.
Just when I thought I was going to totally pass out, the bride called, as apparently the groom had gotten some cases of beer, and everyone was upstairs in the bridal suite having a few drinks. So we went up to the bridal suite, admired the view, and had a beer. I struggled to stay awake as I followed the conversation, but then talked to Jess for a bit, and found that talking helped keep me awake.
Finally as it was nearly midnight, the bride and groom admitted they needed some sleep, so we finally all returned to our rooms and to bed. At long last, finally some blessed sleep!!
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