I spend quite a bit of time online finding the best flight and Airbnb deals I can find. This time I needed to find a place and flights for the six of us plus my in-laws. We were going to Paris, Barcelona, and lastly, London and I was extremely grateful when I found the deals I found for the 8 of us.
Our last stop was London. We left Barcelona and landed in London around 5:30pm. We took the Tube up to our place in Camden which took about an hour. I checked the email with directions on how to get into our flat. The directions gave us a code to the dumpster bin closet right outside the front door of the building. In there was a lock where our keys would be that would let us into the building. We followed the directions to the T, only to find that there were no keys in the lock. We looked all over the small closet and found no other possible place where they could be hidden. We were all hungry, so after I tried calling our host and emailing him to ask him what we should do, we left our bags in the dumpster bin closet to go get some dinner and figure out what we were going to do if this didn’t work out.
We joked about sleeping in the dumpster bin closet or getting a hotel for the night. I couldn’t believe they had given us such specific directions and not put the key in the lock. Yes, I was just a bit upset and frustrated to say the least.
We found a pizza place around the corner and ordered dinner. Once we got our food, my phone rang. I answered it, knowing it had to be our host for the week calling to apologize for the mix-up. The conversation went something like this:
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jennifer?”
“Yes! Hi Aaron!”
“Are you at the flat right now?”
“Well, we decided to go get some dinner while we waited to hear from you.”
“You’re there now?”
“Yes, we are at the pizza place right around the corner.”
“Well, Jennifer, I’m a little bit confused. I have you down as arriving tomorrow. I have the flat rented to someone else right now.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I have you down as coming in tomorrow.”
Now, because I wouldn’t put it passed myself to do something like this, I realize that it was most likely me that mixed up the dates. I searched for our reservations and sure enough, I had checked us in the following day…which meant we had no place to go that night. Awesome.
“Jennifer, let me make some calls. How many of you are there again?”
“We have eight,” I said a bit hesitantly, knowing that it would be difficult to house a group of 8 at the last minute in London on a Saturday night.
“Eight? Ok, let me make some calls and see what I can do for you.”
I hung up a bit embarrassed and really upset with myself. How could I have done that?
A little bit later Aaron called again and said, “Well, I have a 2 bedroom in the same building and the tenants just left. It’s a little bit messy, but would you mind staying there? I know it’s a bit of a squeeze with eight of you, but that’s all I can do.” He was so apologetic, I was floored. This was my mistake, why was he apologizing?
“Absolutely we’ll take it! Wow, Aaron, you have gone above and beyond for my mistake! Thank you so much for bending over backwards for us!”
So, Aaron came to the rescue and I learned that even when I check and double check dates, I need to re-check those double checks.
The Nomad Family 