England 1999

     Stonehenge, Caernarfon castle, the ruins of Bath, St. Andrew’s Golf Course and Trinity College in Dublin are a few of the places my family visited while on a three week excursion to Great Britain and Ireland in 1999.

     The art, the architecture and the history were amazing and the education from such a personal experience, priceless, having said that, you will be shocked to learn that I am not going to write about any of it. The reason for this is that one of the funniest experiences we had involved our transportation and I will never forget it.

     My family arrived in London with enough luggage to clothe a small country. With the knowledge that we would rent a car for the entire trip, my mom got the idea that we should pack heavy and launder less. I’m not saying that her reasoning didn’t make sense, it’s just that European people travel differently than American people; Case in point, the size of one’s luggage.

     For starters, we each had one large piece of luggage on wheels, then we added a duffle bag and a backpack and there we were: the Haider family ready to backpack around Europe.

     Once our luggage had been gathered from baggage claim, we dragged our countless bags across the airport, down the elevator, through a parking lot, to the rental place where we finally stopped at our chosen car rental desk.

     We waited and waited and waited for my dad to get our vehicle. All of us were jet lagged, hungry and now cranky. What was taking so long? After an eternity of impatience, my dad approached us and asked us to follow him to the parking lot with our luggage. The rental place had given us the two largest cars they had on the lot. Yes cars—not car like we had expected.

     We dragged our luggage through the parking lot to the cars and piled the bags inside. It soon became apparent that the six of us and our obscene amount of luggage were never going to fit into those two “large” European cars. What to do, what to do?

     European people don’t just travel differently than Americans, they travel lighter; smaller bags, smaller cars. We looked like a bunch of gluttons trying to squeeze into those mini cars. It was terribly embarrassing. We sheepishly dragged our bags out of the cars and walked back to the lobby.

     The Haider women felt defeated by the embarrassing scene but not my dad. He’s a guy who gets things done, and he knew that there had to be a solution to the problem.

     After much negotiation and multiple trips to and from the parking lot, the rental people and my dad worked out a deal.

     My sisters, Shelly and Lora, followed my dad out to the car while Kate and I stayed with my mom as she signed the paperwork.

     I can honestly say that I was not the least bit prepared for what awaited us in the parking lot. My dad had just returned from the car to help with the remaining bags and directed me to the back of the lot saying, “just look for the biggest vehicle you see and that is our car.” Sure dad, biggest car, back of lot. I was really fighting my jetlag at that point.

     I walked slowly as I scanned my surroundings. Then I saw what looked like an assisted living bus and made a double take. Lora and Shelly were sitting inside of it. What the hell? That cannot be our “car.” The girls saw me coming their way and videotaped my reaction as I approached the beast. With my mouth gaping open and it’s sides curving up, I shook my head in disbelief. The girls were laughing and soon I was laughing along with them. When my dad said “look for the biggest vehicle” I thought conversion van, not city bus.

     The thing was so big that my six foot tall sister Kate could stand in it with room to breathe. A sign in the back read “Capacity Sixteen People.” The thing had an aisle and an emergency exit and there was room for two people to sit shotgun. Plus, it used diesel gas and had tandem wheels in the back. Oh yeah, the stick shift was on the opposite site of the car than at home. We were, after all, in England and now our dad had to drive on the left side of the road shifting with his left hand, how confusing!

     The thought of riding in this massive machine gave my sisters and me the giggles. Then we saw our mom. Her eyes were huge and she was shaking her head no as she approached us. “We cannot ride in this, we cannot ride in this,” was her response.

     My dad said that after much negotiation, it was our only option if we wanted our luggage to travel along with us. Then my mom got the giggles too, and with a few quick glances at one another, we all agreed to accept the beast as our transportation.