Aligned & Awake: The Fire Drill Survival Guide
Pee first, grab the passports, hope for cute firemen and never underestimate the power of tea.
Aligned & Awake
My reflections on life through travel, human design, energy, astrology, and emotional clarity. Not as a guru. Just one person figuring it out in real time.
The fire alarm ripped me out of sleep like a bad DJ. Sirens screaming, and my heart racing. They run fire alarm drills in this building every week, and we'd had one two days earlier. My body didn't know whether to take it seriously. My bladder did. Pee first, then panic.
Jogging pants over bare legs, jacket over pyjamas, shoes without socks. Purse, wallet, phone, passports tucked under my arm. Apocalypse chic, London edition.
We poured into the cold morning like a cast of The Office extras nobody auditioned for. A woman in a bathrobe, with a towel still wrapped around her head. Another in shorts and Crocs, goosebumps rising on her bare legs. One perched on a stolen stool, barefoot, as if she'd been thrown out of her own dream mid-scene. We all stood blinking, waiting, unsure of where to stand. The lobby? The street? Smoke said danger. Silence said nothing. I didn't see a member of staff for over 15 minutes.
The trucks came one after another, six in total. Firemen spilling out in helmets and gear, rushing past with purpose. And yes, I was mid-panic, but I still craned my neck to see if any were cute. I'm only human. A girl can look!
An hour later, the verdict: an elevator cable on fire. The lifts stayed shut, so I climbed to the top floor, lungs cursing me. My room was dark and cold. I propped my phone's flashlight against the sink and stood in the shower, steam curling around me, thawing myself back into something human.
Afterwards, I wanted tea desperately. Of course, no electricity. These are the moments you mourn a gas stove, the faithful friend who never abandons you in a blackout.
So I wandered through the village, into a museum, and finally settled by a pond with a cup of tea. Warmth in my hands, life moving again.
Returning to the apartment, I hoped the power would be on. It wasn't. The blackout stretched through the whole day. A full day of silence, with no Wi-Fi, no laptop, and no phone after the battery died. Disconnected from everything but my own company. By eight-thirty, the sun had gone down, the lights hadn't come back, and I gave in, climbing into bed like it was the nineteenth century and calling it a day.
The staff had nothing to offer but sorry. No direction, no plan. Which feels familiar. My past year has been one long alarm. Homes, marriage, the future I thought I had; all smoking in the back elevator, no one at reception to tell me what to do next. And me, still standing in the cold, waiting to see what burns and what survives.
You stop waiting for someone to hand you a clipboard. You make your own rules.
Nomad's Official Fire Drill Survival Guide:
Pee first. Always.
Grab the passports, even if your socks don't make it.
Survey the firemen. Panic is no excuse.
Take the hot shower, flashlight optional.
Don't wait on reception for answers — they don't have any.
Keep walking until you find tea.
And if the power's still out by sundown, go to bed early. Call it rest. Call it resilience.
Turns out survival looks less like heroics and more like an undefeated woman in a coat over pyjamas, currently accepting tea donations.
Tell me…
What's the first ridiculous thing you'd grab if the fire alarm went off right now?
Always pee first would be key to my survival as well! And next for me is grabbing my two small dogs, throwing their treats and plastic bowls into a backpack along with a water bottle, and Chadwick's (my chihuahua's) snoopy blanket...then my wallet and keys and into my mini cooper....with those things we can survive anything indefinitely; as I discovered last year during my move and the CA wildfires.