The Night I (almost) Slept in a Tree

Don’t plan to sleep in bus stations

Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash

Water dripped down my face as the rain beat on the leaves above my head. Adjusting my legs in the branches, I sighed.

It’s going to be a long night.

The ill-fated Dover adventure

It started innocently enough. I was beginning my free travel week on a study abroad trip in England. Nineteen years old, ambitious, and almost flat broke, I’d scraped together enough for a weeklong standby bus ticket, and a few extra pounds to live off of for the next seven days.

For one week, I could go from anywhere, to anywhere.

After sleeping in the Heathrow airport the night before and waking up with a gentleman’s shoes in my face, I explored London. I visited Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and the London Tower Bridge. Walking along the river, I found an odd little colorful park and heard a man playing a melancholy tune on a stringed instrument I’d never heard of before. I ate my lunch, a piece of fruit, on the small lawn by Westminster Abbey.

It was the classic “poor man’s tour” of London, and by mid-afternoon I was tired, hungry, and lonely.

Sitting on the ground outside an office building, I got the worst brilliant idea ever. I’d…