Going to America

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

I’m going home! As I type this, I am sitting on a plane from London to Atlanta. Today has been yet another interesting day. Travel days always are. Sometimes there interesting in good ways, but most times, there just stressful.

The day started at 7:00 because I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get up and ready and recheck all of my bags. When I weighed my bags one last time, they were both under 50 pounds, so I that got my day off to a good start. Then we headed down to breakfast for a quick bite before bringing all of our stuff downstairs.

All of my luggage

I figure that when you combine all of my bags, I probably have around 150 pounds in luggage, so getting all that stuff down from the fourth floor was a bit of a challenge, especially since not all of it could fit in the elevator at one time. But after several trips, we finally got everything downstairs. We then checked out and lugged all of our suitcases and backpacks outside to wait for the taxi because once again, we didn’t want to go through the tube with everything. The taxi came and picked us up and took us to Paddington Station, where we were able to catch the Heathrow Express.

My friend’s flight was at 12:15, so we got to the airport around 10:30 so she could check in and get to her gate. I’ve never had a problem with checking in early in America, but evidently they do things a bit differently in Europe. Since my flight wasn’t until 3:05, I wasn’t allowed to check in until 12:05, three hours before. So I was officially stranded in the airport with all 150 pounds worth of my stuff. Fortunately, I was able to find wifi, so I was able to get on the internet and some things taken care of while I waited.

When I was finally able to check in, I was pleasantly surprised. When I had checked in online the day before, I decided to spend the money to upgrade from economy to economy plus for the wider seats and extra leg room. But that was all I was expecting. When I got to the desk to drop off my luggage and collect my boarding pass, I was informed that the airline had upgraded me to business class. I was really excited because I saw the business class on the flight over, and it looked really comfortable. On top of the amenities on the plane, my ticket got me into the British Airways Lounge in Heathrow, so I was able to relax in comfort for the two hours before my flight.

Traveling in comfort

Around 2:15, I headed down to my gate and got on the plane. Let me tell you, business class is way better than economy – I may never want to travel in economy ever again, at least internationally. The seats are large and comfortable. They recline and can even lay flat if you choose. And best of all, they have a foot rest, which is good because my feet hurt after weeks and weeks of walking.

Take off was supposed to be at 3:05, but that time came and went without us moving from the gate. Not only was storming in London, but there were really bad storms right in the flight path. As the pilot explained it, there were only a few tiny pockets of good flying space in between the storm cells, so air traffic control was only letting a few planes go at a time so that small space wouldn’t get congested. It took over two hours to get clearance to take over. We finally departed at 5:15, two hours and ten minutes after we were scheduled to have departed.

Right now, I’m a bit concerned that I’m going to miss my flight from Atlanta to Memphis. My flight to Atlanta is at 10:00. If we hadn’t been delayed, we would have landed at 7:10, which would have given me plenty of time to get everything done because the way I chose to do things make it a bit difficult. Instead of flying the whole route with the same airline, I’m actually traveling with two: British Airways and Delta. This is because the British Airways flight is the flight that everyone from the group went on to get to London and I wanted to be with the group. But because I don’t live close to Atlanta, I had to get there somehow, so I flew there with Delta. But because I’m on two different airlines, my luggage doesn’t get taken from one plane to the other at the layover. Instead, I have to collect my luggage, take it to the other airline, check it in there, get back to security, and get to my gate. I did it just fine coming over, but my plane was only a few minutes that time, so I had plenty of time for everything. But because we left so late today, we aren’t scheduled to land until 8:45. I’m really afraid that I’m not going to have enough to get through customs, do the whole luggage thing, and make it to my flight on time. I have a feeling that I’m probably going to be running through the Atlanta airport.

UPDATE: We didn’t end up landing until in Atlanta until 9:20, and then it took another fifteen minutes to find a gate and park. By then, I was completely freaking out because I knew there was absolutely no way I was going to make my flight to Memphis at 10:00. After being away from home for two months, all I wanted was to be home. But that didn’t look likely. I was either going to have to find another flight or stay in a hotel and fly out in the morning. Luckily, when I turned on my phone, I was greeted by a text from my father, who said my flight to Memphis was delayed until 11:30. That meant I had enough time to get through customs, collect my bags, recheck them, and get to the gate. Everything on that front went smoothly; even my bags cooperated – they were both 50 pounds exactly! When I got to the gate though, I was informed that the flight had been further delayed until 12:00. And now we’re not scheduled to depart until 12:15. It’s great to be back in America, but now all I want is my own bed.