England. Day 1. The Summer I Turned Positive.
And so we begin our end of summer trip to England. Except, as usual, there is a beginning before the beginning, because why should anything go smoothly?
Our flight was scheduled for Thursday, August 21st. By the previous Sunday I hadn’t been feeling well for a few days. I felt like garbage but I thought it was my normal cold—the kind that inevitably turns into a sinus infection, which means antibiotics. But that usually takes about a week, and that wouldn’t have been good because we’d already be in London by the time it went full-blown.
So, I speak to my doctor. He says, “Yeah, sure, I’ll write you the prescription, but first just take a COVID test, because I’m seeing a lot of COVID cases.” I go to CVS, buy a COVID test, and take it—flippantly, not flippantly… I’m not even sure what the right word is—but with fully confident it wouldn’t be positive. Well, guess what? There was a faint line that grew pinker by the minute.
So apparently I had COVID. That explained why I felt so horrible, except by that point it was already Day 5, so there wasn’t much to do. It just explained why I felt like crap.
Meanwhile, Monday night rolls around and Madeleine says her head hurts. What do you know? She has a fever. Of course, I’m freaking out, thinking: Great, she has COVID. So, I take her to urgent care where they do a strep test and a COVID test. Both come back negative. But she’s also saying her stomach hurts, her throat hurts… and I’m thinking, okay, this could be strep (because those are the symptoms), but it could also be COVID.
The next morning I decide to take her to the pediatrician—because I really need to know if there’s actually something there. They do another strep test and, lo and behold, it’s positive. So, Madeleine has strep. She ended up missing the last two days of camp, which was very depressing, but she starts her meds.
Now it’s Wednesday night, the evening before we’re set to fly. We’re trying to get ready, we’re packing, doing the whole thing. I’m still feeling a little crappy, getting over COVID. Madeleine is sick with strep—bad strep, the kind that doesn’t just go away in twelve hours. Tzvi decides this is the right time to announce that he has a 99.1 temperature and a headache.
I’m like: What do you mean? Take a COVID test.
He takes one. We can’t really tell. And I’m so upset—I mean, I’m going to need him to write this part because I don’t even know how to describe how upset I was.
[Tzvi: she was very upset.]
He says he’d had a headache all day but thought it was just because he wasn’t sleeping. And I’m like: If you know there’s someone in the house with COVID, why would you wait until the end of the day? This is the man who walks around saying he has an “elevated temperature” when his temp is 98.7 instead of 98.6. So yeah, I lost it. I was losing it.
He went to urgent care, where he took another COVID test and a strep test—both negative. But honestly? I didn’t believe it. I was convinced he probably had COVID and was about to ruin the whole vacation. I pictured myself in London with the kids, and him just lying there, doing nothing. Even though I powered through my COVID, he’d just be useless.
And I was just… so upset.
Day 1
Somehow, I managed to get to sleep Wednesday night—despite wanting to kill myself—and then we woke up bright and early Thursday morning at six. Our flight was at 8:45. Everyone seemed to be okay.
I should probably give the introduction I would’ve given to this strip if I didn’t need to write a whole page about Covid and Strep. We’re off to jolly old England to spend five nights in London and three nights in the English countryside. Several months ago we were trying to figure out what to do for summer vacation. We considered Mexico and different islands, but ultimately we knew the kids wouldn’t be able to handle sitting on a beach all day. We also didn’t want to do a full-on city vacation because we knew we wouldn’t be able to handle a full week of walking around a city and seeing sights with our kids. I happened to be chatting with Mary Helen Law, a travel agent who we’ve used to book Disney travel in the past and who also has a luxury travel agency, and she suggested splitting up the trip with a city portion and a more relaxing portion. Her suggestion: London and the English countryside. We had considered London in the past, but I had no idea going to the English countryside was a thing. Apparently it is, and she recommended a hotel in the country that looked so amazing we ended up building an entire trip around it. But we’ll get to that in a few days. All I’ll say for now is that she hit it out of the park with her recommendations and helped plan a great trip.
So, Thursday morning, we got ourselves together, our car came at 6:45, and we were driving away by 6:53. I reminded the girls that this may seem early, but in a month and a half we’ll be heading to Los Angeles and have to be out even earlier. They didn’t appreciate that. Anyway, we did the trek to JFK. We had a very good driver who saved us some time cutting a massive line of traffic at the airport, and then we headed to check in at the Mosaic desk, which was very smooth. We went through security with no problem. It was very crowded—actually, I thought it was extremely crowded for a Thursday morning—but we got through without issue. After that, I went to get Hallie a bagel, which took something like 20 minutes, while Tzvi went to pick up the coffees we had ordered at Starbucks (which, of course, didn’t go smoothly). By then, boarding had already started. We got on line, ready to board. They began scanning our passports, and suddenly, they stop us.
“Oh, Kaplan—we called you before. You need a visa for her. For Shir.” We’re like, “huh?”. They look at her passport and say, “She needs a special visa to get to the UK.”
We’re like: What do you mean? We filled out the electronic travel visa. What are you talking about?
“Oh, she’s from Israel. She needs a special visa.”
