The Final Chapter

With less than four hours' sleep, Josh and I got up Friday morning at 3:30am. Dave and Joanie were coming to get us around 4:15am and we wanted to be ready to go. Our hosts, Steve and Lee, had put out a cold breakfast for us: juice, milk, cereal, fruit and pastries...and a few little candies. I encouraged Josh to eat a little quicker as he is prone to spending a good 10 minute preping his food before he takes that first bite. I won't lie, I was grumpy. I hadn't slept well or hardly at all and we were in for a hectic day. I was doing my best to keep my "happy face" on. All I really wanted to do was sleep.

Dave and Joanie arrived right on time. We piled in the luggage, crawled into the back seat and left Blackpool behind. I fell asleep in the car pretty quickly and slept for about an hour and a half. There were a few bumps along the road to Heathrow: Dave got turned around trying to get into a service station, Joanie had handwritten the directions and had a few doubts about them as we were progressing, the time was underestimated. Apparently the computer said it would take 4-1/4 hours to get there but we took a bit longer. Eventually, though, we started seeing airplanes in the sky and knew we must be close. Dave delivered us safely to Terminal 1 at London Heathrow Airport.

Once we were inside, we realized that we actually needed to be in Terminal 3 but we had plenty of time to get there seeing as how we arrived three hours early. Terminal 3 was easy to get to but the melee at the American Airlines area was a bit difficult to figure out. I stayed with the luggage while Josh hunted around for the right place to be. He found the self-check in kiosks fairly quickly, then came back to get me and the luggage. We scanned his passport into the machine and after a lengthy wait, the machine couldn't find the reservation for our flight home. The attendant instructed us to take our passports and our printout card to the desk for help. At the desk, the agent said that our return flight home was automatically cancelled since we missed our original flight out from LAX on the 3rd. The first question that popped into my mind was "if we rescheduled our flight out to London, why would the ticket agent not go ahead and make sure we had a flight home? Surely they would know that would happen, right?" Well, regardless it didn't happen. We were not on the flight home. We had to then go to another area and talk to a separate ticket agent to get on that flight. Once there, we explained what happened and she was able to book us on the original flight home but we had to talk to still another person to check our luggage. Luckily, we were bumped to the front of the line and dealt with a really nice guy at the third and final ticket agent of American Airlines in London. He took our luggage and explained that once we reached New York, we'd have to claim our luggage there and re-check it for our trip to LAX. I didn't realize that after an international flight, even if we're in America, we'd have to get our luggage and re-check it. It would add up to more headache in my opinion and I couldn't have been more right.

By the time we get done with the numerous ticket agents, Josh says that he absolutely has to get something to eat before he keels over. Upstairs we find a whole shopping mall that's duty free as well as several restaurants and snack shops. After a trip to the bathroom and a candy purchase, Josh and I debate where to grab some food. There is a french restaurant in the terminal and we decide to check it out. Josh is disappointed that there are no crepes on the menu. In my mind, time is dwindling and we cannot be late for any more planes. We go inside and get a seat. We watch as several of the waitstaff walk right by us, many of whom made eye contact with me. Tables sat after us were being served and we hadn't even had a greeting yet. I got up to ask the hosts where our server was and they said they'd get right on it. I ask Josh how he feels about the situation and he says he's done. He's so hungry that he's ready to eat paste. We decide to leave right as the host is coming over to help us. As we walk by him, we said that the service was atrocious and we were leaving.

Instead, we went down to the TGI Fridays and had appetizers since they come up quick. We ordered and asked for the check at the same time. We ate, paid and left all it the span of about 20 minutes. We'd waited at the other place for 15 minutes before anyone noticed us. Off we were to our gate.

At the gate, we had to go through another round of questions about our luggage and another security check. Seemed redundant to me. We weren't waiting too long until we were on the plane and off the ground, headed for New York. It was a rather uneventful flight, other than we were sitting in the middle two seats of a row of five in the middle of the plane. So it was two seats, aisle, five seats, aisle, two seats. We were happy to be on our way home and were a bit silly while we waited for the plane to leave.

The final leg

We were due to arrive in New York at 2:45pm, our connecting flight was due to take off from JFK at 4:00pm. This would not normally be a problem on a normal connection: get off one plane, walk to the gate and get on the next plane. For us, it was a HUGE problem. We had to get off this plane, go through customs, get our luggage, recheck it and get to our gate in less than 45 minutes. And, we're at JFK, a very, very large airport. I have to say that going through customs was pretty quick, and interestingly, I got another stamp in my passport... I waited for Josh at the baggage claim and we met another traveller in the same position; he was on our London plane and was also due to be on our LA plane. Finally, the baggage shoot starts up and our bags arrive at 3:35pm. We then have to find the place to recheck our bags, which was through the exit. I mentioned to Josh that it meant we'd have to go through security AGAIN delaying us even further. So, with our bags in hand, we start ditching people in the exit line to get to the baggage re-check which was just outside and to the left of the exit. We explained to the baggage folks that we needed to be on the 4pm plane. I get my bag on the conveyor belt when she says, "just drop them and run! Go!" So, Josh leaves his bag next to the conveyor belt and we start off for the gate. The kid who was also on our plane dashes up to security and points to us, telling the usher-person that we need to be on the 4pm plane, she puts us in the first class line. Of course, there are several businessmen with laptops in front of us and none of us are carrying anything like that. They all say that we can cut in front of them, which we do. However, there is a cute little old Asian man trying to get through the metal detector but he has a bag in his hand. The security person says, "put your bag on the conveyor belt." He just stands there with a very confused look on his face...I grab his bag and throw it on the conveyor. He smiles at me and then starts to walk through the metal detector when the security person yells, "SHOES!" and points to the little guy's feet. He's startled and looks around like he has no idea what she means and he probably didn't. If I had the time, I would have helped the man but I didn't and couldn't so I cut in front of him while he tried to figure out why his feet upset the lady so much.

