I Gave a Shot to Aldershot

Through the course of 13 years of working in corporate training, I have spent a good portion of time getting to see the various parts of the UK. From Northern Ireland, to London, to Liverpool and Cardiff, I have been around the block. But a week’s visit in Aldershot, England showed me that not every part of England is as nice to visit. It did however lead me to a pretty cool revelation on my way home.

To better understand my mindset upon arriving there, I think some context is necessary.

The week prior I had been in Cleveland, Ohio teaching a class. The week ended a day early so on Friday a colleague of mine and I went to the airport early and tried to get on an earlier flight home. Upon getting on the plane, it couldn’t take off because of weight. We volunteered to take the next flight in exchange for a $600 USD credit. After de-planing, we got our new boarding passes and then proceeded to wait. That is until around 8pm when they cancelled the flight and we got stuck there.

Long story short, I got home around 9:30pm the following night only to leave for the UK the next day at 3pm.

By the time I got to Aldershot, I was completely exhausted and was almost at a point where I wanted to turn around and come home. But then the fun continued.

The Google Street View image shown here is a photo of the “hotel” I stayed in. It is in fact probably the smallest hotel I have ever stayed in. It was a lot more like a noisy bar with a handful of rooms on the above floors. The room I was in was actually larger than I expected for a boutique hotel which was a bonus. But the fact that the AC didn’t work definitely hurt things given it was the hottest week in England’s history.

That’s not an exaggeration either. Wednesday of that week saw a temperature of 34° which was recorded as the hottest temperature there, ever.

Just as I put my head down on my pillow to get some sleep, my phone beeps and my client tells me that he just heard from the driver who dropped me off and they were on their way to “see” me. I then spent the next hour chatting with them and being polite despite the fact I was totally zonked.

We walked to their office so I would know where I was going and I immediately noticed the vibe of the neighborhood.

Over the course of the week, a theme would emerge from this area. A lot of homeless wanderers, rough characters who were either looking for a fight or picking a fight, young and older couples alike yelling and cursing at each other in the streets, and party goers who thought making a ton of noise as hotel guests are trying to sleep was a good idea.

Both my client and the driver who took me back to London on Friday agreed that the area was pretty run down and not exactly a safe place to be. In fact, the client told me flat out not to turn right when leaving the hotel as it was really unsafe and not a place I should go at night.

Add all of that to the fact that the office I worked in that week also had no air conditioning and was definitely not a place I would want to work in every day. I mean when you can spot cobwebs with dead spiders in them hanging from the walls, you kind of wonder what kind of place you’re in. but given the area I was in, it just didn’t surprise me anymore.

I did finally get the AC in my room working so I made a point of coming back there every lunch hour to cool off as the heat was just too intense to deal with in the office being cooped up in there all day.

When Friday did finally come, I was looking forward to coming home but knew I’d have to sit through a 9hr layover in Newark airport. It would seem that this uncomfortable trip was going to end on an even more uncomfortable note. But thankfully I managed to come out of it with a pretty nice revelation.

The above photo was taken in a place called The High Line in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC. I had only recently heard of it and since I had 9hrs to kill in the airport, I figured I’d hop over to NYC for lunch and kill my time there instead.

Traveler’s Tip: If you have a long layover like this and need a place to drop your carry-on bag, find a Hilton or Marriott hotel near the airport and go see the concierge. You can just tell them you “want to store your bag for the day” and they’ll tag it. I do it all the time on the last day of my classes after I check out so I don’t have to bring my luggage with me to a client. If they think you’re a hotel customer, they just secure your bag. A lot better than some of those sketchy places that charge you to store the bags.

While sitting on the subway waiting to get to my destination, it occurred to me that just 12 hrs earlier I was in London, England and now I was in NYC and 12hrs from now I would be in Halifax. It then hit me.

Knowing I had this long layover, it was pretty obvious for me to go into NYC for the afternoon to kill some time. I’ve spent so much time in NYC that I never get bored and it’s just natural for me to go there when I can. The part that sort of struck me was how normal it was for me.

I like to think of myself as a somewhat grounded individual with having a great family at home, friends, and a pretty quiet home life. But sitting on the train I realized that there was something pretty amazing and special about what I was doing.

Here I was, coming home from London England and making a stop in New York before going home. Just taking a few hours to hang out in NYC like it’s nothing weird. I realized that I was so incredibly lucky to be able to do these kinds of things. Most people I know would think of traveling to England and then to NYC as something rich or high society people do, but here I am, no-name Matt Klem hopping cities like it’s no big deal.

I got a pretty big smile on my face and really took a few moments to really appreciate everything that I had been given. I may have been exhausted from the week and the heat was pretty brutal, but again, here I was doing some pretty cool visiting across the pond and here in the Big Apple.

The walk along the rail line finished and I hit up Zaro’s in Grand Central Station to snag a Black & White for the wife and then grabbed a train back to the airport. My flight to Halifax departed on time and landed early and before I knew it, I was climbing back into my own bed.

The lesson learned here is that even the crappiest of places can yield a great experience or memory. I don’t have any desire to return to Aldershot, but it did leave me with a memorable impression.