I sprung out of bed to check on my phone. Nothing. No charge whatsoever. It stayed at 20 percent. I was panicking. I quickly got ready and made my way downstairs to have breakfast. I was puzzled because I wasn’t sure if it was my phone that was the problem or my chord. I had difficulty charging my blue tooth as well. I was praying it was the chord. I called my friend up to see if she had any suggestions. She advised that if I did run out to get a chord, to buy an Apple chord and not a cheaper version since they may not work with my iphone. That’s it!! I needed to find an Apple store!
I asked the concierge if she knew where the closest Apple store was. She told me there was one at the Westfield shopping mall, not far from the hotel. I was starting to panic. My train was scheduled to leave for Paris at 1:30pm. I figured I should to the station by 12pm just in case. Although I printed out my tickets beforehand, it stated to check in at least 30 minutes prior to departing. I was weary and considered getting there much earlier.
I had to catch a bus to the mall. I rushed back upstairs and grabbed my suitcase. The concierge insisted I could leave my bag behind. She thought I had plenty of time to go to the mall and come back for it in order to leave for Paris. Luckily, there was a metro Underground station at the mall. I told her I will checkout and take my bag. I’ll just take it from there.
I was SUPER NERVOUS. I just wanted to know what was wrong with my phone. After a 10 minute wait, the bus finally arrived. Sure enough, just like the concierge said, the mall was a 15 minute bus ride away. I rushed into a gigantic mall and asked around for the Apple store. I came across a young lady working at a spa kiosk. She told me the directions to the Apple store, but insisted I try her samples spa treatment. I was hesitant because I was in a hurry, but then I said why not. I was finally at the mall and needed to calm down a bit. She lathered up my hands and then followed up with a exfoliator. I have to admit, it was working. Once we started small talking, she asked me where I was from. I told her Chicago and she got excited. She was a singer and had applied for a visa to come to Chicago to go to school. Unfortunately her visa was denied. I didn’t know what to say. She seemed sad about the denial. I apologized but her eyes said it all. She was crushed. For the time being, she will stay in the UK but my heart felt for her.
I rushed upstairs to the Apple store. By now it was 11am. I ran up to one of the associates, but the staff was getting bombarded. I had to wait my turn before she got my information for an appointment. Currently the wait was for an hour for them to look at my phone. I was going into panic mode. I knew no matter what, I had to leave the mall at 12pm. I got desperate and asked the associate if I could use her phone cord to see if my iphone would take the charge. She seemed skeptical about handing hers over to me, but I told her if it works, then I knew that was the issue and could get out of her hair. Unfortunately my stomach dropped. I plugged her cord to my adaptor with the UK converter plug and nothing happened. UGH!
I waited for my turn. What made it worse was that the associate told me they would text me when my turn was up. I told her I had to keep my phone off because it was not fully charged. This lady was driving me crazy. “Well then, check up with me every 20 minutes,” she said. I went and sat down to mope.
I moped until I noticed a display of ipads. Again, I was desperate. I unplugged one of the cords and plugged it up to my phone. To my surprise it was charging. I was so excited. I waited for it to charge up a bit before I turned my phone on. All of the sudden, I got a flood of texts. My mom, my friend in Italy, my co-workers. People kept asking me if I was ok. I didn’t know what was happening but I messaged my friend in Italy that I was fine. “Be careful! There was a terrorist attack on the tube!” I didn’t think too much about it. I told her I was fine and turned my phone back off so it would charge faster. Whenever I turned my phone back on to see if I received my appointment text, my phone would blow up again with messages. I finally swiped over to an ipad next to me to see what was the commotion about. Sure enough, the tube was in lock down due to the explosion this morning. It was all over the internet. I was in shock. When did this happen??
I decided to message back everyone that was concerned about me. I then posted on Facebook that I was fine and en route to Paris. I didn’t want to think about what was going on. I was worried about catching the train out of Westfield to get to St. Pancras International station.
After an hour my phone was fully charged. I went up to another associate since the one I talked to earlier was nowhere in sight. “Um, we texted you 4x this past hour.” WHAT?? I explained to him that I was 10 feet away from them and that the other associate knew what was wrong with my phone. I couldn’t leave it on since it wasn’t fully charged. I was beyond frustrated at this point. Unfortunately, he explained there was nothing he could do but to put my name back on the waiting list. I was livid. “Where is there an Apple store in Paris?? I have to catch a train!” He wrote down the address and off I ran. I had to get out of there and find my way to St. Pancras.
Luckily, I found the metro station at the mall. By the time I got to St. Pancras station, I had to go through passport control. I knew there was more to this. Luckily I gave myself enough time or I would have misjudged this altogether. My anxiety was in full swing that I had a glass of wine at the station to calm down. I messaged my friend that I was off to Paris when I had Wi-Fi. Once I boarded on, I tried to relax. Paris here I come!