Meanwhile, Josh is behind me somewhere, the kid is ahead of me grabbing his stuff and starting off. I get through the checkpoint and am headed for the gate, I look behind me and Josh is almost on another level looking for where to go. I yell for him and he sees me ahead of him and down a ramp. I wave to him to come but he's shooing me to go ahead of him. As much as I want to get to that plane, I can't leave him behind. I wait for him to catch up and we all make it to the elevator to go up a level to the right floor. In the elevator we learn that the kid lost his jacket at the security checkpoint, he forgot to pick it up. Once out of the elevator, he takes off in a sprint, I yell after him to tell them we're coming and to hold the plane!! We see in front of us that we have to go up an escalator. Keep in mind that I'm not a runner and that my heart is not as healthy as it could be. I hyperventilate easily and my heart rate spikes quickly with any kind of strenuous demand. I'm starting to feel a bit of pain in my chest as I'm trying to get up the escalator. (I know, I know! I need to get that handled. No lectures, please.) Josh is behind me hobbling along, clutching his pillow, doing about as well as I am. We finally make it to the gate and I slam my ticket down. The ticket agent waves us over to the scanner and I say, "this is horribly mismanaged. Who decided this was a good idea?" Not waiting for an answer, barely able to breathe, sweating profusely, aggravated, exhausted, emotionally spent, spiritually down, and in no mood for anyone's bull crap, I walk down the jetway to find a first class passenger leaning against the plane door chatting away on his cell phone. The flight attendant waves him to go forward to his seat and to get off the phone. He moves down the aisle to where his seat is and proceeds to stand in the aisle talking loudly on his phone. Josh is right behind me, the flight attendants are behind him and I'm clutching my carry-on to my chest, with all of first class looking on I say in my not quite inside voice: "I just ran a f***ing mile to get here, I would like to get to my seat. MOVE." The self-important ass looks at me, closes his phone and sits down. The rest of first class slims themselves into their seats and avert their eyes. I walk past the ass, through business class, who heard me as well and straight through to coach. Josh thinks the first few rows in coach heard me, too. I find my seat and see that I am in the aisle seat of the outside two seats on the right side of the plane. There is a young woman in the window seat. Josh and I were not lucky enough to get seats together. I flop down and try to breathe. The young woman asks me if I need any water or some help and I say no, that I just need to rest. She asks what happened and I said that we had to run to get the plane and I'm not someone who should be running. I mention that Josh had surgery hoping she would offer to let us sit together, which she did. I get up and Josh is looking for me. I wave to him to come up and the young woman takes her bag and exchanges seats with Josh.

Josh and I are on our last plane. We're five seconds from pushing away from the gate. I realize that we are almost home and I start to cry. With all of the hassles of the trip, the problems, being thwarted at every turn, Josh not being at 100%, both of us emotionally spent, I just let it go. Time to let it out. The two girls in the seats in front of us turn around and peek through the space between the seats then they started whispering to each other. They are the least of my concerns. Soon, we were off the ground and west coast bound.

We got out the DVD player and stated watching "Shakespeare in Love", which is a great movie all because of Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Dame Judy Dench and Geoffrey Rush and not at all because of Ben Affleck. Of the two Beverly Hills twits in front of us, the one in front of me seemed to think that the best way of putting her seat into its reclined position was to hold the button down then throw herself back into it like a two year old having a tantrum. With my tray table down and a hot cup of tea on it, I'm glad my reflexes were fast enough to grab my cup before it spilt all over me and the DVD player. So I have a slight burn on my hand. I can deal. Up would go her chair and ten minutes later, she'd slam back into it sending my DVD player into my lap. I really didn't have anything left in me for another confrontation so I would just put the player back and continuing watching the movie. After the movie was over, we decided to put the player away and try to nap. I put my tray table up and leaned down to grab my carry-on to put the player away when the twit slams her seat back again right into my head. I said to her, "Thanks, that was great, just what I needed. You're not the only one on the plane." They just whispered to each other in their little twitty way.

Soon we were on the ground and so, so happy to be back in Los Angeles. We make our way to the baggage claim area and wait for the bags to come down. My bad arrives quickly but we're still waiting for Josh's bag to show. Eventually the baggage carousel stopped and Josh's bag in nowhere to be found. We deduced that since my bag made it onto the conveyor belt at JFK and Josh's was just left at the check-in, it never made it on the belt to get to the plane. Josh and I go to the baggage office to file a claim about the missing bag. I have a question: why do foreigners of any nationality and language feel that its okay to talk loudly across a room full of people in their native tongue? Do they think that since we might not understand them, we wouldn't find it rude and irritating to do such a thing? I wouldn't dream of yelling across a crowded room of people in a foreign country to someone else thinking that it wasn't rude in any language. I don't get that. Our claim was filed and we left to go wait for our ride. Our housemate, Nate, was gracious enough to come get us at LAX. We'd hope it would be quick but unfortunately he encountered the usual stop-and-go that the 405 is known for. After about 45 minutes, he arrives and saves us from our hell.

Home. We'd made it home but without Josh's bag. Luckily there wasn't anything in that bag that we couldn't live without. The baggage claim lady said that when it arrived it would be delivered to the house with a phone call preceeding it. All we wanted to do was shower and crash. We were up at 3am London time and home at 9pm PST, which was 4am in London. The equivalent of being up for 25 hours.

It was a helluva day.

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