So, we have to move off the line. People are filling the plane, and I’m panicking, thinking Shir’s going to have to get off and won’t be able to come to London.
Tzvi was surprisingly calm. He just said, “No, they’re wrong, I’m right. You just have to give them a minute to figure it out.” Very unlike him.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, the agent finally says, “Yeah, all right, it’s fine. Go ahead.” She just didn’t know what she was talking about. (Or she just hates Jews.)
The flight itself was actually very nice. The captain came on the PA and gave us details: we’d push back, taxi for 20–25 minutes, and then take off. Flying time would be six and a half hours. I appreciated that—especially after our last horrible flights, where we just sat on the runway with no updates. And he was accurate: we taxied for about 25–27 minutes, just like he said.
We were served one meal: breakfast. We had pre-ordered kosher but obviously they didn’t have it. The options were an egg salad croissant or a yogurt, plus a muffin-type thing and some fruit. Honestly, it was strange timing. We pushed back at 8:45, took off around 9:15–9:20, and then about an hour later they served breakfast. But you still had six hours of flying left. Why not just serve lunch later? It makes no sense—it feels too late in the morning for breakfast.
Anyway, around noon or 12:30 I decided to eat my turkey sandwich that I’d packed. I took two bites, and suddenly they started handing out ice cream sandwiches. Sadly, I couldn’t have one, but still—it was a nice touch. Later, they gave out banana bread, which wasn’t horrible.
Overall, it was a really good flight. The girls did really well. They watched some Harry Potter and then mostly their iPads. Pretty uneventful—except Hallie kept peeing every ten minutes. (Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but it was a lot. Annoying.)
We landed in London at 8:45 p.m. local time. First stop: the bathroom. Hallie couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. And honestly, she was right—it was pristine, especially compared to JFK, which is disgusting.
Then we headed to passport control. There was one line for US and European passports, another line for all other passports, and a third line for families. First Shir went on the all other passports line, and then the four of us got on the family line, but then we realized we could’ve brought Shir on the family line so we pulled her off the other line and into our line. At that point a border agent saw her moving and asked “what is her relationship to you?”
Without thinking, Tzvi answered, “She’s our au pair.”
“Oh, so she’s your nanny? Does she have a visa?”
We explained that we’d filled out the electronic travel visa. The officer shook her head. “No, does she have a non-domestic work visa for the United Kingdom?”
We were dumbfounded. What are you talking about? Never in my life had I heard anything like this.
So for the second time I’m thinking they’re not going to let her in, they’re going to send her back, Tzvi’s going to end up sick with in bed with COVID (even though he was feeling fine) and I’ll be out touring trying to wrangle two kids on my own.
The officer brought us to another woman who was behind a desk and actually checking passports. She was older and much nicer, and she basically gave us a look and said something like: “So, she’s here on holiday, right?” We just nodded and said “right.” Then she basically told us, just don’t say she’s working. Evidently, when you bring a babysitter to Europe, they’re technically considered “working” in the country and need a visa. The whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous, but whatever, we got through.
By the time we got to baggage claim our luggage was already coming out. Putting aside the almost not all making it into the country, I was actually super impressed with the Heathrow. They really seemed to put an emphasis on families, which was a nice change from America. Usually when we land somewhere we need to wait a super long time to get the stroller at the gate, but here it came out almost immediately, and then they had the special line for families at passport control, which was much shorter. It partly made me realize that the fact that bags take a long time to come out at American airports probably isn’t really Jet Blue’s fault, it’s just the American airports.
Once we had all our bags we walked out into the arrivals hall where there were lots of people lining up to meet people. It was like the scene at the end of Love Actually. We were met by a taxi Mary Helen had pre-arranged—a big Mercedes van with two facing rows of seats. The kids got to face backwards, which they thought was a novelty.
The drive to our hotel, the Rosewood London in Holborne (a neighborhood of London) was about 50 minutes.
We pulled in, and it was beautiful. You drive into this gorgeous courtyard—even in the dark, when we could barely see, it was stunning. Inside, the lobby was just as gorgeous. Everything was dimly lit and atmospheric, so I’m sure it will look even more beautiful tomorrow in the daylight. And they had chocolate everywhere—little glass dishes filled with tiny chocolates scattered around. The kids were running from dish to dish collecting pieces.
We headed up to our connecting rooms, which were just as stunning as the lobby. The girls had twin beds that were separated, and they were so happy about not having to share a bed.
We unpacked a bit and ordered room service. I got this mushy vegetable dish from the kids’ menu that honestly looked like green vomit—but it actually tasted good. Tzvi and I also shared a veggie burger and Caesar salad. Hallie had fish goujons (which she didn’t like) and Madeleine had plain pasta (which she didn’t like), so basically the two kids just ate a lot of French fries. We also got a sticky toffee pudding and a chocolate brownie and doused both with caramel sauce. It was delicious.
Then we got the girls to bed. Madeleine fell asleep around 12:30, and Hallie by about 1:30. Very late, but not terrible, considering we were five hours ahead.
Finally, I took a bath to relax.
And that was it for Day 1.