Vision Boarding

I made a vision board at the beginning of the pandemic and in a weird way a bunch of things I’d been wishing for are coming true. I wanted to go on one of the international trips at my work and now I am.

First, I’m going to Portugal for work and then I’m taking two days by myself in London. My friend was appalled at my nerdy itinerary. I’ve booked a hotel across from King’s Cross Station so I can take my picture at Platform 9 and ¾. And I booked a tour to Stonehenge so I can take a selfie while wearing my Carhenge T-shirt and then I can buy a Stonehenge shirt to wear to carhenge.

Hotels in London are weird. I have the chance to secretly pay to stay some place awesome because no one is going to see the price and complain that we shouldn’t be wasting our money, but even the most expensive hotels look small and kind of crappy there. Not the really, really expensive ones, but the normal four-star type of hotels. So many of them have creepy Victorian furniture and twin-sized beds. Like no thanks British haunted ghost hotel.

I’m afraid to go on the train or tube or underground or whatever it’s called. I know you have to buy an Oyster card but I don’t know how to use one. Oh, I’ll be like Ron Weasley’s dad when he and Harry were in the Underground and he was trying to figure out muggle money. I’ll have to ask an eleven year old to count my money for me.

Actually, how does it work with credit and debit cards? I have no idea. Can you just use them there the same as here? Do you get a bunch of fees? How do you do your cell phone? Do you have to get a special SIM card? Do Portugal and England use the same kind of adapter? I’m afraid of getting lost, I’m afraid of getting mugged, losing my credit/debit/ID, etc. and having no money.

When I went on this work trip to Las Vegas, the hotel put a huge deposit hold on my credit card even though I had prepaid and it didn’t go away after checking out so I literally had only seventeen dollars to last me until I got home because our checking account had become overdrawn and there was only $17 worth of room left on my credit card.

I’m afraid of getting lost. I wanted to find a quirky animal excursion since foreign countries sometimes have more lax laws but I didn’t see any. I read that they have wild hedgehogs there but they only come out at night in parks and places without a lot of people.

I was hoping if I wrote all of my fears out, I could look at them objectively and they would dissipate, but instead they seemed to have snowballed.